Departure, Journey and Arrival

June 18, 1996
London, Ministry of Magic

"He hasn't gone!" Harry yelled.

He did not believe it, he would not believe it; still he fought Lupin with every bit of strength he had: Lupin did not understand, people hid behind that curtain, he had heard them whispering the first time he had entered the room – Sirius was hiding, simply lurking out of sight –

"SIRIUS!" he bellowed, "SIRIUS!"

"He can't come back, Harry," said Lupin, his voice breaking as he struggled to contain Harry. "He can't come back, because he's d –"

"HE – IS – NOT – DEAD!" roared Harry. "SIRIUS!"

There was movement going on around them, pointless bustling, the flashes of more spells. To Harry it was meaningless noise, the deflected curses flying past them did not matter, nothing mattered except that Lupin stop pretending that Sirius, who was standing feet from them behind that old curtain, was not going to emerge at any ¬ moment, shaking back his dark hair and eager to re-enter the battle –

Lupin dragged Harry away from the dais, Harry still staring at the archway, angry at Sirius now for keeping him waiting –

But some part of him realized, even as he fought to break free from Lupin, that Sirius had never kept him waiting before. … Sirius had risked everything, always, to see Harry, to help him. … If Sirius was not reappearing out of that archway when Harry was yelling for him as though his life depended on it, the only possible explanation was that he could not come back.

With a burst of strength born from anger and despair, Harry broke free of Lupin's tight grip. Without pause he ran towards the archway, towards the Veil of Death. The way to the Veil wasn't long and only took a few short moments, but in those few moments his thoughts managed to turn hundred and eighty degrees — from the man he was running towards to the friends he was leaving behind. He knew that Sirius couldn't be just hiding; he would have rejoined the fight if he was able. Harry had no way of knowing where the Veil would lead him, lead them. These thoughts didn't make him falter, but they certainly made him wonder. He had seen his godfather fall through the Veil and it had been devastatingly painful. This pain was something he would be causing his friends - losing him to the Veil would create a world of pain for those who cared about him. He still didn't stop, but a promise was made in those few moments. I will come back. Sadly, he was the only one who knew about it.

He didn't know how long it would take to fulfil this promise, but he was sure that he would find a way to come back; after all, he could be very stubborn and determined when he wanted to be. He was aware that coming back would be hard, impossible even, and Mrs. Weasley would make her opinion about his actions heard very clearly and loudly, but one of the last links that he had to his family had gone through the Veil and he couldn't lose that sense of finally being part of something. He just put one foot in front of the other and continued on his way that could not in any way be called merry. Left foot, right foot - again and again until he felt the tattered curtains touch his skin. In just a few moments Harry James Potter was gone from the Department of Mysteries as if he had never been there.

Harry felt as if he was swimming. Something that seemed like water at first was pressing him from all sides in a pleasant way. All sense of time was lost to him — it seemed as if every muscle he had was completely relaxed. He hadn't felt this good in what seemed like forever. Harry couldn't bring himself to care — an hour or even ten years could have gone by and he wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between the two. He just knew that no matter how long he spent that way it wouldn't be enough. And it came to an end, an unpleasant one at that. Suddenly he couldn't move and the water that had been so pleasant and relaxing just moment before became freezing. In a few moments he couldn't feel anything anymore — the icy water had frozen him in a way that left him awake, somehow aware, but completely unfeeling.

Harry had closed his eyes when he stepped through the Veil and hadn't opened them since. Now, when he tried, he couldn't — his eyelashes had been frozen together. And yet he saw everything turning fiery orange — the colour was so bright that it penetrated his eyelids. Soon he was able to open his eyes — with the change of colours, the place he was in had started to warm up rapidly. What he saw made him gasp, or, at least, he tried to gasp. He couldn't do it — there wasn't any air in his lungs. I haven't breathed since coming through the Veil. He didn't get to continue this train of thoughts — the wall of orange flames that had made him want to gasp was coming closer. It was hotter than any flame that Harry had had the dubious fortune of touching — this one wasn't even as close as two meters from him and his skin was already starting to burn.

Harry tried to turn around and run, but his body refused to listen to him — he wasn't able to move anything. The flames just kept coming closer and closer, until they were just mere millimetres away from his face. And then he was surrounded by the fire. However, the pain and burning had stopped the moment that it happened — Harry felt as if he was a part of the fire, but it didn't seem to want him there. The fire around him was still unsettling so he tried to distract himself from it, but a wall of flame that covered everything was pretty attention grabbing. However, his distraction techniques worked, in a way, and led him to thinking about something, or someone that could be as fiery as real flames and had the hair to match them. A girl that had been touched by the same darkness as him and learned to cope with it, seemingly much better than him. A girl that was able to get him out of his bad moods and wasn't afraid to walk surefooted around him, contrary to everybody else. A girl that wasn't afraid to break the rules if it meant helping a friend. A girl he had last seen hurt and unable to defend herself because she had decided to follow him into danger. Ginevra Molly Weasley — a girl whose life he had saved and the one who had reminded him that he was not the centre of the world and existing wasn't the same thing as living. He hoped that she was all right — he hadn't left her, or any of his friends for that matter, in the best of conditions.

His distraction from the world around him wasn't meant to last and sudden excruciating pain pulled him out of his thoughts. It felt as if he was being ripped apart by something and it seemed that some of his parts were resisting it. The sharpest and most agonising pain came from the area his head might have been, from his scar. Suddenly all the pulling stopped and Harry felt lighter and the bliss of not feeling any pain was so big that he didn't notice that he couldn't feel anything. He could still think but no physical sensation surfaced. It was as if he was just a bundle of consciousness floating around, but just until it wasn't floating anymore and something started to attach itself to Harry's consciousness. The pain started up again, but it felt as if someone with the coordination of a newborn was trying to put him back together. This time Harry had the good sense to just black out and the pain was no more, for a while at least.

July 2, 1996
Scotland, Hogwarts

Albus Dumbledore was worried. In his long life, a life longer than even most wizards lived, he remembered very few separate occasions he had been so worried. The first time had been right before he had faced Grindelwald for their last battle. Albus had held little hope of surviving the fight because he knew that he could never bring himself to kill his first love and the wand that Gellert had in his possession didn't give any more reasons for hope. In the end it had been a mistake made by the other man that had enabled Dumbledore to win. Four words spoken by his once friend had spurred him to step up his spell work a notch.

"It was your curse!"

Albus had wondered for years who was responsible for little Ariana's death. These words from Grindelwald had at first angered the now old man — they had pushed the guilt and grief that he had harboured since his little sister's death years previously to the forefront of his mind and transformed it to a seething anger. Albus had gotten angry at Gellert for bringing his little, innocent sister into the fight that had absolutely nothing to do with her. For this reason alone Albus refused to even think of the possibility that Gellert had told the truth. The words had angered him and given him a reason to fight even more forcefully and enabled him to win against an opponent with an unbeatable wand. However, later on, these words started to haunt him and continued to haunt him even to the time that the white haired headmaster found himself in at the present.

The second time Albus Dumbledore had found himself this worried was right after a duel with Lord Voldemort, a man that had once been the best and the smartest and often the most talented student of his year — Tom Marvolo Riddle. To everyone else that duel had been no different than any other, before or after, between the two powerful wizards — it had ended at a standstill. This duel had made Dumbledore realise that he couldn't beat Voldemort. This realisation wasn't like the sense of dread that had almost paralyzed the old professor before his fights with Grindelwald, this was pure terror that he couldn't afford to show to anyone, a terror of realising that people were dying and the only thing he could do was stall for time. Thankfully he didn't need to stall for long — a prophecy was made and Dumbledore started hoping that the war could be won — maybe he could even survive it...

The third time that the Headmaster had reached the level of worry that he was experiencing now had to do with the same prophecy. When word of a breach in the wards of Potter house on Halloween, 1981 had reached him a rumour had come along with the message, a rumour of the death of all the Potters — including the youngest member of the family. Thankfully, little Harry had survived and become the Chosen One or, as he was more commonly recognised — The-Boy-Who-Lived. The first title was known to precious few, not even the boy himself knew that he was, but, to Dumbledore's mind, the fewer the better. He knew that he would have had to tell Harry about it at one point or another, but he could never bring himself to erase the last bits of normality in Harry's life. Even then, he sometimes couldn't shake the feeling that he was making a mistake.

"I wonder — if he had known of the prophecy, would he have run after Sirius?" In his distracted state Dumbledore had spoken these words out loud. No human, besides Dumbledore himself, could be found in the circular office, but a somehow scolding note sounded from the phoenix lounging on a special perch by the bookcase. Phoenixes were said to be very smart and the headmaster answered to his long time companion's note as if Fawkes had said something in clear English and could understand every word spoken.

"I realize that there is no use wondering, but I can't seem to stop myself." Fawkes eyed the old man, but Dumbledore just smiled ruefully. Dumbledore had long since learned that he shouldn't ignore Fawkes and the advice he gave, but sometimes thoughts he was unable to ignore just snuck up on him and didn't leave.

On this day he was again weighted down with thoughts of Harry Potter. For the past fifteen years this hadn't been an unusual state, but even looking back at them these past two weeks the weight of these thoughts was a lot harder to bear. Harry Potter, as far as anyone knew, was dead. Nobody had come out of the Veil of Death. Nobody could tell if this Veil was a door or just a death sentence. Very few people had tried to find out its secrets and none of them had left their notes in easily accessible places. For the last four centuries the Department of Mysteries had had the veil in their possession, and Dumbledore knew that they had conducted extensive research on it, but he didn't have the clearance to get to it. No matter how many titles the old man had achieved in his long life, head of the most secretive branch of Ministry of Magic was not one of them and only the head of this department had full access to the research conducted there.

This train of thought had come and gone multiple times in past two weeks, but Dumbledore didn't want to give up hope because that was all he had left. Still, he had a chance to find some more information about the Veil, because it was much older than four hundred years and Unspeakables weren't the only ones to ever be interested in it.

In front of Albus Dumbledore was a book. It laid innocently on his cluttered desk and didn't seem out of place. It wasn't thick or big, but at a closer look would show it was a dark blue notebook with initials R.R. and a crest similar to that of Ravenclaw house. Many people would be ready to pay fortune for this little notebook, but they would soon doubtlessly discover, as Dumbledore had, that it was of no use to anyone but a Ravenclaw that was one by blood. At first the old man had tried to break the spells on the notebook, but it had proven to be beyond his skill. He was a very accomplished wizard, but curse breaking was not one of the fields he had mastered. He had some knowledge on the subject, but it would require true mastery to even find a way to open the little notebook, let alone read it. For a brief moment he had entertained a thought of asking for help from a professional curse breaker, but then he had realized that the only one he could trust was the oldest of the younger Weasleys — William Weasley. If it had only been a matter of trust and skill Dumbledore wouldn't have hesitated but there was also a family matter involved.

The first big reason against asking young Bill for help was Ronald Weasley — the youngest Weasley boy. Ron had been a part of the student force in the Department of Mysteries the fateful night that Harry had ran through the Veil. Ron hadn't been a witness to this event because he had tangled with a brain and didn't have a chance to reach the Veil room. Ron still hadn't woken up and had taken up residence in St. Mungo's spell damage ward along with his friend Hermione who was also a resident. Her condition wasn't as hard to treat as Ron's, but it would still be quite a bit of time until she would be fully recovered. Luckily neither Luna Lovegood nor Neville Longbottom had had any injuries more serious than a few broken bones and those had easily been mended. However, only four out of six teenagers that had left Hogwarts could be accounted for. One of the two missing was Harry, the other — Ginny Weasley.

She was the second reason that Dumbledore hesitated to ask Bill for help. A family member that was in a hospital and on his way to recover, even if that road would be walked in small, measured steps was one thing, but asking help that would require complete dedication to breaking a spell without damaging the object it would have to be taken off was something else. A big brother worried for his little sister couldn't be asked to just put everything aside for the boy that, in his eyes, might have been responsible for the young girl's disappearance in the first place, couldn't be entrusted with this kind of work.

Dumbledore expelled a small breath of air rather forcefully and it made his phoenix look at him.

"Do you think they are all right?"

The question seemed a bit futile, because he had seen both Sirius and Harry fall through the Veil and the only Death Eater that had escaped and would have had a chance to take Miss Weasley had been Bellatrix Lestrange. Lestrange was a woman infamous for the nonexistence of a moral code or sanity in any part of her body. This made Dumbledore think that finding the youngest Weasley alive could be worse than finding her dead. He hoped beyond hope that finding her alive and with her mind in one piece would still be a possibility. He didn't wish the fate of Frank and Alice Longbottom on anyone.

Harry's situation seemed as if it was no better, but Albus had mulled all over and around it and still no straight answer could be found. However, a small note could be heard from the phoenix. It did little to shed light on the situation, but it gave Dumbledore reason to continue on with his research, for it, even laced with sorrow and quite a bit of pain, made him believe that everything would be alright. It was a note of hope.

October 31, 1981
London, St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries

Sirius Black came to slowly, his mind muddled and slow to react, but voices that had woken him had managed to break through the wall of drowsiness in his mind. They seemed familiar, but Sirius couldn't place them. The talkers were two men.

"…street, when somebody almost ran him over."

"Who would be so cruel, leaving a child for a certain death? If he hadn't had magic, he probably wouldn't have survived."

"It's possible that the magic was the reason for his parents leaving him. You know that unusual things scare people. And if your baby changes his hair colour from black to sunny yellow right after birth it could be very scary for somebody who has no experience with magic."

"I am aware of that. However, it's still no excuse to leave an unprotected baby for certain death. I admit that colour changing can be a bit odd, but even that is no reason for doing something like this, James."

Hearing that name, even if he was aware that it couldn't be the person he was thinking of, made Sirius's eyes shoot open, and what he saw surprised him more than anything else ever had.

"Oh, look James! He's awake!"

"And changing colours again, I see."

He was so intent on staring at his long dead friend and much younger and happier looking Remus that it took him some time to notice that something was very odd. Very, very odd. First, he felt small. Second, he needed to look up to see James and Remus, when he had been taller than either of his two friends that were standing right in front of him. Third he was in a box with glass walls. It had no lid, but Sirius was able to see through the sides of the box. He tried to reach for his friends, hoping that they would help him get out of the box, but he stopped when his hand came into view. It was not the hand he had had when he last saw it. For one, the hand was completely clean and that was rare to see with all the dirt and grime that Grimmauld Place had acquired over the years. The hand was not thin and calloused. Actually it was the complete opposite — it was slightly chubby and really, really small. As small as Harry's had been when he was born. The hand that Sirius was pretty sure was his was the hand of a baby. And it was his.