The Doorway
Chapter 3: Reunion
Summary: Eighteen years to the day after Sirius fell through the Veil in the Department of Mysteries, Harry steps in after him. This story was inspired by the beginning of 'A Black Comedy' by nonjon and 'Making Faces' by Thanatos. Complete Cannon excluding the epilogue, AU and OOC … obviously.
Disclaimer: I own nothing; I just wanna play with 'em. I make no monetary gain from this romp through Rowling's World.
A/N: I have realized in the writing of this that the first few chapters are going to be rather dark. Just to give y'all a bit of heads up.
A/N part Deux: I have a new poll up concerning Hogwarts Helps, if you have not already done so please visit my profile page, and take the poll. Thank you!
*~ {PoE} ~*
Hermione Weasley raced like a bat out of Hell through the entrance to the Department of Mysteries, the visitors badge hastily pinned to her robes glinting in the flickering torchlight, proclaiming she was there 'to stop an idiot', her wild mane of hair flying behind her like a banner of truth, justice, and proof that women were smarter than men; especially a scrawny, specky git named Harry Potter. She had, originally, simply been angry when she'd discovered that Harry had transferred eight thousand galleons into her and Ron's joint account. However, it was when she tried to transfer it back to his account that the icy hand of dread had squeezed her heart.
"What do you mean the transfer can't be made? Just send the funds back to the original account." She demanded. "We appreciate the thought, but we don't want charity, and eight thousand galleons is not a gift."
"You misunderstand me, Mrs. Weasley;" the goblin said with a specific sneer reserved for the three who'd caused the bank so much damage, "the transfer back to the Potter Account cannot be made because the originating account no longer exists. Mr. Harry James Potter closed all of his accounts with Gringotts early this morning."
Hermione was confused for a split second, after all the fighting and negotiating she, Ron, and Harry had done to insure they remained customers of the bank, for Harry to just close his accounts ... Then the pieces fell together and she nearly fainted as the color drained from her face. There was only one reason, one stupidly illogical reason that Harry would close out all of his accounts, that today was the anniversary of Sirius' 'death' only cemented the truth of the matter.
Thus, she found herself careening through the time room; quietly cursing Harry for ensuring that any visitors to the Department of Mysteries now had to pass through several rooms to get to the one they wanted (added security, he'd called it) as she darted past the cabinet that was still breaking and repairing itself in a never ending loop (she was sure that if the Unspeakables had been able to stop the cycle, they would now be short one or more time turners), through the room with the tank full of brains (those damn things still gave her the creeps, and Ron refused to use this path because of them even though it was the shortest one), and finally made it into what they now called the Doorway Room.
Harry had insisted they stop calling it the Death Chamber after he'd realigned the arch into the Doorway. She burst into the room to find it completely empty and the veil as still as always. As she approached the Doorway she discovered that the room was not entirely empty. There, on the bench directly across from the Doorway, was a small parchment bearing a short note in Harry's distinctive handwriting. As she read the brief missive, she felt the tears begin to pour down her face. Her friend was gone, and there was no way to get him back.
*~ {PoE} ~*
Harry and Sirius clung to one another as the compression surrounding them briefly increased before vanishing, and everything went dark. Harry blinked and realized that it wasn't total darkness; rather it was the deep blackness of night now, wherever this place was, and the sudden absence of the blinding white light had left their eyes struggling to adjust to the extreme difference.
Harry realized that he and his Godfather were lying, embracing in the midst of a dense wood. He released the man and stood, pulling Sirius to his feet with him, before clasping him in a proper bear-hug once they were both upright. Sirius let out the distinctive bark-like laugh that Harry had so missed over the years and squeezed him back with equal vigor.
"I knew you'd be the seventh, Pup!" He crowed.
"How did you know what I was trying to do? The note I sent you was before I'd made any sort of progress." Harry asked, stepping back in amazement.
"There had been seven women and five other men in there with me, along with a whole load of random stuff." Sirius explained as they made themselves comfortable on a pair of overstuffed, conjured chairs.
"You'll have to forgive the cliché but as I didn't have a way of keeping track of time; 'Long ago,'" he said with a grin as Harry rolled his eyes, "There was a bright flash, just like the one that brought us here, and all seven women vanished. Then nothing happened for a very long time, aside from more objects adding to the clutter, when seven rubber balls came through." He pulled out the luridly coloured sphere he'd acquired to show Harry.
"You kept one?" Harry asked, taking the small orb and staring at it.
"Sure, they reminded me of Dumbledore" Sirius replied, and Harry was pleased that the rubber balls had evoked the same memory in his godfather, "Got one of those purple stones, too." He said, passing the amethyst over to his Godson.
"Anyway I figured out that you were intentionally sending things in groups of seven. When the ferns vanished I realized that the seven things had to be living. The fish confirmed this and then there you were, and here we are."
The two men took a look around the small clearing that housed another Doorway. Clustered immediately around the stone entryway were the seven ferns sitting in the shattered remains of their pots, and seven glass orbs, each still containing water and a lone fish within, making Harry glad he'd spelled the glass balls unbreakable, still he levitated all the orbs over to them and relegated the seven fish to one orb, before vanishing the other six. The fish laden orb that remained was attached to a small stand (so as not to roll away) and vanished into the trunk.
Further out from the Doorway were the still forms of five people. Harry unstuck the clasps on his pack and removed it before unsticking the zip. Reaching inside he withdrew the two jackets, passing one to Sirius who gratefully doffed the tatty robe he'd worn for eighteen years, moving his meager possessions from the pockets of robe to those of the jacket before happily tossing it onto a conjured flame, and building up a lovely campfire with summoned logs. Harry stood, lighting his wand after retrieving it from the pack, and made to approach the closest person before Sirius stopped him.
"Don't bother, they're all Blanks." He said, a bit of sadness in his voice. "Anything that's not instinctual, like breathing, they've forgotten how to do. I used Legillimency on them after a while and there's just nothing there."
"Where are the women, then?" Harry asked, "The men are here, and the fish and ferns, so what happened to …" He trailed off. On the barest edges of the small clearing, near a narrow stream, he saw what had become of the women. After all, it had been five years since his first breakthrough, five years that these poor witches had been trapped here in this glen, with no memories and no ability to eat. Seven clothed skeletons dotted the edges of the glen, their forms nearly overgrown with underbrush.
Harry and Sirius made quick work of burying the women, Sirius delighting in using his wand again even with the somber mood of the task, before turning to the five men and examining them. They each seemed fine, though unresponsive, so Harry cast a stasis spell over each before transfiguring them into small plastic dolls (action figures, he argued to Sirius).
Moving back over to the abandoned pack next to Sirius, Harry removed the trunk and resized it. "Alright do you wanna eat, sleep, or drink?" He asked, opening the trunk with one of seven keys he had on a ring, and placing the five transfigured men into one of the storage compartments.
Sirius looked at him curiously, "Food would be nice, what all did you bring with you?"
Closing the lid and reopening it with a different key, Harry descended into the food storage compartment. Causing Sirius' eyebrows to rise, before the old marauder followed him. Sirius gave a low appreciative whistle, gazing at the many supplies.
"Everything is shrunk, so there's enough food here to last the two of us about five years, give or take." Harry said, opening a refrigerator. "What are you hungry for?"
"What do you have?" Sirius asked cheekily, trying to get his head around Harry's preparedness.
"Sirius, I have anything from fish and chips, to haggis, to whole turkeys. I've also got sweets, crisps, and other nibbles. What's your pleasure?" Harry asked.
Sirius' eyes widened, "Steak?" he asked plaintively, "Blue? Oh, can I have it with potatoes and a grilled tomato, too?"
Harry smiled and moved to a different refrigerator, rummaged for a moment, and produced two small crumbs of meat. Waving his wand over them saw Sirius' mouth water as they expanded to two large porterhouse steaks that Harry quickly had cooked (thanks to another flame spell) to blue perfection and plated on floating conjured crockery. Roasted potatoes and a grilled tomato the size of his fist each, splashed with vinegar, all followed the steaks onto the plate and up through the mouth of the trunk as Sirius conjured a small wooden table between their two chairs. Harry sent the floating meals to the table before descending back into the trunk, using his wand to crack open a large wooden case, pulled out two butterbeers, and rejoined Sirius.
For several minutes, there were only the sounds of the creatures in the wood and cutlery scraping on plates as the two men thoroughly enjoyed their meals. Finally, having filled their bellies, the table, chairs, and crockery were vanished.
"So," Sirius began, "Obviously you're a bit older than when I left you, what's happened since my dramatic exit?"
Harry stood for a moment, worrying his bottom lip, before reentering the trunk, going over to another wooden crate, prying up the lid, and retrieving two bottles of Ogden's Finest. Beckoning to Sirius, he passed the bottles up to the marauder before beginning the climb back out of the food compartment.
"That bad, huh?" Sirius asked; tucking one of the bottles into his jacket pocket for himself and lending a now empty hand to Harry. His pocket, he was pleased to discover, was expanded within, allowing ample room for his bottle of liquid courage to nest safely.
Harry opened his mouth to answer before closing it and flicking his wand back through the lid of the trunk, at the still-open case. Two more bottles flew out of the opening to land at their feet as Harry nodded, staring down at the two bottles in the dirt,
"Yeah, Pads. That bad."
Harry closed the lid of the trunk, stuck another key in the lock, and re-opened the lid to reveal a new compartment with many small, wrapped, parcels inside. Removing the wizard tent, he then re-closed, locked, and shrunk the trunk again before slipping it back in his pack.
Soon, Harry had the tent erected a comfortable distance from their still merrily crackling campfire, and the two men were sitting in a sumptuously appointed living room therein, a second roaring fire in the grate, the pack on a hook by the flap incase of a hasty exit, and each man clutching an open bottle of Firewhiskey.
"So," Harry began after taking a hearty gulp from his bottle, "after you fell through the Doorway, I chased Bellatrix through the Ministry to the Atrium, where I …"
*~ {PoE} ~*
A/N: I'm obviously not going to write out what would essentially be a synopsis of the end of the fifth and entire contents of the six and seventh books. We will return to our intrepid adventurers after Harry finishes his tale. Please Review!
A/N part Deux: I have a new poll up concerning Hogwarts Helps, if you have not already done so please visit my profile page, and take the poll. Thank you!