The Doorway
Chapter 4: Desolation
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: As the title suggests, this chapter is rather darker as our intrepid explorers discover exactly where they are, and why this place is so different from the one they left.
A/N Part Deux: If you haven't already done so I would greatly appreciate it if you would take a few seconds to answer the poll I have up on my profile. It is concerning Hogwarts Helps and whether I should skip the seven or so chapters of the characters talking about each canon book after it's been read, or not. If I do skip it, I will be able to get that story moving that much faster, but there won't be much back-story to begin with. If I keep going the way I am, you'll have to wait longer to get any updates to it, but you'll have that exposition of the characters evolving with the knowledge reading the books provides. Either way, Hogwarts Helps will be a time travel fic, but hopefully a unique one whether it has the between reading chapters or not. Thanks!
*~ {PoE} ~*
Sirius sucked the dregs from his second bottle and flumped back into his seat with a gusty sigh. He was the last marauder. Even counting Peter, which Sirius never did, they were dead. Technically, he thought morosely, all four marauders were dead. For all intents and purposes, in the world they knew, Harry and the four marauders were officially deceased. The last of the Marauder line had fallen.
There were some bright points, but not a lot, and most of them overshadowed with death: The twins finally realizing their dream and opening their shop, only for Fred to die; Moony and Nym getting married and having a son, only for all three of them to die. The war was won, but so many were lost. Amelia Bones killed in her own home, Emmeline Vance killed by Death Eaters, Florian Fortescue vanished out of a ruined shop, Albus Dumbledore killed by Snape … but he was already dying from a curse inflicted by a Horcrux, Alastor Moody shot in the back because of a fleeing coward, Ted Tonks killed by ministry sanctioned kidnappers called Snatchers, Peter Pettigrew (mourn the boy, hate the man) killed by his own silver hand, even Severus Snape was a death that pulled at his heartstrings. All the petty animosity they'd harboured for each other for all those wasted years, for him to die like he did was, just so …
There were so many others that Sirius didn't know personally; so many he couldn't mourn or miss properly. The fifty or so students and teachers in the Battle of Hogwarts, the random witch or wizard caught in the crossfire in any number of skirmishes. All the muggleborns and family of muggle borns killed in those horrible camps. And the multitude of muggles who never knew they were dying in a war they couldn't see and were ill equipped to survive. All this death came at the hands and words of a single man who had a thirst, a lust, for power beyond measure. This one man, a smart and charismatic man to be sure, but this single individual had almost caused the destruction of the Wizarding World. Sirius had not a shred of doubt that if too many more muggles had died, the Muggle Government would have stepped in and destroyed Voldemort, along with anyone else who could have posed that kind of threat again. Namely every magical person on their island, followed, no doubt, with the eradication of every magical individual on the planet, Sirius was one of the few purebloods who had bothered to learn about Muggles, he knew all too well, they had the power to do it.
*~ {PoE} ~*
Harry knew that he'd just dumped a load of terrible news into Sirius' lap, and a brooding Sirius was dangerous. The man's mind could go down a path that would lead to global destruction easier than a niffler could sniff out gold in Gringotts, a side effect of his time in Azkaban. He knew he had to get him off this topic and onto something, if not more cheerful, at least less depressing.
"I played a prank on Ron and Hermione before I left." He tried, "Transferred eight thousand galleons to their vault before I shut mine down and followed you."
Harry wasn't all together sure this would wake his godfather from his funk, but gifting gold to a Weasley always got a great reaction out of the Weasley in question. His only regret was not seeing the looks on his two best friends' faces.
Sirius did perk up and they spent an enjoyable few minutes chatting about the likely reactions of the couple before each man headed to their room for a bit of a kip before daybreak.
*~ {PoE} ~*
With the rising sun came the desire to discover just where on earth they were. Sirius was of the mind that they were no longer in their own dimension, though he phrased it a bit differently, "If our Doorway was deep underground in the Department of Mysteries this Doorway could be in a world where there is no Department of Mysteries, no London, and possibly no England. We're above ground here, that's our first major difference. We're also in a wood, not a building, not a town, not a street. Even if the Magical hub were elsewhere, London isn't here either."
"Yes, or," Harry argued, slipping on his backpack with the packed and shrunken trunk inside, "We could simply have come out a second doorway somewhere else in our world. The rainforest, for example."
"Well, yeah, that's another possibility," Sirius granted picking up his new broom, "But, you're wrong."
With a lopsided grin Sirius mounted his broom and shot towards the sky, Harry fast on his heals. Breaking the tree line saw a flock of starlings startled into flight and swirling around the two rapidly ascending wizards. Reaching a height of roughly sixty meters Harry and Sirius levelled off and peered around. It appeared as though they were in a tree filled hollow, a circular depression with the doorway at the centre, somewhat akin to a sink basin. This bowl was surrounded with more forest, however, dotted within the wood were the skeletal remains of what appeared to be moss covered, crumbling buildings. Not too far away was a torrential river, with a large decrepit edifice perched on its bank. Flying to this godforsaken structure, they discovered it was the remains of the once noble Palace of Westminster, the home of Parliament and the iconic Big Ben.
The two men stared in shock. What was once the most recognized location in England was now nothing more than a mouldering ruin, covered in Buddleia and surrounded by birch trees. Harry was actually able to make out the tarnished and dented remains of the famous Great Bell, wedged in the rotted wood and fragmented brick of what was left of the base of the Elizabeth Tower.
Sirius, ever the one for understatement, turned to Harry, "Something bad happened here."
If Harry hadn't been so shaken by the destruction all around them, he would have rolled his eyes at his godfathers' statement. As it was, he simply nodded his head in silent agreement.
We've got to figure out what caused this, Sirius." Harry murmured, "We've got to find the wizarding world."
They both mounted their Thunderbolts, the wood surrounding them far too dense to allow for foot traffic, and flew up to get their bearings based on the landmark they now had below them. The doorway was right where it should have been, everything that should have been above it, the entire Ministry of Magic, was obliterated. Which explained why there was what they now recognized as a crater there, how it happened was still a mystery. Using the remains of Parliament as a reference they were eventually able to locate what had once been Charring Cross Road, and the decomposing remains of the Leakey Cauldron. The pub, never in the best of conditions to begin with, was barely recognizable, and Harry was positive there wasn't a stitch of magical residue on anything that remained. There was no need to attempt to tap their wands on the brick wall at the back of the building, the wall was no longer there and what remained of Diagon Alley brought tears to their eyes. A blackened valley of char and soot was all that was left of their bustling magical hub. A desolate black scar through the forest London had become where nothing grew and nothing was left of the place they knew.
Gringotts was the only building left even partially standing, though the once polished white marble was black and covered in soot. After a bit of a struggle they were able to make their way inside the building to discover that the magnificent gilded skylights had broken away and the entirety of the interior was left to the elements. Marble counters where Goblins had once worked were now roosts for nesting birds. The once gleaming floor was now a carpet of clover and bird droppings. Sirius darted over to the staircase that would have lead to the tracks to the vaults and discovered that the entire stairway was blocked with a massive plug of pitted and charred marble. There was no getting through that amount of stone without taking many hours and exhausting the both of them to do it, though it looked as if someone had tried, long ago.
Despondently, they took to the air again and searched for the entrance to Platform 9 ¾. Kings Cross was still easy enough to spot from the air, the iconic shape standing out even amongst the radically altered surroundings. The train station too was the victim of human neglect and the predation of nature. Rusted tracks and decomposing engines and trains, rotted ticket booths and tarnished turnstiles, with plant growth seeping out of every nook and cranny. Harry and Sirius had little hope of finding the platform, much less the Express, and were already resigned to the tedious process of line of sight apparition hops. Attempting to apparate straight to Hogwarts, with how changed the landscape here was, could see them splinched or worse, and flying with out the guide of the Express' tracks could see them miss the castle easily by several miles.
Still they soldiered on and shortly came to the barrier that separated platforms nine and ten. Here their hopes were raised a smidgen; the wall was still whole. Damaged, and rotting away in places, but still there at least. They each took a deep breath before pushing together against the wall … and falling through! Both men were so startled that the barrier still worked that they didn't think to catch themselves and fell hard, face first, onto the floor of Platform 9 ¾. All the air whooshed out of their lungs and they lay there gasping for several minutes, not daring to see what was left of the Platform.
Finally they could bear the suspense no longer and stood, brushing years of accumulated dust from themselves, and looked around. A thick layer of dust covered everything sans the two cleared patches where they'd fallen, and the detritus of abandoned trolleys, trunks, and pet cages littered the platform. But the two med barely gave these a cursory glance. There before them, faded with time and disuse, sat the beautiful scarlet form of the Hogwarts Express.
Slowly, they approached the aged steam engine, carefully stepping over broken trunks and scattered belongings. There were no overgrowths of foliage here, just years of neglect and the evidence of a platform abandoned in a hurry. Harry stepped up to the small door leading to the engine compartment and, after Scourgifying the handle and hinges, pulled on the door. It rattled but held, causing Harry to attempt an Alohamora, which had the door popping open. Harry stepped back from the door as a cloud of dust wafted out and around the two. Sharing a glance and a nod with Sirius, the two turned their wands to the train and incanted several Scourgify Maxima charms, Harry aiming his last one into the interior of the engine compartment.
The old engine now gleamed like new as, first Harry, and then Sirius climbed up into the compartment. Harry had never had occasion to be inside the engine before and had not a clue how to operate it, but Sirius had always been a curious lad who liked to see how things worked, if only to use them properly in a later prank. He was quickly able to discover that the key to the controls, that the engineer was always supposed to keep on him, was not in the compartment, and without it the Express would not move.
Following that depressing, though expected, revelation; Harry and Sirius cleaned the four train cars and searched the compartments. Sirius lucked out in finding a faded Daily Prophet. While it didn't have anything useful printed ("what else is new", they both quipped) it did have a date. A date that revealed that the paper, and the train, had been sitting here since 1 September 1981, or thirty-seven years. It was not lost on them that this was scarcely over a month after the Harry Potter of this world had been born. Just what had changed back then that caused such a radical divergence in the two worlds, they wondered.
Bidding the Hogwarts Express a fond farewell, after relocking it and saturating it with preserving charms, the two men mounted their brooms again and headed out, following the tracks as Harry and Ron had done all those many years ago in a borrowed flying Ford Anglia. Harry was glad that they were flying something a bit more reliable than Mr. Weasley's enchanted car and doubly glad that he'd pulled four bottles of water from his trunk before setting off. Too well he remembered how parched and hot he and Ron had gotten in the hours spent in that vehicle. Now, though the company had changed, he was flying to Hogwarts all over again, hoping against hope that the beloved old castle would be there to greet them when they arrived.
A/N: Just what has happened to London and the Wizarding World? Where has everyone gone? Will Hogwarts and Hogsmede still be standing? Will they ever find another Witch or Wizard? Don't touch that dial, because we'll be right back with the answers to all those questions and more, one week from Today!