"Phineas, please tell me you know what goes in to the Ritual of the Feast of Innocents," Albus Dumbledore said as soon as Alastor's portrait finished its latest report regarding what was happening at Grimmauld Place. He rubbed his temples.
"I do," the nineteenth-century portrait of Phineas Nigeellus Black answered in its aristocratic drawl. "For one thing, you should probably know that if anyone had ever bothered with a modern edition, they would have used the other spelling of 'innocence' to better convey the nature of the ritual..."
Listening to Albus' conversation with half an ear, Alastor leaned down to his own portrait and whispered to it, "Go tell Gideon and Fabian to put the Order and the aurors on high alert, then get back to Sirius. Tell me right away if he leaves Grimmauld or if anyone arrives who doesn't know he's a spy. We'll be sending a Patronus to him shortly to coordinate.
"...so he's not wrong. It is technically the most efficient way to solve your little horcrux problem."
Albus did not looked reassured. His expression was grave. "The risks? It sounds like the dementor will..."
"Oh, yes. The dementor will feed on any that stand in its way," the portrait interrupted. "It will be stronger than normal. It won't slow down enough to Kiss anybody, though. They'll survive."
"He'll be sending it to Hogwarts!" Albus pointed out indignantly. "I refuse to allow such an abomination into the school, especially one that cannot be repelled by ordinary means."
His right hand gripped his left wrist, where he wore Sirius' cursed bracelet. Alastor's eye widened at the sight. "Albus, we just need to talk to Sirius. He's read the ritual in full. We haven't. If we can coordinate with him, I'm sure we can keep students and civilians safe."
"And what of the risk to Sirius himself?" Albus countered. "If he goes through with this disgusting ritual, he will give away something precious to that dementor. And even if the ritual works as intended, these circumstances with multiple horcruxes are unprecedented. The dementor might take more than what he offers in order to accomplish its task. If someone tries to fight the dementor off, or if he loses control... how much of him will it take away? Could he end up insane or Kissed, Phineas?"
"I... do not know. It is too long since I read Ekrizdis." Without another word, old Headmaster Black strode out of his portrait, no doubt to visit his descendants Sirius and Orion in Grimmauld Place.
"Albus, take your hand off that bracelet," Alastor ordered.
Albus let go of the cursed piece of jewelry immediately, as if it had burned him. He sighed and shook his head mournfully. "This is my fault, Alastor. I handled Sirius' worries badly several days ago, and now we are in a crisis and might lose him. I do not trust Orion Black. No father should encourage his own son to sacrifice himself like this. We should be storming Voldemort's headquarters to capture Antonin Dolohov, then interrogating Bellatrix Lestrange, not messing around with Dark rituals, much less ones we don't understand!"
"On the other hand, Sirius might know something we don't about Dolohov and their Headquarters. He might be looking into this ritual for a very good reason. I'm worried about him, too, but he's not a child. And he's not a mindless foot soldier. And he's not alone, even if Lord Black leaves much to be desired as an advisor. Sirius is perfectly capable of making his own risk assessment. We need to talk to him, but we also need to trust him." Plus, there was the little voice in the back of Alastor's mind reminding him of the wording of the Prophesy: he will ravage the ravenous; his food is the six-part soul. Sirius was without a doubt the one tearing through the Death Eater ranks, yet Alastor was the one who had destroyed the only other horcrux they had found. If the Dark Lord was to die as foretold, it seemed like they shouldn't stand in Sirius' way. Alastor didn't particularly like the idea of allowing Sirius to risk himself for the sake of an ambiguous prophesy, but he also knew Sirius himself would stop at nothing to end Voldemort and end the war. The young man did not want to be protected.
"Sirius is doing this because he is tired and afraid, not because he's thought it through, Alastor. He consistently underestimates risks and overestimates his own ability to manage them. I won't let him lose himself to the dementor. That is a fate far worse than death, and one he does not deserve. Nor will I let him harm the innocent children here with his single-minded and reckless decisions." He will ravage the ravenous; his food is the six-part soul. What if the "ravenous" were not Death Eaters as he and Albus had initially supposed but merely Eaters? Dementors? The prophesy could equally apply to Dumbledore killing Sirius as a last-ditch effort to disrupt this ritual if it got out of control, and then going after the horcruxes himself.
Well, Alastor much preferred the interpretation where Sirius lived. "Then we tell him that," Alastor said. "If he decides to go ahead with this ritual, we won't be able to stop him in a hurry. We don't have the keys to the wards at Grimmauld Place the way we did Malfoy Manor. And their Headquarters is still Unplottable and hidden under a Fidelius, so we can't attack there without Siriuis' help either, even if the Secret Keeper is now dead. So get your knickers out of their twist and let Sirius know we're still on his side! Give him options!"
Albus breathed out and nodded. He drew his wand and waved it. "Expecto Patronum! Sirius, we need to talk before you perform the ritual. There might be other, safer ways to conclude all this. Alastor or I can meet you to discuss a strategy. Do not do anything hasty." The brilliant silver phoenix hovered in the air for a moment after the headmaster finished speaking. Rather than flying away towards London, it trilled and unexpectedly dissolved back into silver mist.
"What does that mean?" Alastor asked.
"Well, I'd presume the ritual has started," Headmaster Vindictus Viridian commented from his portrait on the far wall. He was a scholar of curses who lived during the eighteenth century, Alastor vaguely recalled. "Stands to reason no foreign patronus can enter the area if Sirius' patronus is to be the sacrifice."
Albus rubbed his ashen cheeks with his hands.
"Oh, bloody hell," Alastor muttered. He stood up. "Albus, I'm headed to London. You stay here and keep trying to get in touch with Sirius. Hopefully, he'll at least tell us where the dementor is headed so I can clear civilians out of the way for it. And don't you dare use that bracelet. If you gather all the students in the Great Hall or out on the grounds with a patronus or two to guard them, they should be fine."
The Ancient and Noble House of Black kept a dementor in a secret sub-sub basement beneath their townhouse, right in the heart of London, it turned out. It was not one they had captured. Some ancestor had created it, following the directions as detailed in The Complete Works of Ekrizdis. While Ekrizdis' line had ended with him, Orion Black explained this particular dementor remained tied to their House so long as their blood and name survived. On the one hand, Sirius found it hard to believe anyone would keep a dementor of all things inside the foundations of a house where people including young children lived. On the other hand, it might explain a lot about his family and the madness plaguing them.
They descended a steep and tightly winding spiral staircase straight down from beneath a trapdoor in the rarely used dungeon. Sirius had never noticed the trapdoor when he had been locked down here for youthful rebellion, not that he had been fully lucid those times. He wondered if the shaft had once been a well, it was so deep and straight. Unlike a natural cave or mineshaft, it grew continuously colder as they descended, until Sirius' breath misted in the pale light of their wands. They emerged at last into an antechamber, its floor littered with human bones and one mummified corpse that Orion casually vanished.
"We have to feed it every few years. I usually just have Kreacher grab a muggle off the streets and toss them down the stairs. Once a generation, the Lord of the House brings it a prisoner to be Kissed to renew the binding. Have to open the door for that."
"Have you ever considered not keeping a dementor in the basement?" Sirius asked caustically.
"And let the Ministry control all their advantages? Don't be a fool." So saying, he pointed his wand at the heavy, frost-covered iron door on the other side of the room and opened it. "Remain still. The Masters of House Black come to you with sweet food and new orders," he announced. There was no hesitation or fear in his voice, and he gestured Sirius to follow.
The room where the dementor resided was circular and quite large, the walls and floors alike tiled in smooth gray stone. There were slit-like vents in the ceiling that did little for the close, musty air. Other than the tall, hooded menace hovering in the center of the room, it was empty. Sirius supposed there was no reason to expect otherwise. Dementors did not need anything besides prey. This particular dementor was indeed obedient, making no move towards them despite the absence of a patronus to ward it away. Sirius could feel its aura, the coldness, the urge to give up, the creeping guilt of his various misdeeds, but it wasn't aggressively pulling on any particular evil thought. It wasn't trying to eat him. Yet.
"I'd get to it, if I were you," Orion commented. "Unless you've changed your mind."
Sirius shook his head and took out his wand. He quickly sketched the circle and pentagram around the motionless dementor. The cold aura of despair pulsed as he wrote the five runes; the dementor recognized what was happening and was excited, like a bloodhound given a scent to chase. Sirius took a deep breath. He refused to look at Orion, though he could feel his father's eyes on the back of his head, watching him avidly. He reached for his happy memories, thoughts of Hogwarts, of the Marauders, of Fleamont and Euphemia. Memories where he was warm, and free, and surrounded by friends. Memories where he discovered what it felt like to love himself, to love and trust another person for the first time, and to know he was loved... A part of him howled objections to what he was about to do. How could he just give up something so precious? The book had said the memory he chose would be gone for good, as if it had never been. Sirius knew enough about the patronus charm to understand he wouldn't be losing merely a single happy instant. He would be losing whatever that moment meant to him, cutting it out of his being, severing all its ties to other memories and feelings.
He would be less, after this.
For the first time, he hesitated, thinking of James, Remus, and Peter. His friends, his brothers. The ones who had first given him the strength to be himself. He didn't want to forget them...
He thought instead of Fleamont Potter. The father figure he had always wanted. The man who cared for him, told him he had value that wasn't just in his name or his grades but in himself. The man who had offered him a home and safety when his own family grew too dangerous for him. The man who had forgiven him every sin. A man who was now dead, who he would never see again anyway. A man who would understand why Sirius had to do this and would forgive him this transgression as well. He thought of the day he had come to the Potters' house when he was sixteen with nowhere else to go. Fleamont had listened to his story about his last explosive argument with his parents and had taken him upstairs to the room he and Euphemia had already prepared for him months before. He had offered, unasked, to take care of him as long as he needed help, to adopt Sirius as his own...
"Expecto Patronum." A huge, shaggy silver dog materialized before him. It immediately wanted to attack the dementor, but Sirius laid a hand on its glistening head, restraining it. The patronus light flared, banishing the dementor's cold, urging Sirius to reconsider... but eventually, the dog bowed its head. Tail tucked between its legs, it hobbled over to the rune of Gebo, entered the circle, and lay down with its head on its paws facing the dementor.
The dementor's cowled head had marked the patronus. Now it turned towards Sirius, following his every move. Sirius gritted his teeth and walked over to the glowing rune of Hagalaz. As he neared the rune, he dropped any kind of Occlumency shield and thought of Voldemort. He focused on the sharp details of every painful memory, and he felt the dementor's quickening agitation. He thought of the Dark Lord's cruelty, the ease with which he tortured or killed his frightened followers. The way he had destroyed Felix. His decision to slaughter the young Greengrass child as punishment for the parent. The look on his face as he encouraged Sirius to chase after and kill Ben McKinnon. The pain he had inflicted on Sirius himself. The terror he inspired in Richard. The countless lives that had been lost in his name, to a cause half the participants did not truly understand or believe in, a cause based on lies and hate. Any respect he had for the man's magical prowess fell away. He had learned in the last year how little magical might mattered, lost his reverence for Voldemort and Dumbledore alike as he watched the grand sorcerers' infuriating, self-righteous mistakes. He realized suddenly he probably would not have been able to summon this kind of hatred for any other Death Eater; he felt too much in common even with Bella in terms of their shared suffering. The hate Sirius felt for Voldemort was true, and pure, uncomplicated by any other emotion. The hate the dementor now carried for Voldemort was equally pure.
He fell into a trance as the magic of the ritual grew. He moved on to Nauthiz, and he showed the dementor all the ways he had struck against Voldemort so far. The information he had shared with the Order, the ambush that led to Lucius' and the others' arrests, the destruction of the first horcrux, the various Imperius curses, concluding with the most recent one on Rodolphus. He had suffered too, for every victory. To be the one that destroyed Voldemort's very soul was only right and just. At the vertex of Raidho, he concentrated on what he knew of the remaining horcruxes: there were three, one was at Hogwarts. One was soon to be in Dolohov's custody, a chance the Enemy might escape without the dementor's help. The light of the circle flared, and Sirius felt a strange tugging sensation, as if part of him was growing aware of souls and horcruxes. Of...food.
Unthinking, he moved on to Ansaz. The dementor suddenly surged towards him. Its hood fell back, revealing a mutated, shrunken head with no eyes or nose, only a puckered mouth. Sirius shuddered in fear and disgust, but his feet were pinned in place by the power of the ritual. Fortunately, the thing did not reach out its hands or open its jaws for a Kiss. Still brimming with hate and thoughts of vengeance, Sirius looked at the eyeless face and savagely offered the dementor whatever it needed to take to get this done, to end Voldemort once and for all. Thoughts of Fleamont Potter surged back to the forefront of his mind, flying through in flashes as if by powerful Legilimency. The temperature plummeted drastically, yet he did not shiver. Behind the dementor, the great dog patronus stood up. Head and tail hanging low like a defeated cur, it walked up behind the dementor and seemingly melted into it.
Sirius blinked as the visions of... someone important... suddenly stopped. He beat down the rising panic as he realized he had no idea what thoughts the dementor had taken. It shouldn't be a surprise, of course. The book had said the memory would vanish.
The dementor began to glow. It was like the light of a patronus combined with the cursed glow of a Protego Horribilis. It grew brighter and brighter until it was hard to look at. The tattered black robe turned a hash white. Orifices like eyeballs forced themselves out of the dementor's scabbed skin and blinked open to burn with black voids against the flaming white skin. The head continued to twist and morph until it grew a face not unlike Sirius' own, if Sirius had perhaps died or been starved for six months or so. The jaws opened into a toothless grin, another bottomless void gaping within. The circle, pentagram, and runes flared once more and went out. The dementor bowed to Sirius, turned slightly, and drifted straight through the stone wall.
Sirius watched it go numbly. It was as if all feeling had left with the dementor. He was left with no fear, no real interest in what he had lost. He vaguely hoped it worked, but he might not be all that bothered if it didn't, either.
"Well, I suppose the book did say no barriers would matter to it," Orion Black said faintly. Sirius glanced at his father disinterestedly. Orion was also watching the patch of wall where the dementor had disappeared. He straightened his shoulders and turned to Sirius. "Come along. We've an alliance to make. Narcissa should have explained things to your mother and uncle by now." He clapped a hand to Sirius' shoulder, but quickly withdrew it and grimaced. Sirius watched detachedly as Orion's palm slowly reddened as if burned. He craned his neck and saw a rim of frost outlining a hand print on his own shoulder. He noticed suddenly that while Orion's breath still fogged in the air, Sirius' did not. Sirius was the source of the cold, now that the dementor had left. It felt vaguely unfair that he could still feel the cold in that case.
He looked back at Orion's face, which was schooled to neutrality. The expression he wore did not matter. Sirius could feel his father's mixed pride, personal satisfaction, and unease underneath it. He breathed in the pride, which flickered and died as he fed upon it. The unease grew. "Let's go," Sirius said, his voice like ice. He paced back through the anteroom and mounted the stairs.
Their ascent was interrupted by a brilliant phoenix patronus. Sirius shuddered away from it initially, almost falling back down the stairs himself. It started talking, but he couldn't quite hear what it said. He did feel strangely drawn to it, though, once the initial surprise and instinctual caution wore off. Drawn to the light and warmth, he reached out a hand to it and felt someone else's delight in a pupil's success, someone else's happiness. He drank in the feelings, anything to fill the emptiness inside him... He also heard all at once Dumbledore's jumbled message for him: "SiriusyoumusttelluswherethedementorisgoingsowecanclearthewayDonothingrashAlastorisinLondon."
A conjured rope looped around his arm and pulled him away from the patronus, which guttered out as soon as he lost contact with it. He missed the warmth when it was gone. "Do you want to end the ritual, boy? Stay away from that."
"It can't hurt me, only the dementor," Sirius corrected Orion absently. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his watch. Moody was waiting for him, naturally. He nodded to the portrait, closed his eyes, and reached out to feel for his dementor and its prey. It was as easy and natural as breathing. There were four shreds of food, but only three locations. Dolohov had retrieved one horcrux and already brought it to Headquarters, it seemed. He opened his eyes again and looked at the portrait. "The first horcrux is here in London. In Gringotts, if I'm not mistaken. The dementor is headed there now. It will be going to Headquarters from there."
Moody nodded. "Sirius... myself will organize the aurors to clear your way, but the Headmaster doesn't want the dementor to come to Hogwarts." Orion snorted in derision at that, but the portrait continued. "He may well kill you if you send it there."
"If he decides it's necessary, that's fine," Sirius said.
"Excuse me?" Orion said incredulously.
"I gave the Headmaster means to kill me months ago," Sirius informed his father blandly. "In case I ever went too far. But there's no need to send the dementor to Hogwarts anyway. I'll just come up there and fetch the horcrux myself. I know where it is. Tell Dumbledore to expect me shortly." He shoved the watch back into his pocket and resumed his upwards climb. More frost was creeping over his robes and hands the closer they got to the warm and mildly humid house, he noted. He'd probably cause a dementor-like fog when he went outside into the damp spring air.
"You shouldn't go off to Hogwarts," Orion said to his back. "You shouldn't be under Albus Dumbledore's thumb right now. It's too risky. And we need to gather our allies."
"You gather them," Sirius said. "I don't care if you use my reputation with the Death Eaters to do it or just your own resources. I have my own work to do." His father's sense of unease was growing, along with a fear that he was quickly losing control of the situation. There was no more pride or satisfaction in him. Sirius realized with strange fascination that he was doing that. His very presence was putting Orion Black on edge, stripping him of confidence. Under other circumstances, it might have been funny, but Sirius wasn't inclined to humor at the moment. He should probably let Orion know, though. "You don't want me here to negotiate, trust me. I won't be inspiring confidence in anybody, only fear and despair."
Orion muttered under his breath. Sirius caught the words "willful" and "spiteful" but not much else. "A brief stop only. Narcissa and Walburga can take care of things here. I will escort you to Hogwarts."
"I don't need you."
"Yes, you very much do, boy."
In the end, Orion exchanged only a few quick words with the family as Sirius strode through the house. Sirius caught a glimpse of Richard and Elaine as he passed the formal greeting room, pale and wide-eyed. Warring shock, anger, gratitude, and awe rolled off of the young wizard, but Sirius did not slow to do more than sample it, unwilling to sap Richard's hopes as he did Orion's. Then he reached the front door and let himself out, his father at his heels.
Alastor Moody was holed up with Rufus Scrimgeor in Barty Crouch's office attempting to explain the bizarre turn of events when his portrait self reappeared and informed them Sirius' empowered dementor was heading straight for Gringotts. The three men paled as one, imagining all the unsuspecting goblins and customers currently trapped in the vaults with no way to get out. Barty, as it turned out, was already fully aware of what the Ritual of the Feast of Innocents entailed and had even read the historical accounts of its effects, which Sirius had not. It was not safe to perform in a populated area, not for the civilians, not for Sirius. Ekrizdis hadn't discovered that, being the sole permanent, reclusive resident in Azkaban while he still lived. "Rufus, evacuate Diagon Alley. I'll take Prewetts and Longbottoms to Gringotts."
"Why them?"
"Because they're also in the Order and won't immediately question why I'm telling them not to get rid of the rogue super dementor if I tell them Dumbledore knows about it. You'll need more time to explain to the others. Get going. Barty..."
"I'll prepare here. I assume you'll be making a lot of arrests at some point today. And I'll let Minchum and that new muggle Minister know what's going on so neither tries to send even more people into its path. Go, Alastor."
Alastor fled the room, grabbed his team from the auror office, and apparated to Diagon Alley, quickly summarizing the situation as they walked to Gringotts. It was immediately obvious the dementor had already arrived. The bank's huge outer doors were closed and sealed shut, a line of angry-faced goblins guarding them. "Begone, wizard," the lead goblin warned, brandishing a sharp battle axe. "The bank is closed."
"It's closed with an enemy inside it that goblins cannot fight," Alastor said. "We are aurors from the Ministry of Magic. If you don't let us in, your people are doomed." He did need them to let him in, unfortunately. The enchantments on the bank's doors were similar to those on its vaults and could not be easily penetrated.
"Goblins do not heed wizard threats," the little creature sneered.
"Goblins are just as susceptible to madness as wizards are. The thing loose in your vaults is like a dementor, but one that can pass through any wall and ward. You need us in there."
The goblin scowled and muttered to its subordinate. Without warning, the five aurors were dowsed in liquid. From the tingling sensation on his skin, Alastor knew it was Thief's Downfall, checking them for magical disguises. The goblin's scowl deepened, but it stepped aside and ordered the door opened to them. About a dozen terrified bank customers who had clearly been desperate to escape immediately shoved their way past. Several of their hands were bloody from scrabbling against the doors. Alastor did nothing to impede them but wound around them into the lobby. The inside of the bank was frigid, cold fog belching out of the tunnel entrance leading to the vaults. Goblins, witches and wizards were slumped all over the place. Some were merely sitting and crying. Others were unconscious and moaning in uneasy stupors. It was incredible. It was terrifying. Alastor knew it was just one dementor, presumably still hundreds of feet below them, but it felt like he was standing on the roof of Azkaban. "Patronuses, now, but do not send your patronus to attack the dementor, only to shield civilians. It's not an ordinary one. It will fight back if threatened, and that will cause even more trouble. We just need to shepherd it out of here. Prewetts, clear the lobby. Longbottoms with me. Expecto Patronum!" Five silver creatures sprang into being, their warmth beating back the unnatural chill. Alastor's magical eye spun around to fixate on the goblin sergeant standing by the door, taking in the scene with unmitigated horror. He turned back to face it. "We'll need a guide in the vaults," he said pointedly.
The lead goblin did not move, but another, smaller one nervously elbowed its way around him and stumbled forwards. It stopped shivering when it reached the circle of patronuses. "What is your name?" Alastor asked it.
"Griphook."
"Can your sensors tell where the intruder is?"
Griphook nodded. "It entered through the lowest levels and penetrated the Lestrange vault without triggering any of the normal vault protections."
Alastor snorted despite himself and led the way towards the tunnels. "You know, this might not have happened if you lot hadn't falsified the ledgers when I filed the warrant to check that vault." Griphook had nothing to say to that it seemed. "Homenum Revelio. Gobolorum Revelio. Frank, Alice, remember our job isn't to fight the dementor. Even if it's headed straight towards you, you get out of its way and do not engage. We just get as many people out of its path as possible. And don't let civilians try to fight it either. Griphook, take us down there..."
Someone with a goat-shaped patronus was guarding the road to Hogsmeade when Sirius and Orion Black appeared, and Albus Dumbledore was waiting at the Hogwarts gates. He stared at Sirius sorrowfully through the wrought iron, stared at the mist puddling around Sirius' feet. "Sirius, my boy, what have you done to yourself?"
"You know what I've done. Open the gate, please. The Diadem is on the seventh floor."
"Tell me where, and I will retrieve it."
"Don't waste my time."
A flare of satisfaction from Orion Black; Sirius snatched it up and ate it greedily. Orion flinched subtly and glared at Dumbledore. "Now is not the time for grandstanding. If you care about your cause, or about my son, you will let us pass unhindered."
"If you cared about your son, Orion, you would never have let him do this."
"Both of you, shut it, and let me through. Keep the students away from me, and they'll all be fine," Sirius said.
"What would happen if one were to approach you, Sirius?" Dumbledore asked urgently.
"Same thing that happens to prisoners in Azkaban, I imagine. But I think you'd rather me than the actual dementor."
That was an inarguable truth, and Albus Dumbledore slowly opened the gate and stepped aside. Sirius brushed past him, headed towards the castle. Dumbledore summoned his phoenix patronus and had it fly in front of Sirius like a shield, then fell into step with Lord Black and continued arguing with him. It struck Sirius as faintly ridiculous that Dumbledore still talked to Lord Orion Black as he would any ex-student. He could easily sense his father's irritation at the disrespect. He didn't bother listening to their discussion. He didn't care about it.
He stopped short with the odd sensation of a foreign triumph: the dementor in London sharing its feast. It was fast approaching its first target, the soul fragment hidden in Gringotts. He held on to the connection. He walked with the dementor into the vault, saw the various objects marked with the Lestrange crest with his own eyes. The crest meant nothing to the dementor of course, and not much to him. He forgot about it again soon enough as the dementor reached a certain shelf, holding a spot of soulfire. The dementor inhaled, and the spirit inside the horcrux screamed. It was not a physical sound but one of the spirit, a howl of pure fear and existential anguish. It could not resist, though. It spilled out of the golden cup like silver-black blood from a vein, and flowed inexorably into the black void of the dementor's insides. The cup itself was left surprisingly intact, resting innocently on its shelf.
The dementor moved on, headed North, and up towards the surface. It was inexorable. Even if the Dark Lord should rise again, he would not escape his fate. Not this time.
Sirius came back to himself, blinking in the weak sunlight, both Dumbledore and his father standing in front of him now and watching him warily. He shrugged at them. "One down, three to go." He drank in the headmaster's involuntary relief, leaving only the guilt and self-recrimination. He started walking again.
The Hogwarts grounds were empty, even Hagrid's hut, from what Sirius could sense. The vibrant cloud of life and happy souls were all ahead of him, inside the castle. The closer he got, he realized Dumbledore must have ordered all the children to be gathered in the Great Hall. It probably would have been better to confine them to their dormitories rather than so close to the main entrance, but then, Dumbledore didn't know where the horcrux was. Perhaps Sirius should have told him. He glimpsed Professor McGonnagall standing guard at the entrance hall with her cat patronus. He could not see her expression from his distance, but he could feel her uncertainty and something like guilt. He nodded to her and turned right in the courtyard to take the viaduct over towards the side entrance. The headmaster's phoenix patronus hadn't expected that and banked to follow him.
No one was guarding this entrance. He did see a few ghosts, but none seemed inclined to confront him. Peeves came the closest, following along half-in and half-out of the wall as Sirius climbed a set of stairs, but he did not say a word or even blow a raspberry. They used to have something of a rapport, the prankster poltergeist and the Marauders. Unlike the humans, Sirius could not feel any emotional resonance from the poltergeist, but he was definitely subdued compared to his usual exuberant self.
Finally, he reached the seventh floor and the corridor containing the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy and his trolls. Sirius strode briskly back and forth in front of the hidden entrance to the secret room three times. The wall shimmered, and the door melted into existence. There was a fleeting spark of pleasure and excitement from Dumbledore, always happy to learn something new about the ancient and marvelous magics of his school. Sirius absorbed the spark in an instant, leaving only grim anticipation.
He opened the door and entered the maze the Dark Lord had shown him in his final folly. He walked unerringly along the mental path: right at the hatstand full of rusty swords, left at the suit of yellow armor, right again at the enormous, taxidermized troll. He didn't even need the directions. He could sense his meal calling to him and could have blasted his way straight to it if he'd wanted to, but he might have accidentally buried it under even more garbage.
And there it was, the tarnished silver tiara with its cowering shred of lost soul. He picked it up, turned around, and almost ran straight into Dumbledore's patronus. Once again, he felt caught by the wonderful warmth and intense pride. Until Dumbledore snapped the patronus back from him with an expression of horror on his face. It matched the horror in his aura. Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Can you feel it when your patronus comes in contact with me?"
Dumbledore nodded. His expression was grave. "You're still feeding that dementor in London, Sirius. As long as the connection is open and its task incomplete, you're feeding it. You would give it my power too..."
"Not intentionally," Sirius replied. Good to know, though. He held up the Diadem of Ravenclaw and studied it. The ancient piece was blackening further in his hands. Apparently, Sirius was as corrosive to the horcrux as basilisk venom would be. The metal cracked. Pearly gray smoke hissed out of the fissure and curled around his hands. He dropped the worthless tiara. The smoke was what he was here for. This was the soul fragment Voldemort had hacked off and hidden. It tried to surge away from him, but Sirius caught it in his hands. Acting by instinct, he cupped it to his lips and drank it in.
Where the patronus had been warmth, this fragment of actual soul was fire. It warmed him through, for a moment, before the distant dementor took that too. He was back in London again, gliding with the dementor into a silver mist. It took him a moment to recognize it as a noncorporeal patronus. The dementor had apparently run into someone who was idiotically trying to fight it. The mist guttered. The conjuror fell, and the dementor left them behind. They passed through a wall of stone and another vault stuffed with galleons. On the other side, they encountered another patronus. A corporeal, dolphin-shaped one, this time. Sirius felt all heat leave him again as his dementor surged forwards to meet the aggressive cetacean. Brief snatches of memory flew by, too fast for Sirius to comprehend. Some might have been his. Some undoubtedly belonged to the dolphin's owner.
And then the dementor was swimming through stone again, and Sirius was back in Hogwarts. He was slumped into a squashy purple velvet armchair that Albus Dumbledore must have conjured. Dumbledore and Orion were hovering in front of him again, although neither dared reach out to touch him.
"What happened?" Dumbledore whispered.
"Someone tried to fight off the dementor. I won. It's not important."
"Can you close yourself to the dementor and keep it from taking more from you?"
"I have no idea. The chapter I read was short and to the point." Unlike the author of Rites of Blood, Ekrizdis was no Arithmancer.
"Sirius, look at me," Dumbledore ordered. Obediently, he looked up into the blue eyes. He made no effort at all to bar the headmaster's thoughts from his own, made no effort to hide whatever the old man was looking for, wizards with wild black hair and glasses, apparently. Dumbledore withdrew the Legilimency probe abruptly and squeezed his eyes shut. The guilt and sadness welling up from him was overpowering. He took a deep, shuddering breath, and opened his eyes again to look at Sirius. They were red. "If it happens again, use my patronus to bolster yourself. I won't stop you this time. I have more than enough strength to give you."
"That is not how the ritual is supposed to work, Dumbledore," Orion observed.
"When I desire your opinion, I will ask for it. Come, Sirius, we must get you out of here. Death Eater headquarters next, yes? I presume you know where that is, Lord Black?"
Author's note: the thing about rituals is you don't get anything for free. Previously with the inferi ritual, Sirius was sacrificing other people lives. This time, he's sacrificing something of himself in a very real and permanent way. The horcrux ritual of course does both. Kudos to anyone who figures out why Orion Black who knew very well what risks this particular ritual entails thought it a good idea to goad Sirius into doing it anyway. Anyway, spelling was not formalized in English at the time of Ekrizdis (Middle Ages). The book says Ritual of the Feast of Innocents, which is taken by Sirius and others to refer to the fact that the memory has to be from childhood. Phineas Nigellus contends (and Barty Crouch and Orion Black would agree) that it's more correctly the Feast of Innocence, because what the dementor is taking is not children but rather whatever uncorrupted, child-like joy is still left in someone otherwise bitter and angry enough to want to have another human being Kissed.
No update this Saturday due to traveling. Will either be midweek again or the Saturday after. Thanks for the reviews!