A Light in the Darkness
He opened his eyes slowly to an inky black void.
At least he thought his eyes were open. It was hard to say.
Has it been days?
Years?
Impossible to know. There's no feedback here at all. No stimuli.
Just kind of floating here. Well, floating anyways – that is for certain… but "here" doesn't really seem an apropos term for… this…
This, whatever this is. This is not anywhere.
He took a moment to take an inventory of himself, and disturbingly found… nothing.
No pain. That's not so bad.
No… sensation. Unsettling.
Nothing, at all. This might be a problem. A big problem.
He was somehow scared and calm at the same time.
He felt like he should feel his heart pounding in his chest, but he couldn't feel his heart, or his chest for that matter.
He tried to walk forward, to turn his head and look around.
He couldn't feel his head, or his neck.
Was he even flat on his back? Maybe… but also the direction behind him might not be "down" or even "back".
Unsure if such a certain thing as "down" existed at all in his depthless black bubble, he tried again to move around.
More nothing.
The panic was properly rising now.
Maybe this is what Avada Kedavra does. He thought with a frantic burst of terror.
It's not like there's been a ton of proper research on it – how could there be? What if instead of killing you normally - it destroys the soul and leaves you… like this?
That thought was incredibly troubling. What then of his parents? He had a vague idea there were others he cared about, but his mind was incredibly foggy. That numbing fog had been pleasant at first, but now it was troubling, terrifying… What if instead of finding whatever eternal rest, they were left forever like this? He'd not minded the idea of reuniting with his parents if he were to die.
What if I'm left forever like this…
He started to scream, to yell with all his might.
Or at least he tried to.
There was no sound. No sensation of lungs filled to bursting, no raspy fire in his throat. No throat at all.
Fear settled deep into him and gripped his mind.
That, unlike literally any physical sensation, he could still feel all too well.
He would far prefer to simply not exist at all, rather than to have consciousness without any form whatsoever.
Was this to be his eternity? Would this be his existence for the rest of time?
No. it couldn't be. He had to know…. Something. But he couldn't remember what that something might be.
He can't very well figure out that something if he was all but paralyzed in a dark void alone.
What did he need to know? There was work to be done yet, he knew that much. He didn't think it was his job anymore though, he knew there was someone.
Wait… Is it something or someone he needed to know about.
Maybe it was both, who knows.
He focused again – not on the blackness around him, but into his mind, drawing his perception inward.
He knew he had to know something, but he didn't know what he knew he knew.
It made sense until he thought about it.
Ok. What do I know?
What's my name? He realized even in his internal or whatever this dialogue was, he'd not thought of or said his name.
It didn't immediately come to him either...
I think I'm dead, but here I am thinking so it must not be that.
My parents are dead, and they're not here. That doesn't feel right.
How'd I get here?
It was all foggy and distant.
C'mon, think Harry!
Wait…
Harry… Harry! That's me. I'm Harry.
Nice to meet me, Harry. How'd we get here?
Searching his mind, he had no idea.
Maybe I'm not asking the right questions…
How do I get back?
Nothing.
Why?
More nothing.
What makes me feel like I need to go back to… well I don't even know what I need to go back to…
A new sensation.
A sensation…
For the first time in the nebulous eternity he'd been floating in whatever this state was… He could feel.
He'd have gasped if he'd been able to.
In an instant. A blooming warmth filled his chest. And he could sense it.
Hermione.
Spreading out like slow ripples on the surface of glassy water, he was slowly infused with awareness.
It was jarring after such perfect nothingness.
He realized his eyes weren't open and made to remedy that.
Disheartened, he opened his eyes to perfect, inky blackness.
The upside this time, was that he could in fact feel that he had eyes.
Really moving along now, aren't I?
The sensation of pleasant warmth was ebbing slightly, and he screwed his eyes shut, trying to remember.
In his mind's eye, he saw himself in a heap in Dumbledore's office. He saw a numb journey down a staircase. He felt pain and desperation as he replayed the last time he saw Ron.
He felt an entirely different kind of pain as he relived his last interactions with Hermione. Though they'd only admitted it openly to each other for a terribly short time, the fact of that matter is that they'd loved each other for years. They'd loved each other silently, subtly, from the periphery, because they both so cherished the places they held in each other's lives. The fear of ruining that had been paralyzing in its own right. An inky black void onto itself.
It hurt. It hurt him to imagine what he had missed out on. It hurt him that she was experiencing a traumatic loss, and he couldn't be there to help her navigate it, to support her.
Even in death, he loved her.
But of course, he couldn't be there. The loss she was experiencing was, in fact, him.
He turned around, aiming to see if there was anything discernable around him in the cloying darkness, and he sensed a distant presence.
A soft, distant pinprick of white light shone like a lighthouse in the perfect black of his vision.
He focused on it, unsure what it could be but certain that he needed to get to it.
It was getting bigger.
It was slowly getting bigger. As though it was a solid mass moving toward him.
Or was he moving toward it?
He realized too late that the light was in fact moving with astonishing speed straight for him, and before he had so much as the thought to yell out in surprise or try to shield his eyes, the light hit him with a force he could physically feel on every square inch of his skin.
Incredible white light flooded his vision, a disorienting thing given the darkness he'd existed in just a moment ago.
The sensation was intense, but not painful. Scary as the experience was, it was nearly soothing somehow. Warm, but clearly distinct from the feeling he'd had with Hermione.
It was as if the light had a will of its own and was trying to tell him something. His reflex was to fight it off, but that was just instinctual after the sudden approach. Consciously, he made the decision to succumb to it.
The light started to recede from his entire field of vision, or rather, the light began to condense itself. It retracted into itself, becoming more intense but concentrating into a small ball.
His vision was no longer entirely white; nor was it entirely black. He was once again standing in his inky black void, but now the quaffle-sized ball of ethereal light was there with him, floating and sparkling and trailing small wisps of light as it bobbed in the air. It was strangely comforting. The light somehow had a feeling of intelligence to it, perhaps even sentience, though he couldn't really understand if he could communicate with it.
It seemed almost familiar...
"What are you?" he asked curiously.
The light pulsed a bit, floated in a quick circle around him, still trailing wisps and motes, and again came to a rest but a few feet in front of him.
"I don't understand why, but I feel like… I feel like we know each other. Like we're friends." Harry remarked slowly.
The ball of light pulsed again. It felt peaceful, comforting.
He reached out to catch the ball, and it flitted away, just out of his reach, before coming back within his range.
He moved to touch it again, more slowly this time – and he hesitated a moment before he did, giving it opportunity to evade him if it wanted to.
It remained mostly still, still bobbing slightly like a duck on a pond.
He felt warmth radiating from the small sphere as his hand approached it, and gasped when he made contact with it.
It felt like putting his hands into very warm bath water - almost too hot for comfort, but not quite. That bracing warmth that prickles and almost hurts, but once you adjust, feels wonderful.
The light pulsed again and continued to pulse rapidly for a few seconds on the edge of his fingers, before, to his shock, it latched onto him and began spreading up his arm.
He had the thought that he should be scared. Existentially terrified at the notion of this force of energy consuming him, but he wasn't. It just felt familiar and warm and calming. It felt like the quieting comfort of reuniting with a long-lost friend.
As a feeling of peace overcame him, he began to feel incredibly tired. Like the reality of his last day was catching up to him all at once.
He didn't even try to resist as he allowed himself to drift off into the warmth and comfort of the light.
—X—X—X—
He woke up, to his great surprise, standing alone in the Gryffindor common room.
The first thing that struck him, was an unusual sensation of relief. Not really a physical sense of relief, but a magical one.
He felt powerful.
He scrunched his eyes closed to focus. He felt like he had more raw magical potential now than he'd ever had before. It reminded him of the times before he learned about the magical world, when he was prone to accidental magic because he hadn't learned how to properly focus it, channel it. He'd certainly been able to manage once he was taught some things, but the sensation of just – more – was jarring. He tried to get himself under control.
After a moment of deep breathing, he opened his eyes once more and looked around. The room he was in at least looked convincingly like the Gryffindor common room. He did however note that the windows, instead of displaying views of the castle grounds in the Scottish Highlands, were an opaque milky white. Also, there was no passage out to where the fat lady and the rest of the castle resides on the original.
It was exactly as he remembered it.
The table that he, Ron, and Hermione had all but claimed as theirs exclusively sat against a slightly rounded wall, complete with their favorite chairs. Next to it a small distance along the wall was a large iron-grated fireplace, within which was a roaring, crackling fire.
In front of the fireplace was a small wooden coffee table dressed with a red and gold runner, situated in front of a well-worn red and gold plush sofa. It had an arched shape to the top of the back cushions, and wooden feet carved as that of a lion that pressed gently into the soft rug of the same colors set on the room's stone floor.
Harry took a moment to fondly remember dropping himself heavily onto that couch so many times, along with Ron and Hermione, and a few times even Ginny. It was their go-to spot when the time came for them to break from their studies. It was almost a ritual of their friendship to sit comfortably, talk by the fire, and waste away the final hour or two of an evening before heading up to their dormitories. Telling stories, sharing all the mundane and intimate details of their days and lives both at and away from the castle.
In a way, that couch was foundational to their friendship, and the crushing sense of longing for a time so innocent and recent was nearly overpowering to him.
If he was to spend eternity anywhere, he teared up a bit as he thought, he could certainly do worse.
Looking on, he faltered as he noticed something leaning against the wall, near the fireplace and on the far side of his couch, was-
He blinked stupidly for a moment, not believing his eyes, he must be imagining it...
He squinted hard, shook his head, and felt his heart start racing and his breath shudder before he opened his eyes once more.
It couldn't be… Could it?
"Sirius?" He whispered hoarsely, has voice nearly failing him.