Three pairs of eyes looked him up and down, judging him for what must have been vastly different reasons. Magdalena, for everything that had happened in Transylvania, for erasing her memories, and if she knew he killed the old Muggle, most likely for that as well. Dumbledore, probably for travelling across countries once again after promising not to, but by his look when he handed him the letter, for rummaging through a dead witch's belongings.

And madam Rona, whom he was actually thankful to, as she had fed him better than he had eaten in a very long time, for bringing her in all of this mess. She looked from Dumbledore to Magdalena with disappointment and vexation in her eyes, but to Sirius, it looked like she was judging them more than himself.

Young Daniela was of no concern anymore, he had learnt, in that tiny compartment room, as Dumbledore had done enough to erase the memories of Sirius Black that the young witch had, or at least mask them enough that the wizard she had given her aunt's belongings to could have been anyone.

"Hedda Ablai indeed had met Voldemort when he was still known as Tom Riddle, but as far as I have researched, there was nothing of note. He wanted to learn from her, but she had refused to take apprentices by then. Would that be correct to your memories of her, Rona?"

Madam Rona nodded, waving her hand dismissively.

"Probably from the Muggle she married - married women don't take apprentices, not young lads. Not when your man's a Muggle and the young lad's-a strapping wizard, people would talk even if nothing would happen."

Sirius had not paid much attention to either of the two wizards, so eager to dismiss any connection between Tom Riddle and Hedda Ablai. And by the vacant look in Magdalena's eyes, surely neither was she. He threw her a furtive look, trying to catch her attention and see what she was thinking of the situation, but she seemed oddly concerned by how the sugar was dissolving in her tea.

"Son." Oddly surprised by being called that way, Sirius only paid attention to Madam Rona when she addressed him the third time - or rather, when she knocked against the wooden table. "What's your plans now? Lena's s'pposed to be going to Hogsmeade and keep'n eye on Karkaroff. You?"

"I'll lay low." he confidently lied, watching as the old witch shook her head, huffing as if she were exhausted.

"That's no life, that. It's no life, son. It's no life." she repeated to herself. "You're saying Pettigrew's alive, then? All this time?" Sirius nodded, and she rubbed at her face, trying to think of something, before turning to Dumbledore. "People'll believe Harry Potter, won't they?"

"I'm afraid that Harry's word, the word of all the people involved that have seen Peter Pettigrew would not hold in a Ministry court, Rona." Dumbledore stated "You've seen wizards with tighter cases locked in Azkaban."

When Dumbledore had left, Sirius realised that Magdalena had not told him that she would be rid of him, and he wondered why. When they reached her house, he wondered if it would be the last time he would see it. When he entered her living room, he wondered whether it had smelt all along of orange blossom and old parchment. When, hours later, she brought a wide bowl filled with a transparent liquid and announced that she had finished the potion, he wondered if it would truly be the last time she would do him a favour, before he would be on the run again.

He took out a picture of Hedda Ablai from his pocket, one he saved from the trunk. She was looking to the side, her nose, her eyes and hair resembling that of an Egyptian pharaoh, locked in time, bound to look for something she could never find. Sirius hoped, however, that she could help him find something. Anything that would not be a dead end. He slowly put the black-and-white picture in the bowl, and Magdalena lit the candle above it, before putting a white veil around his head, moving his hair out of his face. As she did so, he grasped at her wrists.

"You said you're not good at this. If I don't return-"

"You will." she said, and finished covering his head, before turning his head slowly above the bowl. "You will die young, but not because of me."

"I haven't been young in many years." were his final words, before he focused his entire attention to the picture of Hedda.

She had been moving her head to the side, as if to look at something in the distance, but slowly, her attention focused on him and he no longer was looking at her profile, but was looking directly at her grey eyes. The surroundings around her grew and expanded in size until he was fully engulfed by the photograph and found himself sitting at a black-and-white table topped with black-and-white food, among black-and-white witches and wizards, and sitting right across from the witch he had read so much of the correspondence of.

"Phineas?" Hedda's composed, low voice startled him, especially as he thought it would come out as a loud shriek, similar to Bertha's. She only seemed confused by his presence, and he wondered if she was referring to Phineas Nigellus, his great-great-grandfather.

"Sirius." he corrected her, deciding not to share his family name.

"Oh."

She appeared oddly disappointed for a moment, before regaining her composure.

"Tea? There's food as well. Not that you'll ever be thirsty or hungry here, but things still taste nice. Have some caviar." She seemed to fully acknowledge either the idea that she was dead, or that she was stuck in a picture, and waved to the full table of black-and-white food in between them. Sirius couldn't help but notice that she spoke English with a thick accent, rolling her r's to their fullest and pushing her th's all the way to the tips of her teeth. Like Magdalena, but less concerned about sounding fluent. "What tea do you like? I refuse to serve it like the British have it, I will warn you. Chamomile?"

"You sound like a friend of mine." he accepted her offer of tea, and watched the woman pour him a light grey tea from an enormous egg-shaped contraption into a dainty ceramic cup.

"And you look like a former friend of mine."

Sirius paused as he wondered if she was still referring to Phineas Nigellus, and took a sip of the tea. She was correct - he was not thirsty, but the warmth of the tea was indeed enjoyable. The food however, in its many shades of grey, did not look appetising in the slightest. He took a moment to examine the hand with which she held her own cup, peeking from a dark cape. She wore a thin wedding band on her ring finger, and a watch, too large for her wrist, was slowly sliding back on her forearm. It didn't tick nor move, stuck on a time of the significance of which he was unaware of.

"Where are we?" he finally asked.

"Hmm… I think the best thing to describe it would be limbo. As if you were… hm, how to put it…"

"Dead. I know, but I am afraid I am not. I've used this ritual-"

"Don't explain my own inventions to me, young man." Hedda's voice raised slightly as she spoke, and Sirius became very aware that she indeed had been a professor. For a moment he thought he was facing McGonagall in her office, and his back straightened accordingly. "I know what you have used. My cousin would use this countless times to ask me for advice after I died. It became second-nature to her. I was looking forward to seeing another face, after all these years…"

She leaned in and pressed her chin against the back of her hand, and Sirius wondered if in her eyes, she imagined him to be his ancestor. Between Phineas Nigellus Black and Fabian Bones, Sirius wondered if in the eyes of anyone, he was ever to be thought of as his own person.

At least in Harry's eyes, he was his one and only godfather. He was Sirius Black, his own relic of a man, but at least Harry appreciated him for who he was.

"I talked to someone else this way, who recently died. She-" Sirius did not continue, as he saw Hedda's face scrunched up, and figured she knew exactly what he talked about. Indeed, she apologised, and commented about how awful it is when that happens. "What happens if you do this ritual with the picture of someone who is alive?"

"Depends. You're already in the land of the living, love, if they are too, then what more do you want?"

"I want to find where he's hiding. It's a long story, however, and I'm not sure I have the time."

"If your guide did this potion correctly, we have all the time in the world. Come on, entertain this dead old woman."

So for the second time in a day, Sirius explained everything. About the war, Peter Pettigrew, Azkaban, James, Lily, Voldemort… and Harry. How he was doing all of this for him - if he could remove Voldemort, that kid would never have to worry about anything in his entire life. But if he could find Peter Pettigrew as well-

"This Harry Potter then, your godson, he survived the Killing Curse?" Hedda asked incredulously, leaning in over the table.

"That's what happened. I saw him first, in the half-demolished house. Lily and James, both were dead, dead as can be, white-faced, eyes open, that damned look of horror on their faces - but Harry was only bothered by the fact that he was cold and his mum wasn't there anymore… and he just had that scar. A scar that hasn't hurt him for years and years, apart from when he saw Voldemort some three years ago. And, well, last summer. But like I said-..." he sighed heavily, and rubbed at his beard as if trying to solve the puzzle right as they spoke. "Voldemort did not die either. And I know he's there, somewhere- Somehow, he just did not die.

Which brings me, madam, to yourself." Sirius was unsure how to address her, but figured that was good enough. "I hope you'll forgive me for opening your trunk - well, your husband did the honours."

"Naturally. He was the only one that could - or rather, any Muggle, as long as they are in no way coerced by magic." she snickered, leaning back proud of herself. "I've been dead for years, Sirius, I am no longer bothered by its contents. Please, proceed."

"Well, I found that among others, you have been in correspondence with Voldemort, when he was still known by the name of Tom Riddle."

Sirius hoped that would get a reaction off of her, however Hedda simply cocked a brow, appearing confused. He waited for a minute or so, before pulling the letter and handing it off to her. As she read throughout it, Sirius watched her eyebrows raise, and she slapped the table, seemingly bothering the other black-and-white subjects of the extended photograph.

"This fellow!"

"Indeed, him. Tom Riddle, also known as Lord Voldemort."

"I remember him. I refused him a meeting, but he managed to find me nevertheless… Asked me many questions that I was unsure how a young boy his age knew."

"Such as?"

"In essence, what that boy was looking for was-... well, guidance in quite a specific branch of alchemy. Apparently Nicholas Flamel, you are aware of him, right? Right. Well, he refused him, Dumbledore did the same, Mendel did the same, Tynkarov had been an unreachable hermit for about twenty years before Tom Riddle was even born, I was his last bet in Europe.

I felt bad for the kid, you know? He wasn't looking for a weapon. It was nothing like that." she assured Sirius, before continuing. "The field of souls, lad, the field of souls. Not the material, physical branches of alchemy. The metaphysical, the unseen, the primordial forces that govern these bodies we have. Something within that tugged at my own interests, and I told him - look, I won't mentor you, I won't help you, but I know a village with many specialists in alchemical rituals, where it's family tradition."

Sirius listened patiently, and waited for her to continue, before noticing she stopped speaking altogether.

"Well?"

"Well, that's it. Whether he went or not, that was his business."

"Do you think he went?"

Hedda pursed her lips, and nodded with complete assuredness, before telling him the name of a German village in the Black Forest, 'if it even is a village anymore'. On a napkin, she used a dark-coloured sauce to draw what looked like a map of Germany, before putting a dot off the side, and mentioning it's around that area. "Ask for a witch named Ida Kerkeff, and if you meet her, say you knew me. Since, well… you do know me, rummaging through my letters like that." she crumpled the letter in her hands, before throwing it back at his chest. "You still have my books?"

"I haven't gone through them all."

"Purple notebook, if it's still purple." she rattled off, as if she had only written it and placed it n the trunk yesterday. "Dated from 1901, January to November. All my travels to that village are there, along with all the theories related to my research into the alchemy of souls - soul binding, restoration, destruction, division… all of that. It retells the kind of rituals they perform there, how they are performed and for what purpose, but I warn you - do not attempt to perform them without having at least someone who has previously done them present. Be careful not to be absorbed in them, lad, I'm warning you. It's a most maddening field, and I've seen with my own two eyes not only one man go mad."

Sirius nodded ceremoniously, before realising slowly what kind of research she had done a century ago, and seemingly able to remember it fully.

"Have you done any studies in terms of how souls are affected by Dementors?"

She shook her head, however, and declared that unfortunately not only had she never had much interest in such matters, but that apparently Britain was the only country willing to inflict such vile and foul punishments on its prisoners, so having foreign wizards study the field was not of much interest.

"That was it, then?" a familiar voice asked from nothingness as he related his meeting with Hedda Ablai. Sirius continued to keep his eyes closed tightly, and nodded.

He was laying down on Magdalena's floor, his head spinning and temples pulsating painfully. Hedda guided him out of the ritual, however he found himself unable to control his body as he left the vision and fell back from the chair he was on, remaining onto the wooden floor. He must have stayed there for quite a long time, as he certainly did not remember his head pounding in such a manner, his body refusing to obey him in getting up. However, he was apparently there for less than a few minutes. From the side, he heard a ruffle of pages, and he wondered whether Magdalena was looking for the purple book. She must have found it, as the light in the room suddenly increased, to the point he could see orange through his eyelids. With great strain and difficulty, he managed to pull one arm over his eyes, and turned his head.

"Get me a drink, Lena, will you?" he asked in a hoarse voice, and listened to the sound of footsteps in and out.

"Shall I lift you?" her voice asked as the sound of footsteps reappeared next to his ears.

Sirius groggily shook his head however, simply opening his mouth. He did not want to know what would happen if he would move even a little bit from the position he was in, and feared that his headache would intensify even more. He felt a cold glass to his bottom lip, and slowly, what must have been vodka, by the sensation of both iciness and pure anger in a drink, started to go down his throat and fill his stomach in a way that the grey chamomile could never have filled him.

He pondered his next steps with the bottle of drink by his side, laid out on the wooden floor. He did not intend to get up until the morning, knowing that the moment he would raise himself off the floor, he would have to leave. The headache from the ritual slowly got replaced with fogginess as the drink warmed his muscles, but he managed to raise his arm from his eyes, and open his eyes. He asked Magdalena for the book, watching her read it, but she flatly refused.

"Are you afraid I'll kill myself, like your sweet Fabian did?" he asked, before snickering, amused at his own jab. He would leave, what did he care now for sparing her feelings? "I'm not that weak, bird. I'm not, look - look, I'll even- look."

What did he care for? He would leave, anyway. Why should he care? He would leave - go visit Harry, then take him to Germany. They would do this together. Him and Harry. Harry and him.

Sirius raised his wand, and still from the floor, flicked it towards Magdalena, uttering the words of the spell she had been asking for.

There, bird. Have your memories and fly free, away from me.

He put his wand back, and watched her reaction as the events must have been playing in her head for the first time. He was unsure what her reaction would be - after all, it wasn't as if you often get to see someone's reaction to something like that every day. To his surprise, however, her reaction of horror at his comment about Fabian got replaced by amusement as she chuckled, and he watched the hem of her robe grow as she approached him. He looked up as she bent down to her knees, her hair acting as a partition between his face and the rest of the world.

"That was it? That was what you were hiding from me? That was what made you-... just that?"

The entire situation was amusing, really, and she was right. And she chuckled.

That Sirius was gone.

The new Sirius Black, emerged from a vision which would guide his next steps, who had a purpose now, laughed a maniacal laughter at the expense of what he considered his old self, a laughter he hadn't laughed in a long, long time, one he thought of as his first laughter and also his last, and he grabbed at her face and laughed in it, and when she grinned back, he laughed more, and louder, and louder, until he had no breath left in him, until all he could do was gasp for air and another drink. Just until the morning, and then...