Falling Down

FALLING DOWN

1981

Greta Jones later confided to a girlfriend of hers that Sirius Black made love to her eight times the month before he was forced to help the Order of the Phoenix, prior to James and Lily's murder at the hands of [one Tom Riddle a.k.a.] Voldemort. The last time that they would meet and love each other was in July 1981. Greta said that his love seemed urgent and abandoned. They explored new things. She would have been shocked if not for his schoolboyish wonder at each fresh discovery.

"I knew that," said Sirius Black.

Greta Jones studied in Hogwarts with Sirius, although she was two years junior than him. Nonetheless, both of them got to meet each other and begin their partnership months before his godson Harry Potter was born. She was a bit tall as Sirius except that she loved wearing high-heel shoes. Her hair was straight, slightly brownish as Lily's except that her face was a bit like his cousin Narcissa.

Sirius would always caress her and ruff her long, gorgeous blond hair each time before going to bed. When she went to bed, he would light a cigar and spend at least fifteen minutes smoking, giving him some thought-in-process before going to sleep.

As the morning drew near, they lay together on the narrow bed. Outside were Muggle vehicles, cars, buses and event motorcycles - Sirius' favorite Muggle vehicle. They always spent a night together each month in the Leaky Cauldron in a room overlooking the Muggle motorway down south. The vehicles out there were beads of dew on tungsten cobwebs, glittering under an exhausted moon. The scent of Sirius Black's cigarette slid lazy coils about the room.

"It's your last night among the living, Sirius," chided Greta Jones.

Jones' joke turned into reality. After the Potters were murdered, Black was incarcerated without trial in Azkaban. Staying for twelve years (in Azkaban) was painful for him as he had to endure the Dementors walking around the prison cells, sucking the happiness out of the prisoners. There, he spent most of his time in a brooding mood while planning to escape and enact revenge on his friend turned traitor Peter Pettigrew.

He had the chance.

1996

And so Sirius Black did elude the capture of Dementors and the Ministry officials by going into hiding. He had won back the trust of his friends--the inner circle of the Order--Albus Dumbledore, the Weasley family, his best friend Remus Lupin and finally, his godson Harry Potter. He had to be put in house arrest, fearing capture on sight by certain members of the Ministry, who believed that he was a convicted criminal.

But fate dealt a cruel blow to Black as well as his friends.

Few years ago, Sybill Trelawney, a Seer, had predicted that whoever got up first in a dinner with thirteen people shall die. Fate and Death indeed spoke the true words clearly. He was destined to suffer a cruel stroke of fate.

"I dare not, Headmaster! If I join the table, we shall be thirteen! Nothing could be more than unlucky! Never forget that when thirteen dine together, the first to rise will be the first to die!"

"We'll have to risk it, Sybill," said Professor McGonagall impatiently, "Do sit down. The turkey's getting stone cold."

Professor Trelawney hesitated, then lowered herself into the empty chair, eyes shut and mouth clenched tight, as though expecting a thunderbolt to hit the table. Professor McGonagall poked a large spoon into the nearest tureen.] This part is not adding anything to the story. This is just an excerpt from the book and does not fill in the gaps. You can get rid of it to have a better flow.

This was true though, because during dinner back at Grimmauld Place, before the summer term of Hogwarts started, Sirius was the first to get up. There were thirteen people dining during the night Harry (Potter) arrived at the Order's headquarters.

"He's not your son," said Sirius quietly.

"He's as good as," said Mrs. Weasley fiercely. "Who else has he got?"

"He's got me!"

"Yes," said Mrs. Weasley, her lip curling, "the thing is, it's been rather difficult for you to look after him while you've been locked up in Azkaban, hasn't it?"

Sirius started to rise from his chair.

"Molly, you're not the person at this table who cares about Harry," said Lupin sharply. "Sirius, sit down."

Mrs. Weasley's lower lip was trembling. Sirius sank slowly back to his chair, his face white.

The House of Black's remaining elf, one Kreacher betrayed his master by duping Harry Potter that he was being tortured in the Department of Mysteries by Voldemort himself. Indeed, that was a part of the plan of Voldemort to lure Potter into the open and to force him to acquire the 'Prophecy' that was made about him and Potter. And so, the battle erupted between the Order, the members of the group Dumbledore's Army as well as Voldemort's Death Eaters. The battle was bloody furious, with each wizard cursing the other with varied spells and hexes.

The place that was the center stage of the battle was a big room that looked like an opera hall. It was dimly lit, rectangular in shape, with the center forming a great stone pit twenty feet deep. The structure was more of an amphitheatre, like the Wizengamot courtroom. There was a raised stone dais in the middle of the room. It was actually an archway; ancient, cracked and crumbling. A black tattered curtain hung on top of the archway unsupported by any wall. The curtain gave out a cold radiance in the air as it fluttered faintly, as if someone had touched it.

Earlier, before the Death Eaters were there, Harry had felt a slight temptation of stepping beyond the veil. He had felt that someone was on the other side of the veil. But when he moved closer to the dais, he saw no one, absolutely nothing on the other side.

The people around the veil battled furiously. And Sirius Black finally faced his enemy; his crazed cousin Bellatrix Lestrange. With the lure of great rewards by Voldemort, Bellatrix became a monster - willing to kill the innocents for the sake of the Pureblood glory. The fear of failure had driven her to the edge of madness. Sirius ducked Bellatrix's jet of red light and was laughing maniacally at her, as to elicit her feelings of being provoked.

"Come on, you can do better than that!" he yelled, his voice echoing the entire room.

However, that was short-lived. He was hit by a second jet of red flame projectile that emitted from his cousin's wand. It hit directly on his chest. It hit him squarely in the chest. But he did not stop laughing except for a brief moment of shock. He fell back into the black veil in a smooth curved body arc. As he fell, the last thing he could hear was the loud yell of victory by the crazed Bellatrix and then a much louder and horrific scream by his godson Harry.

"SIRIUS!" Harry yelled, "SIRIUS!"

Sirius was stunned. He tried to yell back at Harry but his words were drowned by the black vortex that surrounded him when he fell into the veil. He tried to swim back to the opening but some invisible force pulled him back deeper into the vortex. The last thing he saw from the opening before being sucked deeper into the core was the image of Harry sprinting towards the dais and his friend Remus grabbing him to hold him back. He cursed himself.

He felt himself moving forward into the material space surrounding him but deeper, further amongst the onion layers of reality. The surroundings froze to a pallid diagram and then melted. High above him, he could see some flickering effect of his back producing a downdraft. This effect was just as if he was a rocket traveling at high speed. The air around him was cold as chloroform that raised a dust of memory from the place, an ancient breath of gin and roses, motor oil and girls, pleasingly stale and jaded. He could see the streets that vanished centuries ago, forgotten awnings, misplaced faces blurred together in the jet streams of his passing.

And the voices the unending swells of murmur: Two sons' dead now, I can bear it; Hey, Mike how about this weather the Lord giveth and the way she acts you would think she owned this place it isn't right, a man ruined like that oh Louise, Louise... on and on.

"Interesting," said Sirius Black and traveled on into the shifting half-remembered City of the Dead.

The translucent buildings flickered between fresh-built and longed-ruined versions of themselves. The buildings became the ruined-type in a glittering moment, the structures that had preceded them, that had been raised after they themselves were in dust.

Crossing the paved-over parklands ducking in and out of the vaporous city that surrounded them, they too changed their appearance by the second, one instant shuffling ancients and then next careening children. Grimly, the invisible magical titan behind that propelled Sirius fixed its concentration on that single vanished place, time and face he wished to find within the nebulous mosaic of the missing. Brilliant!

Down there, there was a building that looked like an eighteenth century clubhouse. The Copernicus Club on Lower Furnace Street (as the street name shown on the plaque on the corner shop). It was a meeting place for the London's small complement of wizards ... Edgar Bones, Gideon Prewett, Armando Dippet, Stuart Potter, Phinneas Nigellus and Eugenia Black, his own mother and finally two mysterious figures: James and Lily Potter.

The club and its surroundings were to the adventurer's point of view, composed of nothing other than an aggregate of memory notoriously unreliable and unsafe footing. Something formed in his mind. It told him not to move against the propelling direction. He understood that. Subduing rational instinct, he steered himself at the façade of the establishment that melted to a lurid steam before him, passing through the other wall.

He crossed thick carpeting that seethed with arabesque amongst the gilt fittings glinting in the sumptuous umber of the lobby. All about him were the dead, the echoes of their conversation, the ice chiming in the ethereal glasses. Up ahead, Edgar Bones and Gideon Prewett were trading confidences.

Sirius Black wondered, gliding through the lobby wall into the club's main lounge beyond. If all he saw about him were impressions, after images left an astral plane as silvery, sensitive like photographic plates. Was the hereafter just a dumb archive, filled with flickering cinematographic spectres? Was it a worn album rustling with the faces of the loved, the mourned, and the gone forever?

They were waiting for him in the lounge. You need to work on the transition here. It seems abrupt after Sirius' musing. May be: He saw them waiting for him in the lounge as he glided inside, or something similar to that effect?

Alphard Black, in evidently sparkling form was holding forth concerning the effects of increased gravity upon domestic fowl. His audience, Eugenia Black and Stuart Potter stood arm in arm, both listening in rapt attention, although of the pair it was the woman that seemed most enthralled. She seemed to catch her breath, and color at the taller potion-scientist's every gesture.

Sirius understood with sudden certainty that Eugenia had been his mother and had been talking all the time to her brother, Alphard. His friend, Stuart Potter was more handsome and assured, had clearly stolen the attention of his best friend's little sister.

Although Sirius Black's feelings for his mother were ambiguous, his mother's beauty at the young age all but stopped the man's thunderous heart. He had to touch his mother for the first time in twenty years. They had touched so seldom. He stepped with trepidation on the marble floor of the club. The floor beneath his heel, though given to uneasy shifts like sphagnum moss, seemed safe. He later reasoned that this action, much like the incautious dipping of a toe in shark-swarmed currents must have been the stimulus that attracted them. They came down through the ceiling like a fall of howling, rattling crematorium ash. If the dead were only lingering psychic after images, mere astral photograph-impressions like his Mother, nodding still and hanging on his Uncle's every word, what were these?

They screamed and yammered as they rushed about him, tearing him with their brittle claws, their thoughts a monstrous flood of anger and resentment: did me in, the bitches, never got an even break...

He held his wand tightly in his hands.

At any moment, they might be attacking, sucking the life out of him...

The shots or spells would have had more effect on smoke. Cursing, Sirius kicked and swung at the marauding shades fighting his way out by swimming all the way towards the single bright spot ahead, with his legs propelling him as far as he could. Could these wraiths be photo echoes like the others, only more degraded, faded with the sense of them bleached out like the old Daguerro-type prints, leaving only noise and incoherence?

He kept gliding towards the white spot without giving himself second thoughts of glancing at the back of him. As he moved forward, through the gibbering and gnashing horrors that foamed about it and kept pace with it like some necrotic hornet-cloud, the lounge of the Copernicus Club started to recede into the shimmering montage of bygone moments in his wake. He could briefly see the faces of his mother and his Uncle Alphard.

"Goodbye, Mum," said Sirius Black.

"Goodbye Uncle Alphard."

As he glided closer to the shorelines of the quick and warm, the charnel horrors in his slipstream set up a frustrated shriek of rage. Their reaching fossil fingers still raked at his ragged robes and his hair. Ignoring a protesting shudder from the back and his legs, Sirius Black propelled himself harder than and as fast as his legs could carry him.

The clatter noise and sheer clairaudient stench of his assailants fell away behind him, while all about him in a framework made from phosphorescent wire and filament were visible just above him. Up ahead, beyond the bright white spot, the blueprint skeleton world became apparent. He saw a small marble square up ahead, somewhere in the middle of a huge megalopolis. As he was about to reach the spot, there was a sound of metallic screeching.

A big white light flashed in front of his eyes. The last thing he did before he fell unconscious was shielding his own face from the flash with both of his hands.

He was where he stood; a square in the middle of town. He groaned in pain for a moment before he brought himself up. He glanced around the new surroundings. Indeed he was somewhere within the huge megalopolis. A big white signboard was written on his right. Next to it was a bench, like the ones people would sit in a park. The big signboard there had the words: MOBIL CITY. The long dawn-gilt Mobil streets seemed sharper when he arrived. He walked around towards a big road up ahead.

He tried to walk a few steps but then he collapsed down to the face of the earth. He was off-balanced for a moment, yet to recover from the nausea he had when the white light enveloped him. He felt a bruising concrete effect almost reassuring, under his grazed forearms. Behind him were a few pieces of firewood cackling. A man nearby helped him to stand up.

"Are you alright?" A middle-age man wearing a blue-collar shirt with a cap helped him up.

"Where am I? What is this place? Is this London?" Sirius asked the man as he tried to regain his senses. He rubbed both of his eyes to as his vision was blurred.

The man twitched his lower lips and replied immediately, "This is Mobil City."

"Mobil City? I've never heard of this place," he remarked.

Before the man could say another word or more, nausea welled up from the pit of his stomach as the entire place suddenly transformed into a whirling spiral of violent colors and noise. He felt himself falling forwards into another vortex. For a few fleeting seconds, he could glimpse the image of the city that he just arrived, but did not know of its surroundings. He also glimpsed the image of the man as he too rode this terrifying whirlwind. He tried to say something to Sirius but again, his words were lost in gushing wind. Then he was lost to the chaos of the maelstrom and he vanished from Sirius' sight.

For what seemed like eternity, Sirius spun and fell through a rainbow of color and sound. Only gradually, he became aware that the nightmare was about to come to an end when the noise abated and the swirling colors began to fade. Then, with a jolt, he found himself lying awake in a modern location.

The new place where Sirius laid now had a shiny marble floor. Behind him and ahead were stone benches, man-made ones. Also, there was a pair of escalators and staircases from both the directions. To his left and right there was nothing except a long dark tunnel stretching from an unknown starting to another unknown ending corridor. [on both left and right sides.] You have already told the readers about the left and right. These corridors were sealed in a thick sheet of glass with four pairs of automated sliding doors on each side. In addition, there were some cameras on the ceiling - some Muggle technology that Harry had described to him during his trip to the Ministry's headquarters via the underground subway station.

The subterranean chamber was quite cold as there were air-conditioning machines hidden on top of the chamber's ceiling. The humming sounds of those machines generated the only ambience within the chamber itself. Still lying on the floor, Sirius turned his head at left and saw a big plaque inscribed onto the wall:

MOBIL SUBWAY STATION

"Mobil Subway Station?" he asked himself, and heard his voice echo around the chamber. Suddenly he heard a very loud vibrating sound from the tunnel on his left. At first, it seemed like a sound of a herd of cows running through the tunnel. He got up, still groaning in pain, from where he laid and inched closer towards the sealed glass doorway.

It turned out to be a subway train with blazing headlights speeding past the tunnel, speeding past Sirius where he stood. And then, there was total silence. But the train did not stop at this point. Did the train deliberately ignore him, the mysterious passenger, and the stranger of an unknown land? Then thought of seeing a subway train speeding past him prompted him to ask himself whether he was still somewhere in London. With a curiously low voice, he asked himself, "Where am I really?"

He really wanted an answer. He thought of finding the blue-collared man, seeking answers to the questions formed in his mind. But then, something made him not to seek the blue-collared man first. He walked around the subterranean chamber, trying to get familiar with the room. He found nothing more than just washrooms, phone booths and stone benches for passengers awaiting their trains. Satisfying his curiosity, he tried asking the same question again, "What place is it?"

"We can answer that one, Sirius," that was the familiar sound of a female voice. Sirius knew that voice but could not recall its' identity. [of the female's voice.] Repetitive. That was strange though as there was no one that answered his question when he raised it the first time. He turned around and gasped in surprise.

"Good God. Lily ... Prongs! You're alive?" Sirius asked with a surprised look.

Standing behind Sirius were his best friends, Lily and James Potter, Harry's parents. Lily's face was still radiating in a goodly aura with her silky straight red hair and the twinkling pair of emerald eyes - the same eyes that Harry inherited from her. James stood next to Lily, smiling at him and Lily was doing the same as well, smiling at him. Their faces hadn't changed, although it had been almost fifteen years since they were murdered by Voldemort. They were dressed in trench coats; Lily's was brown in color while James' was pure black.

"I can't believe it, Padfoot; it's good to see you again!" James exclaimed as he moved closer to Sirius and embraced him for quite a long moment. Then, Sirius embraced Lily as a sign of respect. Lily felt a bit disgusted by Sirius' appearance for he was still wearing ragged, dirty robes.

"You look dirty, Sirius. Did you go fighting the bad guys again?" Lily asked Sirius, with a giggling look on her face.

"Oh, well, yes I did. I was helping Harry and his friends against the Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries and then-"

Before Sirius could continue, James interjected, "How did you end up here anyway?"

Sirius sighed for a moment with a heavy expression on his face, "I got hit by a stunning spell and fell into the mysterious black veil that took me here, blah ... blah ... blah," he chuckled.

"Come on, Padfoot, be serious for a moment. You've got to tell us some things. Only then we might be able to help you out by filling the gaps of the story. Please, Padfoot, we did work as Unspeakables for a brief moment before being reassigned to normal Auror duty. We used to move in and out of the Department of Mysteries for a while, there are some things that you don't really know," James persuaded Sirius. Lily, looking at both men nodded in agreement with James.

"We knew that you were helping Harry and his friends in fighting the Death Eaters. We saw the whole thing from above, I mean way above this chamber," Lily chuckled.

"But I need to know first, where am I really?" Sirius asked, seeing the serious concentration on both of his friends' faces.

Lily wanted to speak but she was hesitant for a moment. "You are now at...," she paused for a moment looking back and forth at both men before repeating her answer, "You're at Mobil Station."

"I know that, but that doesn't make sense. I don't see anyplace in this world that has such kind of ridiculous name called Mobil Station. Unless if you count out the petrol station that has the same name as this subway station. One moment before here, I was at some place they call it as Mobil City," Sirius shot back furiously and asked again, "For the last time, Prongs, Lily, where am I really?"

"If I tell you the truth, will you tell us how did you end up here?" James asked.

"You've got to tell us, Sirius," Lily finished.

Sirius gave a bigger sigh, lowered his head in defeat and twitched his lower lips, replying a single answer, "Alright, I'll tell you. You tell me first, James."

James twisted his head for a moment, trying to study his friend's older and dirtier face. Sirius still hung his head in some kind of sorrow and James replied, "As Lily said, you're in Mobil Station. But the actual fact is...," James paused.

"What?"

"You're in Limbo," that was James' short, brief and direct answer as he finished his sentence.

Still unconvinced, Sirius turned to Lily to ask for her explanation. Lily frowned with a sad look on her face.

James consoled her and added an explanation to his answer, "You see Sirius, Limbo is the middle point between the mortal world and the eternal world that is either Heaven or Hell. You see those tunnels? There are trains that take people one-way to either Heaven or Hell, depending on how you do in the mortal world. I mean deeds."

"Oh, no," Sirius shook his head and then asked Lily again, "You mean, I'm dead already? But I'm still in flesh and blood. I just fell into the veil, visited the City of the Dead before ending up here. Is it some sort of alternate universe or reality?"

"No, Sirius. You've just fell into the Veil of Limbo," Lily replied.

"The Veil of what?" Sirius asked with a startled moment on his face.

"The Veil of Limbo. It's that place in the Department that has the stone archway in the middle. A place where criminals were sent to be banished. In old times, before Azkaban was well up, criminals that were convicted for serious crimes after proven guilty were banished here and died after entering. Since the use of Avada Kedavra curse has been classified as an Unforgivable Curse, wizards were looking for other ways to execute criminals. This was a primitive example; the veil has its own secrets as if it has a mind of its own. No one from the mortal realm knows what actually lies beyond the veil. There are some with sharpened instincts, like Harry, who know that there's another reality like this here. But for your information, Sirius, here's the middle point of either Heaven or Hell," Lily explained.

"But I'm alive here!" Sirius exclaimed.

"We all are, Padfoot. But in fact, in the mortal world, people classify us as dead already. Let me ask you this. Do you see any markings on your chest? Do you see any injury scars on your body? And lastly, do you feel your stomach grumbling for food, are you hungry?"

Sirius was slightly puzzled by James asking numerous questions at once. But the genuine convincing look from James made him pause for a moment. He unbuttoned the upper part of his robe and saw all the marks that he (ever) had during his incarceration were gone without a trace. The injury scars that he had during the past years were gone; apparently healed rapidly by itself.

Sirius gasped in shock over this discovery. He felt his stomach full, as if he had just finished his meal, even though he hadn't eaten anything for more than one day.

"How do you know everything about this, Prongs?" Sirius asked with genuine curiosity.

"Well, the big man up there knows everything. His name's Dickens. Greg Dickens," James replied cheerfully, pointing one of his fingers above the ceiling.

"Don't tell me it's God behind everything. You're all kidding me, right?" Sirius joked.

"He is God. But recently, he fancied himself by calling himself Greg or Mister Dickens," Lily replied.

James looked at Lily for a moment before adding, "In fact he knew that you would end up here. He took the liberty of letting us see you here and greet you."

"Damn that bitch!" Sirius roared.

"You mean your cousin Bellatrix?" James asked.

"Yes, Prongs! That bitch sent me here with the Stunning Spell! I have to go back! Harry needs me. I'm the only one he has right now. He's anxious to see me with him. I have to go back! Where's the exit? I can't waste anymore time here, even if I am excited to see you two." Sirius was furious; he walked briskly around the whole place again, placing his hands on the metallic walls, frantically looking for an exit.

But James and Lily remained where they stood.

James shook his head in disappointment and told Sirius, "You can't leave, Padfoot. No one leaves here. That includes you too, Sirius. For this case, I am afraid there's no turning back. This here is the end of the line."

"WHAT! That's impossible! There's always an exit in a building, or even a house, right? Harry would be sad to see me gone. He has lost both of you already. We're just adding more to his misery including the Dursleys, Lily," Sirius exclaimed.

Lily stood there like a frozen statue. It was like she already had an answer to his problems and doubts.

"Not exactly true, Sirius," Lily admitted, sighing in defeat. "From here, we can't directly intervene him. But there's one way we can help him," she said with a smirk on her face.

"What would that be?"

"As Lily said, we can't intervene. But, from here we can influence the outcome, the fate. But we need you to help shape the coming of his fate. Harry's destiny is in a more or less precarious position and we can do it [do what exactly?] to make it right," commented James.

"Prongs, is this some kind of philosophy, mystery or something else?" Sirius asked James.

"Well, it's something mysterious that only the big man knows the answer to. As for the meantime, you need to explain the situation, Harry. This is an exception where you have to tell Harry about this situation either in dreams or through a messenger. It's up to you to decide. But, it's not the right time now as we got to take you up for judgment," James explained further before trying to cheer him up again, "After that, it's good old times. We can prank and party as long as we like here until we're finally bored!"

"Don't do that in front of me, James Stuart Potter," said Lily sarcastically.

"I'm kidding, that's all, dear!" joked James.

Another train from the tunnel to Sirius' left whizzed past him. A gush of wind blew above him; his hair ruffed by an invisible stroke. Sirius glanced around the room once again. After being explained by the Potters, Sirius was still doubtful over certain matters. He wanted to clear something off in the air by either repeating what both of them said or ask them the same questions over and over again.

"So, I'm physically dead," Sirius declared to himself.

"Yes," Lily nodded to him.

"I fell into the Veil of Limbo with no way back."

"There's no way back. There's nothing you can do," remarked James.

Sirius sighed again in defeat. He had nowhere to go. He could not go back to his home, Grimmauld Place. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to ease the strain within his eye and nose muscles. He sobbed his nose and asked James again, "I can't help him now. But-"

"But what, Sirius?" James asked.

"I want someone to avenge me. Somebody do something. Somebody kill that bitch and take that stone off my shoe!" Sirius spoke furiously and quite loudly, with one of his hand clenching into a shape of a fist that resembled an apple.

"You'll get to see it. Somebody will act on your behalf. You will get the chance," James consoled his best friend.

"What about Harry? We can't intervene on his behalf or help him. That's what I know. What can we do?" Sirius frowned for a moment before Lily gave a straight and quick reply.

"Not directly. We can influence the outcome. Like the coming final fight," said Lily.

"Final fight?" Sirius asked Lily.

"We'll talk about that later," James interrupted. He walked towards Lily and held her hand, inviting Sirius by patting on his shoulder with his other hand, "We can help to explain your situation to Harry in a moment. For the meantime, welcome to paradise Padfoot."

"A world where there's absolutely no death, no end and no limits," added Lily cheerfully.

"First things, first, Padfoot. We'll take you to see the boss first. Then we can do whatever we want all day long. We've been here for just a few minutes already. As a matter of fact, it's been a few months in the mortal world. By the end of the day here, it would be close to a year down on earth," James explained.

Sirius scratched his head, his teeth gritting in confusion, "I don't know that much about this timescale mumbo jumbo stuff, James. But well, what are we waiting for. The sooner things are sorted here, the faster I can explain things to Harry."

James and Lily nodded in agreement. Both of them placed one of their hands on to their best friend's back and James ushered him upstairs, "It's time to go."

"I'm ready."

Three days later

Greta Jones was sitting on a tap counter in the Leaky Cauldron, enjoying her drink while reading the Daily Prophet with stern and hard edged calmness. She ignored the increasing buzz of chatter of the customers behind the bar, sitting among the tables

In a brief statement on Friday night, Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge confirmed that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has returned to the country and is once more active...

The middle half of the paragraph read:

Details of the events that led to the Ministry turnaround are still hazy, though it is believed that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and his selected band of followers (known as Death Eaters) gained entry to the Ministry of Magic itself on Thursday evening...

That's something old, she thought because the article had been floating around the wizarding community for the last three days. But then a new article with a big letterhead drew her attention and again, she focused her attention towards the news article.

RUNAWAY CRIMINAL SIRIUS BLACK PRESUMED DEAD

In a surprising move by the Magical Law Enforcement Division, it was announced that convicted escapee Sirius Black was presumed dead following a massive fight between the members of the Auror enforcement and Voldemort's followers, the Death Eaters, last Thursday night in the Department of Mysteries.

Nobody was found but certain sources quoted that Black fell into a mystical black veil in one of the rooms within the halls of the Department of Mysteries. Black, the only known prisoner to escape the clutches of the Dementors of Azkaban a few years ago had been hiding in an unknown location. Black first gained notoriety in the wizarding community when he was believed and convicted without trial for the murder of twelve Muggles in one night on November 3 1981, shortly after He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's first war campaign ended with his defeat and his mysterious disappearance from Britain.

However, majority of the wizarding populace still believe that Black was innocent, and framed by certain members of the Death Eaters' inner circle. The sudden appearance of Black in the Department of Mysteries on Thursday night helped the Aurors in capturing many Death Eaters, who are now in detention and awaiting trial, confirms Chief Wizengamot and Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore. In other related news...

Greta dropped the paper on the table and leaned back on her seat, slightly frowning from the news.

"Rest in peace, Sirius Black," she said.

FIN