Behind the Veil

It seemed to take Sirius an age to fall: his body curved in a graceful arc as he sank backwards through the ragged veil hanging from the arch. Harry saw the look of mingled fear and surprise on his god-father's wasted, once-handsome face as he fell through the ancient doorway and disappeared behind the veil...

Sirius Black felt himself freefalling through an endless abyss that should not have existed behind the veil. He twisted around to have a good look, but all he saw was darkness dotted with colored lights...

Harry Potter lay on his bed in his dorm room, hangings drawn shut. In the twilight of his enclosure, he replayed the scene of his god-father's death again and again, feeling half his being jump through the veil after him each time. He could not shake the soul-racking question - what was beyond the veil? Where did it lead?

Petunia Dursley had no idea any of this had taken place and was bustling around her spotless kitchen a cheery Thursday morning. Well, the weather was cheery, the woman on the radio was cheery, the birds were certainly cheery but Petunia Dursley herself was far from cheer. In her spite, she shut the radio off, slammed the kitchen window to block out the infernal birds and shut the curtains to cut off the sunshine. The world was oblivious to her predicament, oblivious to the fact that in two days time, her freak nephew would return from his freakish school and would terrorize her family for a further three months. The very thought made her hands shake so much that she dropped the jar of jam she had in her hands, and could only stand speechless with anger as it shattered on her immaculate white tiles.

Sirius was falling through darkness, quite bored. The novelty of falling through darkness only lasts so long, and for him, it had worn off several days ago. At least, what Sirius speculated to be several days ago. There was no way to tell time in here and he had left his watch back 12 Grimmauld place.

"Kreacher better keep his filthy hands off it," he muttered to the darkness, which remained tactfully ambivalent on the matter. Sirius sighed and returned to pondering his fate. Would he freefall through darkness for eternity or would he eventually end up somewhere? If so, where would that somewhere be?

Petunia Dursley had cleaned up the spilt jam and broken glass shards and had scoured her tiles with several doses of industrial strength bleach. When the tiles were clean in her eyes, her thoughts returned to her cooking. She knew she had another jar of apricot jam in the pantry but...she eyed the pantry door warily. She didn't like the pantry, Petunia Dursley. She would have said it was haunted, if she had believed in such things as ghosts. All right, maybe ghosts existed (she glanced furtively around to see if any neighbors were nearby, eavesdropping on her thoughts), but they would certainly not haunt nice, normal people like the Dursleys. Nevertheless, the pantry somehow remained free of Petunia's tyrannical rule of the household and dared to have a mind of its own. Odd things happened in the pantry. Things appeared: lengths of string, piles of copper coins, sheaves of paper and once even a pointed, purple, hat. Vernon had searched it dozens of times of secret entrances or ventilation systems but to no avail. There was no logical explanation.

"Vandals," Vernon would grunt, "grubby vandals sneaking in through the windows of honest, hardworking citizens. That's all, Petunia." He had nailed the windows up that day, and later boarded them over.

"This'll sort it out, you'll see." He chortled before heading off to take Dudley to the movies. It hadn't, though, not really. Petunia was too afraid to mention it though. She glared daggers at the innocuous pantry door...

Sirius was still falling. He was almost beyond bored at this stage and had taken to singing to himself to pass time. He was halfway through 'God Rest Ye Merry Hippogriffs' when he saw a light directly below him. As he fell closer, he could make out some shelves and a boarded-up window.

...but there was nothing else for it, Petunia needed the jam. She steeled herself and approached the pantry door with the key. With a shaking hand, she put the key in the lock and turned it. The pantry door swung open.

Sirius was delighted that he had landed in small room that contained food. Falling through darkness tends to work up one's appetite and he liberally helped himself to what was on the shelves. The door was locked, and he'd lost his wand and one of his shoes somewhere in the abyss. He suspected he was in a muggle house, going by the contents of the room. Not to worry, he thought to himself, for he was never one to worry. He'd have some food and when the door opened (someone was bound to need to something sooner or later) he'd make a break for it. Sirius was halfway through a jar of jam when the lock clicked and the door swung open.

"Aaaaaaaargh!" Petunia shrieked, there was a man, a strange man, inside her pantry! To make matters worse, he was eating the apricot jam!

"Terribly sorry to bother you, ma'am," Sirius said, dropping the jar. "Good jam, though." And with that, he promptly turned into a dog and bounded past the muggle woman, who clung onto the doorframe, as if for dear life. Maybe he'd broken in, she thought wildly and looked up at the window. The window remained spitefully boarded up. Petunia fainted.

Two days later, Harry sat forlornly in the backseat of the Dursleys' car, half listening to Uncle Vernon harangue him about this or that.

"...especially after the terrible fright Petunia got just the other day. A burglar and his dog got into our pantry. Ate half the food in there. Even Petunia's good jam! Then tracked mud right through the house; scared poor Petunia half to death." Aunt Petunia whimpered. Uncle Vernon carried on. "Big, black dog. Massive. When will people learn to keep their beasts under control? If I were on the council, I'd have them all put to death and their owners fined for all..."

Quite far away, Draco Malfoy sat still as his mother's wand removed jinx after jinx that had been hurled upon him by the members of Dumbledore's Army.

"I'm telling you, Mother!" he whined, as soon his voice returned. "I was walking down the corridor on the train and they attacked me! No reason at all! It was all Potter's friends, just jealous because - " His rant was unexpectedly cut short as a shoe came out of nowhere and by chance happened to conk him on the head.

Sirius's wand is still at large.