The Man With No Shadow

Chapter Twelve: Return From Beyond

***

"What happened after he spoke your name?" Kingsley asked, one eye on Harry, the other on the enchanted quill that was hastily recording his words and Harry's on a long roll of parchment.

"Nothing," Harry said, still dazed by the events of the morning past. "He just sort of caved in, like a puppet with no strings."

"And that's when Hermione went and fetched the guard," Kingsley said conclusively.

Harry nodded.

"Right, then," Kingsley said as he settled back in his chair and snatched the quill from atop the parchment. "Adding your account to the guard's report, it's all lined up neat and proper. Arthur will be pleased." He paused to look at Harry, who sat in his chair before Kingsley's desk as if in a daze. "You look exhausted, Harry. Out you get. Have a good sleep and we'll sort out the finer points tomorrow."

Nodding dumbly, Harry rose and left Kingsley's office. He was walking the familiar path to the lifts purely from routine, his eyes only half-focused. He was startled when something soft and warm slammed into him, knocking him back a step as he was smothered in an embrace the Devil's Snare guarding the Sorcerer's Stone under Hogwarts had been hard pressed to equal. Responding without thought to the familiar (and welcome) feel of Hermione's arms clinging to him, Harry hugged her against him for what seemed a very long time before allowing his arms to relax.

"Let's go home, Harry," Hermione said with a sort of quiet urgency.

As he allowed Hermione to steer him toward the nearest lift, Harry wondered absently whose home she had meant, his or hers. He decided he didn't care. He rode the lift to the lobby in silence, and together they walked past the Fountain of Magical Brethren until they reached the Apparation area. Harry cleared his mind (easy enough to do, as he found it increasingly difficult to piece two cogent thoughts together) and allowed Hermione to Apparate the both of them to their destination.

When Harry raised his eyes, he saw that they were standing in the Weasleys' kitchen. This feat was easily accomplished, as the Weasleys had long ago modified the anti-Apparation wards protecting the Burrow to permit Harry to pass in and out as if he were a member of the family (which, in their eyes, he was). Hermione's signature had been added shortly after, for the same reason. The boarders' private rooms were another matter, each being Charmed to admit none but its paying occupant.

"Will you be having lunch, then?" Molly Weasley asked tentatively, her eyes soft and compassionate as they regarded Harry and Hermione. She evidenced no surprise at seeing Harry as she stood at the stove, her wand orchestrating the preparation of the midday meal with the skill of a general directing troops in battle. Either Hermione had apprised Molly over breakfast of her intention to fetch Harry home with her today, or Molly simply intuited Harry's arrival, no doubt having learned of the morning's events directly from her husband's personal fire-com.

"Not just yet, thank you, Molly," Hermione said as she directed Harry toward the stairs. "We'll be down later."

"I'll save you both something," Molly called up as Harry and Hermione disappeared up the stairs in a decidedly more conventional way than they had arrived at the boarding house.

Harry hardly noticed the long climb to Hermione's room in the loft of the Burrow, did not hear the click of the lock as Hermione opened the door with a wave of her wand. Before he knew it he was being eased down onto a soft surface that was cool and soothing as his palms instinctively braced themselves against it. Harry slowly brought his eyes into focus. He had never been in this room before, unlike the other bedrooms, all of which which he had visited at one time or another when the younger Weasley children were still living at home. It was a single chamber with no partitioning walls. A large double window was set in the slanted wall opposite, before which sat a writing desk and a plain wooden chair. A small couch and a stuffed chair sat against the side wall facing the door through which they had entered. A small, round table sat in between, bearing an oil lamp identical to the one sitting on the desk. It was evident that the former attic made up in floor area what it lacked in head room. It was hard to imagine that this warm, friendly chamber had once been the abode of the Weasley family ghoul.

With the other furniture having been visually accounted for, Harry knew he must be sitting on Hermione's bed. It was pressed against the slanting back wall, and even sitting down, he only just managed to avoid bumping his head against the roof. The covers were turned down, and the feel of the cool, smooth sheets was almost hypnotic in its invitation. He suddenly became aware that Hermione was bending over his shoulder, her hands fumbling with the tie at the back of his robes. He turned his head and smiled weakly.

"Are you trying to have your way with me, Miss Granger?"

"You wish," Hermione smirked as she loosened the neck of Harry's robes and drew them over his head, leaving him clad only in a T-shirt and briefs. That was more true than Hermione knew, Harry thought -- or was it? If Harry had learned nothing else in the past few days, it was that Hermione could be counted on to know a good deal more than she let on. Either way, Harry was in no state to pursue such fantasies. He did not resist when Hermione removed his shoes and lifted his legs onto the bed. She tucked his feet under the covers and pulled the sheet up to his chest.

"You're not joining me?" Harry inquired, lifting an eyebrow suggestively. "I seem to recall that the St. Mungo's healers ordered you to rest as well."

"I'm going to read a bit," Hermione said, "then write some letters. That's my way of relaxing. Now sleep," she ordered sternly. "I don't have a sleeping potion, but a Stunning Spell will do in a pinch."

Smiling, Harry closed his eyes and was asleep almost immediately.

The setting sun was tinting the loft with dull red when Harry awoke. He sat up, and Hermione turned from where she sat at her writing desk and looked over her shoulder at him.

"Feel better?" she asked hopefully.

"Yeah. I needed that."

Hermione tossed Harry his robes from where they lay draped across the back of the couch. He expected her to turn away while he dressed, but she just stood smiling down on him.

"Do you mind?" he said promptingly.

"No," Hermione replied casually, "I don't mind at all."

"You're not worried what the other boarders will say if they learn you have a half-naked man in your bed?"

"Why should I mind?" Hermione returned. "Seeing as I'm the one who undressed you in the first place?"

Grinning, Harry threw back the covers and drew his robes over his head. As he tied them behind his neck, his manner grew serious.

"What happened back there? In the Department of Mysteries? No one said anything to me, and, well...I don't know if I'd have been able to understand if they did, given the state I was in. But now..."

Hermione sat down on the bed next to Harry. Shorter than Harry by a head, she was in no danger of dashing her brains out against the slanting roof. By contrast, Harry had to bend a little to look into Hermione's soft brown eyes, which he quickly saw were suddenly thoughtful.

"I wasn't sure myself until I spoke with Dumbledore," Hermione said. "Apparently, he was just stepping into the Apparation area in the lobby when the alarm sounded. He went straight off to St. Mungo's to see about Snape, but I caught him just before he left. He told me to go to the Ministry library and consult a particular book I'd overlooked earlier, that it would explain everything."

"Is Snape really back?" Harry said, still disbelieving even after what his own eyes had witnessed. With his brain still clouded with the fog of sleep, he was not sure even now that it was not all a dream.

"Yes," Hermione said.

"Is he still a vampire?"

"No," Hermione smiled, her hand seeking out Harry's and squeezing it. "The curse is broken."

"But what happened?" Harry said desperately.

"You happened," Hermione said, her eyes suddenly adoring in a manner that baffled Harry.

"Me?" Harry stammered. "What did I do?"

"You forgave him," Hermione said. "You forgave your worst enemy."

"But that's -- " Harry said, his lips stumbling over his tongue, " -- that couldn't -- "

"There was one thing more," Hermione said, her voice even softer now. "When you wiped your face -- you know, with all that ruddy macho bollocks you men all seem to favor -- one of your tears must have landed in the urn. It's the only explanation that fits."

Harry stared, uncomprehending.

"Tears of forgiveness," Hermione said, her own eyes misting. "According to the book in the Ministry library, the only 'magic' in the world that can restore a vampire's lost soul is a tear of forgiveness from one wronged. I discovered that certain other books also make reference to it, though most hold it to be apocryphal, nothing more than legend. That may be because it's been so long since anyone truly forgave, as you did. And that was when I knew."

"That's when you knew that my tears had brought Snape back," Harry said.

"No," Hermione said, her voice trembling. "That's when I knew...when I understood...how much I love you."

Harry stared at Hermione's face, a radiant oval framed in its omnipresent halo of bushy brown, as if he had never seen a more beautiful sight in his life. He cupped her face and kissed her tenderly, their lips clinging like soft, warm vapor caressing a sunlit moor. He eased her down onto the bed and kissed her face and neck until she was panting in faint, mewling squeaks. The sigh that escaped her lips when Harry eased back was laced with a curious mixture of relief and disappointment. When his hand gently cupped her soft breast through the loose fabric of her robes, she made no effort to dissuade him.

"Let's go away somewhere," he said. "We both have time off, and our orders didn't say anything about where we're supposed to recuperate. There must be some British possessions where we can lose ourselves without our accents drawing attention." Following a thoughtful pause, Harry mused, "I've always dreamed of the two of us basking on the beach of a tropical island. Fancy a few days and nights in the British Virgins?"

Harry was surprised when Hermione giggled, her cheeks going slightly pink.

"What?" Harry said, smiling as her amusement proved infectious. "Have you wanted to visit them?"

"It's not that," Hermione said, stifling her laughter with a hand over her mouth. "It's...the chapter on vampire resurrection that I read said that there are different theories on the tear principle...but most seem to agree on one thing..."

"What's that?" Harry said, playing Hermione's game as he lifted an eyebrow promptingly.

"That it takes more than just tears of forgiveness to break the curse," Hermione said softly, her humor vanishing as quickly as it had arisen. "They must also be...the tears of a virgin. The woodcut in the book was of a maiden...but after this morning, I think the books can safely be updated, don't you?"

Hermione's earlier blush was nothing next to the one suffusing Harry's face now. But the wounding of his macho pride at being exposed as sexually inexperienced was warring with a profound sense of pride that he had not yielded blithely to the temptations of the flesh, vowing from the beginning to share his bed with none but Hermione. Their eventual joining -- for which he had never ceased to hope and pray (and never more fervently than now) -- would, he knew, be all the sweeter for his patient chastity. But at this thought, the corners of his mouth began to stretch outwards, defying his half-hearted efforts to summon his stoic Auror's mask.

"What are you grinning at?" Hermione said, for Harry was now doing a fair imitation of Ron with his mouth stuffed full of Chocolate Frog.

"I was thinking that Snape came very close to spending the rest of his days in that ruddy urn."

"How so?" Hermione said, her eyes dancing mischievously under her full, dark lashes.

"When I saw you in that dress the night I fixed you dinner," Harry rumbled, leaning in until their noses were nearly touching, "it was all I could do not to tear it off you with my teeth."

"If it comes to that," Hermione purred with a devilish gleam in her eye, "when I was in the shower the morning after, I found myself wondering what I'd do if you suddenly pulled the curtain back and joined me."

"And what did you decide at the last?" Harry said in a low guttural that tickled Hermione's cheek.

"I'll tell you...someday."

The pair of them laughing like children on Christmas morning, Harry smothered Hermione with volcanic kisses as they thrashed about on the bed as if it were a piece of flotsam pitching on a stormy sea. But the storm sweeping over them was not from without, but within. It was only when Harry heard the dull thump of the bed bumping against the wall that his reason prevailed and he rolled aside, his face buried in the tangle of Hermione's hair as it spilled out over the pillow. Bad enough that Molly (not to say the tenants) suspected the worst already without adding sound effects to the circumstantial evidence.

"You know what I want to do more than anything in the world," Harry said as his teeth gnawed at Hermione's collarbone, leaving red welts on her ivory skin.

"What's that?" Hermione said invitingly as she squirmed anxiously beside him.

"Eat."

"WHAT?" Hermione sat straight up, bumping her head on the roof.

"Whatever Molly's fixing up downstairs smells fabulous," Harry said. "I'm famished! I could eat a ruddy hippogriff, beak, talons and hooves."

"Men!" Hermione huffed, rubbing the sore spot on her head.

Sitting up next to Hermione (while carefully avoiding the roof), Harry caught her up and swung her across his legs. He kissed her longingly, and she responded without reservation. When they were both gasping for air, Harry panted, "And after supper, I'm having my dessert up here. And her name is Hermione Jane Granger."

"You think so, do you?" Hermione laughed, swinging up to sit on Harry's lap. Her arms snaked around his neck. "I'm not that easy to bed, Potter. I seem to remember you promising me a beach on an island. An Auror's armor is his honor. The only thing you'll get in this bed -- or yours, for that matter -- is sleep."

They came together in a steamy kiss that left both gasping again.

"I love you, Hermione."

"I love you, Harry."

*

When Harry and Hermione walked through the lobby of the Ministry of Magic the next morning, every witch and wizard turned as one and applauded. Hermione's cheeks reddened as Harry's face screwed with a mixture of anger and amusement.

"Alright," he demanded in a voice that echoed from the high ceiling, "who ratted us out?"

"That would be me, actually."

Harry saw Remus leaving a lift and walking toward them, his tired eyes alight.

"I dropped in at the Weasleys' yesterday, to see how you were getting on," Remus said. "Molly told me you'd skipped lunch, so I went up to see if I could get you something. I was going to knock on Hermione's door, but I heard, well...noises...so when I came in this morning, I told everyone that you and Hermione might be a little...late...getting in."

"Nothing happened!" Harry said, his eyes darting left and right. "Honestly!"

"I believe you," Remus said, sounding like he had more than a few doubts on the matter that he was too polite to voice.

At that moment, a young wizard with blond hair exited a lift and strolled toward the Apparation area. When he saw Harry and Hermione, he stopped, shifted uncertainly, then resumed in a manner as if nothing had interrupted his journey.

"Good to see you, Harry," Geoffrey said, extending his hand. "And it's positively smashing that you're back with us, Janie luv -- " He broke off when Harry shot him a look that could have melted a pewter cauldron into a pile of slag. "Hermione," he corrected himself hastily, quailing under Harry's withering gaze. "I expect you're here to sign your papers, what? Just heading off on my own holiday, so I'll...see you later."

Geoffrey hurried into the Apparation area and vanished without a backward glance.

"Feeling rather...territorial, are we, Harry?" Remus said innocently. "By the way, Hermione, did Harry ever tell you about this little witch down in accounting who's had her eye on -- "

"He's winding you up," Harry said quickly, his face flushing. "I've never looked at any witch in anything other than a professional manner since the day I was hired."

"As may be," Hermione said with narrowed eyes. "All the same, I think I'll pop on down to accounting after I've filled out my forms. I'm feeling a bit territorial myself, actually."

Remus ushered Harry and Hermione to the lifts, but when Harry made to follow Hermione into a vacant lift, Remus held him back.

"We're not going up today, Harry."

"Doesn't Kingsley want to see me," Harry puzzled, "so I can flesh out my report?"

"No, that's all squared away," Remus said as he steered Harry into another lift. Hermione's lift rose on its way to MLE division, and she waved down at Harry until she was lost to sight.

"Where are we going?" Harry asked as the gilded grate slid home, sealing him and Remus in.

"Level nine," Remus said, his answer also serving to set the lift into motion.

Harry needed no more information regarding destination. The only department on the lowest main level of the Ministry was the Department of Mysteries.

"What are we going to do down here?" Harry asked cautiously.

"Oh, just clearing up some unfinished business," Remus said casually as the lift debouched them onto Level nine. When they entered the familiar circular room at the end of the corridor, the guard did not challenge them, but bowed them in without a word, pointing his wand as he did so. Passing through the door that opened automatically before them, Harry and Remus stepped into a large rectangular room over which a dim light hung, giving the chamber an aspect as of endless twilight. At first Harry did not know where he was. The doors of the circular outer chamber rotated constantly to confuse any who might enter without official sanction. Harry knew this only too well, having been guilty of such transgression in what he dismissively referred to as his "reckless youth."

As if his and Remus' entry were a signal, a light sprang up in the center of the room. Harry cried out. The center of the rectangular chamber was not directly before Harry's eyes, but down below his feet. Tier upon tier of stone benches descended from every wall. At their sunken apex stood a raised stone dais, and upon this reared a stone archway whose aspect was so ancient that Hogwarts castle appeared by contrast to have been built yesterday.

"What's going on?" Harry demanded, his humor sorely tested. Was this a sick joke? Of all places in the Ministry -- of all places in the world -- the last place he ever wanted to set foot again was here!

"Harry," a calm, ancient voice said, its echoes floating up from the depths. "Remus. Come. All is in readiness."

An unnatural radiance surrounded the stone arch, as if the air itself were suffused with a living aura of magic. This light threw all objects into a murky, abstract relief in which details were impossible to distinguish. But Harry did not need to see the tall figure standing before the veiled archway to recognize its voice.

"Albus," Harry said as he and Remus clambered down the stone benches until they were standing on the floor of the chamber. "What is this?"

Before Dumbledore could answer, another figure stepped from the murky shadows. Nearly as thin as Dumbledore, this one was dressed from head to toe in black. He stepped forward until the dim light cast into fuzzy relief a sharp face dominated by a long hooked nose.

"If you will close your mouth, Potter, we can begin the ceremony. I have no wish to tarry here longer than absolutely necessary."

"SNAPE?"

Snape regarded Harry sourly as Remus stepped forward with his hand out.

"Thank you, Severus," he said, shaking Snape's hand. Snape merely scowled as he drew his hand back quickly and turned his face to the shadows again.

Harry was on the verge of tears.

"Why didn't someone tell me?"

"To what end?" Dumbledore said. "There was nothing you could have contributed to the preliminaries. In addition, you have endured much of late, from which I suspect you are not yet fully recovered. I saw no reason to fill the intervening hours with pointless worry. I needed to be absolutely certain about every aspect of the ceremony before summoning you." The blue eyes glowing behind the half-moon spectacles flickered for the briefest moment in Snape's direction. "When my fears were all put to rest, I instructed Remus to bring you as soon as might be. Severus and I were prepared to wait as long as necessary."

Snape looked around just long enough to scowl at Harry before turning his face back to the darkness.

"This is really happening," Harry said, finding it difficult to draw breath. "We're really going to bring Sirius back!"

"That is still up in the air, Harry," Remus cautioned. "We have no idea where Sirius is in the infinity beyond the veil. We presume that he will remain nearby, if it is within his power to do so. If I know Sirius, he won't have given up hope, even after all this time. He knows that, if it is within our power to try to retrieve him, this is where the attempt must be made."

"But," Harry stammered with a sidewise glance at Snape, "what about -- I mean, the last time -- "

"Much has changed since the last time, Harry," Dumbledore said. "Thanks in no small part to you. I am fully confident that Severus will be able to do that which is required of him -- or, at the least, make the attempt with every hope. And in the end, that is all any of us can do."

"Enough of this babble," Snape snapped. "Potter, Lupin, prepare yourselves! Let us get this over with!"

Harry now saw that Snape had discarded his black robes. The former Potions Master of Hogwarts was wearing what appeared to be a long, flowing toga of royal purple. A hand nudged Harry's shoulder, and he turned to see Remus holding a red garment of a similar design to Snape's. He handed this to Harry before accepting a like garment of metallic blue from Dumbledore, who, Harry observed, had exchanged his own robes for a mantle of pure white that seemed to give off light of itself. With his silver hair and beard, the old wizard looked like one of the Hogwarts ghosts as he glided about on soundless, unseen feet.

Harry donned his ceremonial garb hurriedly, his heart in his throat. "This is really happening," he kept repeating to himself. "It's not a dream. We're going to rescue Sirius."

Harry and Remus joined Snape in forming a semi-circle before the archway. Harry saw the filmy veil fluttering, as if moved by a breeze born in another world. He heard sounds, too; voices, mournful cries from beyond the veil. Was Sirius' voice one of them? Was his godfather even now crying out for Harry to bring him home from his enforced exile?

Dumbledore had set three copper bowls before the arch, each supported by a narrow iron tripod. Harry knew that these bowls were presently empty; he likewise knew that they would not remain so for long. Dumbledore spread his arms majestically before the arch, and Harry bit back any comments he might have felt compelled to voice. For any save Dumbledore to speak now was to risk the purity of the spell.

"Beyond this veil," Dumbledore said somberly, "lies a door without key. It freely opens from this world to the one beyond, yet it is ever shut to those who would return thence. This is wisdom, for many things dwell beyond the veil that were better not seen, nor even suspected, by mortal eye. Yet there is one whom we would see, whom we desire to journey from the world beyond to his former plane. We call him forth now, to stand by the door that we may take his hand and bring him out, that he may dwell among us once more."

Harry saw the veil flutter, as if stirred by the breath of the voices whose timbre rose now, as if in response to Dumbledore's words.

"No door can be opened without the proper key," Dumbledore orated. "A key of metal or wood serves only where there is a keyhole; here is none. Magic is the key. Yet not without price, for he whom we seek is beyond price in our hearts. Thus do we pay for his presence with the blood of life."

Dumbledore turned smoothly toward the three standing at his back, and Harry's stomach lurched as he saw a long, wicked-looking knife in his hand. It instantly brought his thoughts back to the night when another knife bit into his flesh and loosed a crimson flow to evil purpose. But where there had been fear in Harry's heart then, there was none now. Dumbledore stood before him, and Harry extended his right arm without hesitation.

Dumbledore was holding a small silver goblet in his left hand. It had gone unnoticed before, Harry's attention being focused on the knife. The old wizard extended both now. As Harry held back his sleeve, Dumbledore drew the keen edge across the arm that had known in days past not only the bite of steel, but of the terrible fang of the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets. Harry winced as his skin parted, but even as he held his breath against the pain, he did not avert his eyes. He watched as his blood ran down into the silver goblet. Abruptly Dumbledore flattened the knife and swept it across Harry's arm. The cut healed instantly, though it continued to burn deep under the now unmarked skin.

Dumbledore turned and poured Harry's blood into the first bowl, saying, "Blood of the son, freely given; restore unto him his father."

The bowl containing Harry's blood began to smoke. The dark red vapor drifted up, hovered, then swirled around the arch until the crumbling stone was completely obscured. As all watched, the smoke grew transparent so that the runes engraved upon the stone arch could be seen easily as through a red-tinted glass. The last wisp of smoke evaporated, but its signature remained, the arch giving every appearance of having been stained the color of blood.

Dumbledore repeated the procedure with Remus. Pouring his blood into the third bowl, he said, "Blood of the brother, given freely; restore unto him his brother."

More smoke rose, emerald green this time. This hovered for a moment before spreading out to fill the space within the arch dyed red by the smoke from Harry's bowl. The fluttering veil was now completely hidden, the murmuring voices stilled. The smoke smoothed out until it looked like a soft tapestry of green velvet, set squarely in the embrace of the blood-red arch.

Now it was Snape's turn. Unlike Harry and Remus, he did not present his arm to Dumbledore. Instead, he laid his hands on the neck of his garment and spread it wide, baring his pallid chest (which, Harry noted, bore no trace of the wounds inflicted at Grimmauld Place). With the measured skill of a surgeon, Dumbledore drew a mystic rune on Snape's chest, using the point of the knife as if it were a quill. But the symbol that appeared on Snape's flesh was not written in red ink, but in his own seeping blood. This ran freely, and Dumbledore caught the flow in the silver goblet as Snape looked on impassively. His narrow face was immobile as if carven from stone. Harry saw therein a strength and courage he had never suspected Snape possessed, and it strengthened his own resolve.

Dumbledore healed Snape's not inconsiderable wound as he had Harry's and Remus'. He poured the blood into the remaining bowl, saying, "Blood of the adversary, freely given; restore unto him his foe."

The smoke that rose from the middle bowl was blacker than the shadows lurking in the corners of the chamber. Hovering for a moment, it sank down and spread itself into a narrow ribbon, looking like a black silk carpet covering the stone floor. Sinuous and snake-like, the dark strip slithered toward the archway, sliding smoothly under the edge of the green-masked veil; its other end terminated at the feet of the one of whose blood it was formed. Snape stepped forward and placed both feet upon it.

"Do not leave the path, Severus," Dumbledore warned, his voice as compassionate as his eyes were sharp. "If you do, there will be no road back, for either of you. Bring Sirius if you can, but I implore you, do not leave the path for any reason."

"Yes," Harry said firmly, at which Snape turned sharply. "I want Sirius back. But if you can't bring him, don't be a hero."

"Heroics are your department, are they not, Potter?" Snape returned icily. But Harry almost thought he saw a corner of Snape's mouth twitch, as if the former Potions Master were attempting to smile but not knowing quite how to accomplish something at which he'd had so little practice.

As Snape advanced, Harry's eyes followed the black "road" to where it disappeared under the smoky green door. Would that door open wide at Snape's approach, inviting him to enter? Harry dismissed that possibility almost immediately. If that emerald door opened to admit Snape, what was to prevent the nameless dwellers beyond from employing that portal as their avenue of escape? That, he was sure, Dumbledore would never permit, given the old wizard's cautionary preamble. How, then, was Snape to accomplish that which he alone could do?

As Harry watched, his heart hammering against his ribs, Snape walked straight up to the green door. His stride not faltering, his sour features set in stone, Snape passed through the door as easily as if it were common smoke. And like the smoke it was, it closed behind him, leaving no sign of Snape's passage. A moment before Snape's foot vanished, Harry heard a low muttering which he recognized as the voices on the other side of the arch. Whoever, whatever, lurked on the other side was evidently aware of Snape's invasion of their dark realm. When the green mist closed behind Snape, the sound of the voices was cut off as if the switch had been thrown on a radio. Harry felt a wave of relief that whatever lurked on the other side would not be able to cross over in its turn. But then he remembered that Sirius was likewise trapped behind that barrier. Could he pass back through into the world he had left behind? More accurately, could Snape bring him back by way of the magical pathway against whatever forces were arrayed to stop them?

"Don't sacrifice yourself," Harry heard himself mutter, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on the door whose color they mirrored. "I don't want two lives lost."

Time passed as if it had been slowed down by magic. It would have taken very little to convince Harry that he had unknowingly overturned a Time-Turner and was living the same minutes over and over, with no end in sight.

The three wizards stood motionless, none speaking, their eyes fastened as one on the smoky green door. Suddenly the emerald smoke churned. His hand clutching at his robes, Harry saw a splotch of black appear amidst the green. No, not black. It appeared so only by contrast with the green of the smoke. Purple! Harry lurched forward, but Dumbledore thrust his hand out.

"No, Harry," he said severely. "If you touch him, or set foot upon the path, all is lost. The battle is his alone."

His body screaming as he fought to restrain the impulse to leap forward and drag Snape and Sirius (for so he prayed) through the door, Harry trembled as he watched the green smoke swallow up the island of purple. The dark patch reappeared a moment later, only to disappear again.

Harry didn't know what to wish for. He wanted his godfather back, but if that were impossible, there was no point in both wizards being lost.

The purple blotch appeared again. This time, instead of being swallowed up as before, it increased, filling the center of the door. Harry made out the narrow frame of Snape, who appeared to be struggling with something lost to sight beyond the green smoke.

As at the impetus of a silent explosion, Snape flew back and out of the smoky door. His claw-like fingers were clutching a writhing shape whose resemblance to anything human appeared illusory at best. The pair rolled off the black path and fell to the floor. Harry leaped forward, and this time Dumbledore did not stop him. Remus had preceded him to the scene, being closer than Harry, and he fell upon the pair and pried Snape's fingers from the tattered black robes he was clutching. Harry heard the rending of cloth, and the figure in black rolled away and lay still.

"SIRIUS!" Harry shouted, his voice reverberating from the lofty ceiling. He fell on his knees and caught up two handfuls of black robes. He spun the figure over and onto its back. Sirius' eyes stared blankly up at the ceiling. Harry let out a cry of anguish, but before he could cry out for help, it came on its own in the form of Dumbledore. The old wizard held a flask in his hand, and he thrust it at Harry.

"Make him drink it, Harry," Dumbledore ordered. "Every drop."

Acting without thought, Harry tore the cork from the flask with his teeth and spat it away. He caught Sirius by the hair, jerked his head back and tilted the flask until its contents began to pour sluggishly past the man's tightly stretched lips.

"Drink it all, damn you!" Harry growled. "Drink it!"

As if responding instinctively to Harry's words, Sirius allowed the liquid to flow sluggishly down his throat. When the flask was as empty as its thick contents would permit, Harry tossed it away and shook Sirius with both hands.

"Sirius! Sirius, it's over! You're back! Sirius!"

To Harry's unexpressable relief, Sirius' tightly knotted muscles began to relax. His labored breathing became smoother. After perhaps a minute, Sirius opened his eyes. They were clouded over, but Harry perceived the unmistakable light of reason behind them.

"Sirius!" he gasped.

"Harry," Sirius said wearily. "I had...dream...wouldn't...believe..."

Sirius' head fell aside limply, and Harry cried out again. But Dumbledore placed a reassuring hand upon Harry's shoulder.

"He is merely sleeping, Harry," Dumbledore said. "That is partly from his ordeal, and partly the effects of the potion. He is in no danger now. The crisis is past."

Still on his knees, Harry allowed his hands to relax. He released Sirius' tattered black robes, which were splattered in places with drops of the potion from Dumbledore's flask.

"What sort of potion was that?" Harry asked.

"It is a Restorative Potion," Dumbledore answered. "Very powerful, and quite a challenge to brew, I might add."

"Did Snape brew it?" Harry said woodenly, wondering just how high the tally of his debt to Snape would rise before the day were over.

"In full possession of his faculties," Dumbledore said, "he could have done so quite easily. But after his ordeal, I thought it best to seek out another." Dumbledore raised a snowy eyebrow in Harry's direction.

"Malfoy?" Harry said, feeling that one more surprise added to this day would surely overwhelm him.

"Professor Malfoy, Harry," Dumbledore said with a twinkle in his eye.

Harry was looking down on Sirius now, watching the quiet, rhythmic rise and fall of his godfather's chest. Dumbledore placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Put aside your worries, Harry. Someone who survived twelve years in Azkaban should have no great difficulty recovering from this little, ah, holiday. Unless I am much mistaken, a brief stay under the auspices of St. Mungo's excellent Healers will see him completely recovered."

Harry fell back, his eyes burning wetly. He felt hands pulling him up, and when he blinked away his tears of joy and relief he saw the tired, smiling face of Remus looking down on him. The graying wizard helped Harry to his feet, and they both looked down on the sleeping form of Sirius.

"Welcome back, Padfoot," Remus said, his voice breaking slightly.

Harry turned to wipe his eyes, and he found himself staring directly into the styptic face of Snape. Snape's purple robes were torn, virtually shredded in some places, and he readily divined the question in Harry's eyes.

"Do not ask, Potter," he said coldly. "There are some things you are better off not knowing." Then he added acidly, "If you had learned that lesson a little sooner, none of this would have been necessary."

"You're right, Severus," Harry said. "If I had listened to you -- done some of the things you told me -- a lot of misery could have been avoided. Of course," he said with a crooked smile, "if you hadn't been such a bugger-all son of a bitch, maybe I'd have done those things out of simple respect."

After a long pause, Snape said, "Perhaps. In any event, I believe we are now squared as to our debts. I shall be very grateful if I never set eyes on you again -- you or your damned godfather. You are two of a kind, Potter, even as you and your father."

"Yes," Harry agreed, his eyes drifting toward the sleeping figure of Sirius, whom Dumbledore was now levitating upon a magical stretcher. "And I'll have the chance now to become even more like him, thanks to you."

Harry offered up his hand. Snape shrugged uncomfortably before extending his own. As they shook hands, Harry looked Snape full in the face for the first time since the encounter at Grimmauld Place. He stifled a gasp. In the center of Snape's forehead, at the spot where the silver pendant had struck him, was a mark that looked as if it had been burned into his flesh by a white-hot brand. Even as Harry with his lightning scar, Snape would never see or feel that mark without remembering the events that had produced it. Harry's gaze lingered only a heartbeat before falling to meet Snape's black eyes squarely. Their hands parted, and Snape turned without a word and strode up the stone steps leading to the outer door. He vanished into the shadows and was gone.

Harry felt a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he turned to see Remus smiling up at the empty place where Snape had stood.

"There's so much about him I never knew," Harry said.

"I knew a little more than you," Remus said. "But it wasn't my place to say anything."

"I hope he finds some peace at last."

"Perhaps he will now," Remus sighed. "Thanks to you, Harry. I know I've said this to you many times, but it bears repeating. You parents would be very pleased at the kind of man their son has become."

Harry said nothing, but his smile widened as he wiped his tear-stained face.

"How much does Hermione know?" he asked. "About the ceremony, I mean?"

"What do you think?" Remus chuckled.

"I think," Harry said decisively, "that it's past time I stopped doing things by half measures."

"What do you mean?" Remus asked, his left eyebrow rising.

Harry's answer was an enigmatic smile.

*

The door opened as if a blast of wind had slammed into it. Into its breach strode the earthly embodiment of wind and storm, black hair touseled, gray eyes shining with mischief. Harry looked up from his desk, his own eyes narrowing reprovingly.

"Bloody hell, Sirius, don't you ever knock?"

"Nope," Sirius said, unfazed, as his eyes drifted idly over the sign on the outer door reading Please Knock. "Never learned how."

"And how did you get past the Locking Charm, anyway?" Harry demanded. "Hermione and I tested it with every counter-spell we could think of."

"I'll tell you if you buy me lunch," Sirius grinned. "And as you've brought her up," Sirius swept his gaze around the small office, "where is Hermione?"

"At MLE, signing some papers," Harry said. "And that's another thing -- what if you'd walked in just now and caught me and Hermione in a...compromising position?"

"All the more reason to buy me lunch," Sirius countered. "Why is Hermione at MLE? Some bother over her resignation?"

"No," Harry said. "Just paperwork. We caught someone they've been after for months, and we don't get the reward until the paperwork is in order. She's better at that sort of thing than I am."

"On the subject of resignations," Sirius said in a more serious tone, "I'm still not happy about your resignation from Auror Division." Harry started to say something, but Sirius cut him off. "I know, you told me your reasons, and I even agree with some of them. Kingsley was in an awkward spot, and you spared him having to slap you down to set an example. Even so, I wish there'd been another way. It's a rough world, Harry. A steady salary is nothing to thumb your nose at."

"There are more important things than money," Harry said as his eyes fell on a photo of Hermione smiling and winking up at him from his desk.

"Not if you're in the habit of eating every day," Sirius grunted. "But as you've left the owlry door open, when are you and Hermione getting married?"

"Well, if we want a big ceremony -- and Hermione does -- we'll have to wait until next June. And since her parents will naturally want to be there, we need to find a place that will accommodate both wizards and Muggles. But as far as the wizarding world goes, we've both taken our Secret Vows, so we're as good as married now. That tradition predates the Ministry charter, remember, but it’s still recognized as valid. The ceremony is mostly for the Grangers, and to give everyone a chance to celebrate with us.

"But," he added, "since I gave up my flat and moved into Hermione's loft, it's only a matter of time before it becomes legal anyway, even if we hadn't taken our vows."

"There've been a lot of changes since I've been away," Sirius said. "When did the Ministry pass that co-habitation law?"

"About a year ago," Harry said, "retroactive to the previous January first. Any witch and wizard who live together conjugally for one year are summarily registered as husband and wife by the Ministry. An enchanted quill fills out the forms automatically and files them in the Hall of Records."

"That's going to come as a big surprise to couples who don't keep up with the political page of the Daily Prophet," Sirius remarked.

"You should have seen the look on Ron's face when the Ministry owl arrived at his door with his copy of the official papers," Harry laughed. "I think Luna knew all along, mind. Not much gets by her."

"A lot like another witch we all know and love," Sirius grinned, his eyes falling onto the photo sitting on Harry's desk.

"Someone talking about me?" a musical voice chimed.

Hermione walked in (the door having been left wide by Sirius) and seated herself on the edge of Harry's desk. She crossed her legs so that her robes rode up, exposing a shapely calf. Sirius' dark eyebrows rose appreciatively.

"Everything all legal, then?" Harry asked.

"The reward will be deposited in our vault tomorrow," Hermione announced. "One thousand Galleons." Sirius whistled appreciatively.

"See?" Harry said. "Who needs a paltry Auror's salary?"

"And with all the budget cuts at the Ministry," Hermione added, "a junior Obliviator's salary isn't enough to put food on the table nowadays."

"Speaking of food," Sirius said, rubbing his hands together, "with all that gold coming in tomorrow, you'll be wanting to show your old godfather how much you love him by buying him the best meal in London!"

"If I buy him lunch," Harry explained, "he'll show me how he got past our Locking Charm so it won't happen again!" He stressed these last words while fixing Sirius with a piercing stare (which Sirius avoided by turning his head and fixing his gaze with uncommon interest on Hedwig, who sat dozing on her perch with her head under her snowy wing).

"Worth the price," Hermione agreed. "If he'd walked in on us yesterday -- you know, when we were playing "Interrogate the Death Eater" in the back room -- we'd probably have to buy him lunch for a month!"

"Oh-ho!" Sirius beamed, clapping his hands together with roguish delight. Grinning, Harry swung Hermione off the desk and onto his lap. He kissed her fiercely as she ruffled his hair into a state that would have made Aunt Petunia cringe.

"Where are we eating, then?" Hermione asked as she stood up and tucked a strand of her chestnut hair behind her ear seductively.

"The Golden Unicorn," Sirius said, naming the most expensive wizarding restaurant in London.

"You're barmy!" Harry barked. "They charge more just to sit down than the price of a whole meal anyplace else!"

"Tell you what," Sirius said expansively. "The tip is on me!"

Grumbling, Harry rose and drew his wand. He was about to reactivate the Locking Charm on the door when his eyes fell on the sign painted on the window facing his desk. From this perspective, the letters were backward; from outside, passers-by in Diagon Alley would look up and read: Granger and Potter, Private Investigations.

"What the hell?" Harry clucked. He pointed his wand at the two names; with a flick of his wrist, they reversed themselves so that Potter preceded Granger. But instantly the names reversed again, placing Hermione's name before Harry's. He flashed Hermione a sharp look.

"Is there a problem, Harry?" she asked sweetly as Sirius roared with laughter.

"Good one," Harry said grudgingly. "You were planning on telling me the counter-spell, right?"

"That depends," Hermione said coyly. "You're buying Sirius off with the best lunch in London. What do I get?"

Grinning evilly, Harry said, "Negotiations begin tonight. The moment we get home."

"I'm warning you, Harry," Hermione said in a low, suggestive murmur, "When it comes to negotiation, I take no prisoners."

"I'll reinforce the Silencing Charm, then," Harry said. Hermione bared her teeth, gnashing them playfully.

"I am still in the room, you lot!" Sirius announced with an air of supreme offense.

Cocking an eye at his godfather, Harry said, "Right, then. Let's get this bloke fed. I don't want anyone getting past our door tonight!" Turning to Sirius, he added, "And don't you stonewall me, either! One lunch, or Merlin help me, I'll chuck you back through the veil and Curse Snape's legs off so he can't go fetch you again!"

"One lunch," Sirius agreed. In a casual voice, he said, "Does either of you know if truffles are in season? I've come over all peckish all of a sudden."

"Bloody hell," Harry muttered, scribbling a mental note to make a stop at his Gringotts vault before they went off to the restaurant.