Author's Note: An Introduction

Hello! What happened to Sirius Black is a much-theorised topic, lets be honest. The fact there's no body makes it hard to believe that he died. And I've seen a lot of fanfictions in which he survives (I love the denial in those ones the most) or ones where someone else falls through the veil and is transported back to the past (always to the marauders. Always.) But I thought this would be an interesting take on it! I've got absolutely no idea where the story will go so if it seems to fizzle out to nothing or updates stop for a while don't be surprised! (And I apologise in advance.) But please let me know what you think! (And also let me know if you've read any good 'what-happened-with-sirius-and-the-veil' stories because I want to read some!)

Chapter One: The valiant never taste of death but once

"Sirius had only just fallen through the archway, he would reappear from the other side any second… But Sirius did not reappear." – Harry Potter & The Order of The Phoenix. P.711

It was the shock that set in first. This was it, he thought. He was about to die. Sirius Black- stubborn, untouchable, invincible Sirius Black- was about to die. He had disgusted his own family, he had been chewed up and spat out by Azkaban, and he had wished Dementor attacks on himself to alleviate boredom in his own home. He sought peril, adventure and conflict for the heady thrill of reward. He'd always make one more joke, take one step closer, throw one more curse. But now he had pushed his luck one last time. He remembered laughing- laughing at what, he didn't know. He remembered a high pitched shriek, a cackle, female, someone he knew. He was shouting. He was taunting. He was provoking. Then there was light. Blinding light, blinding, dazzling, agonising light.

Next, it was the pain. His chest was burning. It was excruciating, unbearable, intense. It was like nothing he had experienced. He felt as though each nerve was white-hot, searing and scorching. Flames cascaded across every inch of flesh, burning a hole through every layer. As though his insides had been ripped out. Agonising screams tore him apart, limb from limb.

He was falling backwards in slow motion, his face paralysed and stained with the ghosts of his final smile. A papery thin sheet of material fluttered over him and slowly, slowly, he landed on the cold stone floor. Then silence. Complete, subduing, breath-taking silence. And control. He was in control. The pain no longer surged through him, he was no longer frozen in shock. He wasn't screaming, convulsing, or frightened.

The battle that raged around him had gone, but the shouted curses being thrown at his friends still ricocheted through his mind. He winced as his eyes adjusted to the new dark, imagining flares of light shooting past. He recoiled trying to dodge nothing, he covered his ears trying to block out silence.

The room was dimly lit and rectangular. Stone benches ran all around the room and descended in steep steps like an amphitheatre, to a sunken, great stone pit in the centre. It was here that he lay, on the raised stone dais beneath the ancient, cracked and crumbling archway. The tattered black curtain was fluttering very slightly, most likely from when he had just fallen through. Old though it was, the archway had a kind of beauty about it. Mesmerising beauty.

He dragged himself off the ground, and crawled closer. He made desperate motions towards the veil, stretching his arm out in front of him like a blind man, and clutching at it with his hand. He took hold of a handful of the fabric and tore it aside. Nothing. He could see straight through the archway. There was only the other side of the room behind it. There was nothing hidden there- no secret passage back to the battlefield. However he got here, he wasn't getting back.

The pain, the light, the nothingness. It must be death. He thought that someone might have been here to greet him, to welcome him to the afterlife. Would someone enter through the door at any moment? Would he know them? Or would they be a stranger, someone to accompany him to wherever it was he was going.

What if someone else fell though the veil? Harry, Moony, any of the Weasley's. There was faint, whispering, murmuring noises coming from the strange sheet. He could hear voices, it was like they were shouting.

"Sirius!" Harry's muffled voice pierced the air. It was filled with anger, grief, some kind of strangled emotion; it tore through Sirius's heart. He would bleed to death at the pain of it. He should be there to protect Harry.

"Harry." Sirius called out desperately. "Stay back, Harry!" His voice was scraped out and handed through the dark like it was all that remained of him. As if they were the last words he would ever speak.

"There's nothing you can do." The words drifted through the veil languidly. It was Moony. Poor, brave Moony. Poor, brave, lonely Moony. Sirius balled his hand into a fist and threw it at the hard ground. He was helpless- why did he have to die?!

Wizards. It seemed like all they ever did was kill each other.

But wherever he was, and despite whatever was erupting elsewhere, Sirius felt at peace. He was calm, he was content, and he thought he was dead. He could lie there for the rest of forever, and for the rest of whatever's longer than forever, without a thought, without a care, and without a past. Without a future. There had never been anything so beautiful or sad.

He lay back down on the floor. He didn't feel dead. He felt far too much to be dead. So perhaps he was not dead. But he was not alive, either. He was stuck in some kind of limbo; not brave enough for Heaven, not cruel enough for Hell.

But lying alone on the cold floor in the dark, deserted room wouldn't achieve much. If he was dead, he should face it, and if he wasn't, he should probably face that too. Whatever that was. It was just the next adventure in Sirius Black's convoluted life.

He rose slowly from the floor. Every muscle ached and every movement was slow and tired. He felt dazed but somehow he managed to climb along the stone steps to the doors at the top. It had been barely an hour since he had crashed through them to save Harry. What a difference an hour could make. The eerie quiet of his surroundings just didn't seem real; especially not after the battlefield he had come from.

He wrenched open the door and stumbled backwards, swaying, trying to stay upright. It was still like before; it was still just another room. It even still had the same doors around it, so he knew which one would lead him out- out where, he wasn't entirely sure. If he was still in the Ministry of Magic, then it would lead him to the atrium.

He had to find the others. Wherever they were. He knew he was no longer in the middle of the fight, and he was no longer trying to save his Godson and the prophecy. Every room was silent; there was no one around so the duellers had not moved elsewhere.

Perhaps the veil was a sort of time turner. Had he been transported back to before Voldemort lured Harry to the Ministry? Does this mean he has a chance to warn Harry? To hell with time laws, he would save his Godson. Or had he been transported back even further? Was there even more he could save? He began to run through every bad decision that he would rectify.

The quiet began to put him on edge and he began to think about the possibility that maybe Harry's vision had been right, maybe he was about to get tortured for information, maybe this had been a trick by Voldemort to lure Sirius here, maybe he was about to be propositioned; offered complete freedom in exchange for information on the Order of the Phoenix. Sirius had to be on his guard. He had no idea where anyone else was, he had no idea where he was, and now he didn't know if Voldemort would materialise around the corner. Or worse- a ministry official. Voldemort he could handle, but if someone from the Ministry recognised him he'd be straight back to Azkaban.

He could not take the door that lead to the floo network and the way out. A wanted man could not simply stroll into the atrium of the Ministry of Magic. Instead, he picked another door at random, pulled it open, and dragged himself through. He ignored everything in it, until he found another doorway, another staircase, another secret passage. All those years of scouring the Hogwarts hallways for hidden shortcuts was finally paying off.

Somehow he ended up on a corridor he didn't recognise on a floor he'd never been on. The department boards said 'Magical Law Enforcement'. Excellent. This was exactly where an Azkaban escapee would want to end up. He looked around for any pictures of himself, any of his mug shots, any of his wanted posters. There was nothing- not a single mention or reference to him. That was unusual- he had been lead to believe that his face was plastered over almost every surface of the ministry. Tonks had said she couldn't turn around without being reminded that they were on the lookout for the vicious, violent killer Sirius Black.

It was the first time he'd really been out after he had escaped Azkaban. Sirius didn't even know what time it was- was it late evening? Was it dawn? There was the threat of someone emerging from around any corner, and it felt dangerous. He liked the unknown and the bittersweetness of uncertainty. He didn't know where he was, he didn't know where the corridor would lead and he didn't know what he would find at the end, but he didn't care. The risk was what made it fun.

He could barely make out the corridor in the dark. He could see the wood cladding running along the bottom of the walls, and he read the shiny brass plaques fixed to the doors as he walked quietly past. None of them were recognisable- where were the names he had heard, jumbled in with the ministry reports on the Wizarding Wireless? Bones, Thicknesse, Scrimgeour, Umbridge- he saw not one.

The shiniest plaque fixed to the very last door caught his attention. It was the newest, that much was clear. The engraved letters lingered as if they hadn't quite settled into the plaque, and he could almost make out faint marks left behind from the name that had been magically removed.

The door handle rattled and Sirius panicked. Someone was working late, or maybe starting work early, desperately trying to finish some sort of report or organise some legal inquest. As soon as they opened the door they would be face to face with the most wanted man in the Wizarding World. Could Sirius curse them? He had fallen through the veil with his wand so he still had the use of that. Should he make himself invisible? He could, if he'd ever bothered to learn how to perform the charm properly. The lock clicked as the handle was turned and the door was pulled, swinging on its hinges into the room.

Instinctively, stupidly, desperately, Sirius did nothing. He dragged his aching, tired body further down the corridor and pressed himself back against the walls, trying to blend in with the dark surroundings. If he was silent enough, perhaps he would not be noticed. And if he was noticed… well, maybe he'd have to try hexing the stranger. It might look suspicious to the ministry officials, but it was less suspicious than meeting a gawping Azkaban escapee standing at the door's threshold.

He held his breath and did not dare to move an inch. He thought he'd got away with it, but a faintly recognisable voice silently bounced off the corridor walls.

"Who's there?" A wand was held out in warning.

He knew the voice. Logical, reasonable, vigilant, brave. But it sounded different; it sounded older. Carefully, Sirius stepped out from the shadows. He knew he would not be cursed, he knew he would not be sent back to Azkaban, he knew he would not be killed.

Oh, Hermione. Clever, clever Hermione. How Sirius was glad it was her.