A friend and I were talking the other day about the worst deaths in Harry Potter. I told him I thought Sirius' death was the worst emotionally, but he disagreed and I foolishly asked why. He regarded me as though I was an idiot and said very plainly, "I didn't see a body."

So that got me thinking.

Disclaimer: I own nothing; all characters (save for those I may create on my own) will always belong to J.K. Rowling.

Sirius Black could say with absolute certainty that he was used to the dark. No one could spend even a minute in Azkaban without being exposed to the almost eerie prevalence of both a pitch-black place and a pitch-black mind. He supposed after that terrible experience he should probably feel terrified of dark places, but the only feelings he could conjure up when thinking about a lack of light were those of nostalgia. Memories of roaming Hogwarts grounds in the dead of night, with nothing but a simple Lumos to keep from tripping over his own two feet would always overtake the memories of Azkaban. He was lucky, in a way. But then he would remember those he had roamed with, and the sadness would creep back up.

Overall, the darkness gave him both pleasure and pain.

But the darkness that he saw before him was like no other he had experienced. He did not feel dread or happiness. He felt strangely calm, and that terrified him more than anything else. He tried to think back, to remember how he came across such an awful place. He struggled in vain, for the only image that came to mind was Harry, looking like someone had punched him in the gut.

And then blackness.

He tried to call out, but realized that he could not speak at all. His body felt numb, and he got the feeling that he was floating. He wondered if he had died, and that what he was experiencing at that moment was some sort of hellish purgatory. He laughed bitterly at the implications; he knew he deserved every bit of it, but the ache in his chest made him saddened that this was his punishment. He and James used to joke about it when they were naïve teenagers. They would cause havoc, even after they were both dead and gone. They'd be old men pulling pranks, and then, when they both died (at the ripe age of 95; double heart attacks, of course) they'd continue their reign of marauding terror together in the afterlife.

Then James fell in love with Lily, and another person had been added to their plans.

He hadn't minded at the time, but looking back, he supposed he was a bit jealous that he had to share his best mate. Either way, their plans had ultimately failed, with one dead not long after he had become a father, and the other currently floating in an empty abyss.

The silence was another achingly familiar companion, enough so that it put his teeth on edge. He remembered the quiet; that was another perk of a lifetime in Azkaban. He either heard silence or screams of madness echoing in the night, and, as he was contemplating his very short life in his veiled purgatory, he silently wished that the screaming would return. Then he wouldn't feel so alone.

Alone.

The word hit him harder than he thought, and this is what caused him to almost break down. The darkness was almost bearable, but the loneliness was something he would never be used to. He spent the first eleven years of his life feeling completely isolated from his family. Then he spent the next few years around the one thing he lacked in the noble house of Black: company. After he felt like he couldn't be happier, those feelings of belonging were ripped away the night he was branded a traitor and shipped right off to Azkaban. Alone.

Alone.

No. He couldn't do it. He tried screaming, but the words remained stuck to the back of his throat like glue. He tried to move, but found that he could not lift his hands above his head, nor kick his feet enough to produce any sort of progress. Whatever weighed him down, he knew he had to fight it. He would not be able to stay sane in an empty world. Azkaban had not prepared him for this. At least in Azkaban he had always known death could be his salvation, but to spend the rest of eternity in total darkness? He almost cried at the thought.

That's when he heard something.

He stopped trying to move and lifted his head toward the sound. He knew that imaginary voices were what started off a path of insanity. That he learned the hard way. But he didn't care. He listened to try and make out what the whispers were saying, but they were growing quieter and more distant.

Please, come back he felt like begging, but he had already tried calling out. It wouldn't do him any good.

With the voices becoming nothing but an echo in the back of his mind, he dropped his head in frustration. Lifting it again, he noticed something that he had almost forgotten.

He still had his wand.

He didn't know if magic would work, but he knew he should at least try something. He sluggishly pulled his wand out in front of him, and said the silent incantation for light.

A small, white light appeared at the tip of his wand, and if he could have done so, he would have jumped for joy. He moved the wand around to try and find any other source of light, but saw none. The only object he could make out in the murky veils of darkness that surrounded him was a small stone.

Propelling himself forward with another silent spell, he inspected the small item that floated with him in the hellish darkness. It was jagged, and almost appeared to be blood red. He thought it looked slightly familiar, but brushed off that thought almost immediately. He heard more whispers as he inched closer and closer, and that brought him some semblance of hope. Reaching out, he hoped by touching the object that he could find out what the voices were saying.

He only prodded the thing with his middle finger. Nothing more.

The next thing he knew, he was lying on a cold surface, clutching the small object with his left hand. Opening his eyes, he was momentarily blinded by the light.

Light.

He shook off the thought, and just thanked whatever God was out there that he wasn't cursed forever to sleep in hell. He finally opened his eyes all the way, and was shocked that, as his sight became less blurry, he saw an old man with a long white beard looking curiously down at him.

A very familiar old man.

"Huh," said the man, the confusion evident in his tone. "When I tested the efficiency of this mirror to hold- the object in your hand now- I never expected a person to come out with it."

The old man straightened up, and the young man who held the philosopher's stone in his left hand began to stand.

The old man smiled, and proclaimed, "Well, no matter. We have to get you situated. Are you perhaps a member of the Black family? I would recognize those features anywhere. I'll just be taking that rock back, and I can call on one of the members of the Black family to escort you out. It may be the summer holidays, but I'm sure the family will be happy to see one of their own safe and sound. Regulus, one of our incoming fifth years, would probably be perfect. I presume you know young Regulus?"

Sirius Black could only comprehend very small pieces of what Dumbledore was saying. He heard "Regulus" and "fifth year," but refused to believe it until he looked into Dumbledore's serious eyes. Though he put on a casual front, he knew Dumbledore was wary that a seemingly complete stranger just appeared out of nowhere. And that the stranger was not only a member of a known dark family, but he was also holding tightly onto one of the most dangerous magical treasures that ever existed.

Fourteen years before it would be destroyed.

He knew immediately why he had recognized the stone. He had been shown drawings of it by Moony, and later, by Dumbledore himself. He looked into his blood stained hand, the hand that gripped the stone. And handed it right into the waiting palm of Albus Dumbledore. Dumbledore gently smiled, but Sirius knew him well enough to notice the slight glimmer of relief pass through him.

Looking around, he wondered if this could be some ploy by the Death Eaters, but thought against it after searching his eyes around the familiar office. The portraits were the same, and he had been sent to the Headmaster's office enough to recognize every single nook and cranny that existed. And looking at the man he knew as Albus Dumbledore, his canine instincts insisted that this man was the real deal.

And those don't lie.

Dumbledore cleared his throat, probably perturbed by Sirius' quiet demeanor. Sirius straightened up, and smiled slightly at the man who once helped save his life.

"Would you care for that escort, Mr.-"

"Grim. Harry Grim." Sirius said without a moment's hesitation. He knew he would need an alias, but with the disbelieving look in Dumbledore's eyes, he supposed he needed at least one confidant.

"And you won't believe what I'm about to tell you."

A/N I know Dumbledore probably didn't test out whether the Mirror of Erised could hold the stone before Harry's first year. But that's the thing about fanfiction; I can take liberties like those while still trying to remain on the path of the canon world we love so much.

I've never written an actual story before, just some one-shots that were also ideas that I found interesting, so I don't know if I'll continue this. Like I said, it's been a nugget in the back of my head ever since my friend and I talked about it, so my goal was mainly to get it on paper. I suppose this could probably stand alone (maybe), and I have a busy workload this coming year. I apologize if I don't update regularly, if at all. I'll try my best, because I can already see a few directions in which this potential story can go.

~M