Chapter eleven: Consequences

"Fear and panic in the air

I want to be free

from desolation and despair

And I feel

like everything I sow is being swept away

Well I refuse to let you go

I can't get it right

(get it right)

since I met you"

(Map of the problematique, Muse)

The door to Sirius' room burst open and the trio came barging in with their wands raised. Startled, the animagus spun around grabbing for his own wand, but before he could even fully extract it out of his pocket Harry yelled 'Expeliarmus' and the wand flew out of his hand into the corner of the room.

"What in hell has gotten into you Harry?!"

The boy ignored the question and took a step in his godfather's direction. Ron and Hermione were closing in on Sirius on both sides. Behind Sirius they noticed an open trunk with his clothes thrown carelessly into it.

"Going somewhere?" asked Harry, not really surprised to see the partly packed suitcase.

"As a matter of fact I am. I'm sick and tired of this school with everybody watching every step I take. And I'm especially tired of you following me around. At first the whole teenage crush thing was cute, but now it's getting really annoying."

Harry was unfazed by that, his wand was still pointed at Sirius.

"You are lying. You're not even Sirius," Harry said calmly.

"What?! Of all the ridiculous things… This beats everything!" There was a slight tremor in the animagus' voice though. He looked around at Ron and Hermione, who wore the same determined looks as Harry. "Don't tell me you believe this rubbish? He's nuts! Haven't you got eyes in your heads? Do I look any different?"

"That's Sirius' body alright, but you are not him," stated Hermione.

"You're crazy! All three of you! Look Harry, it's a bummer I don't seem to fit the image of a perfect godfather you created in your mind, but I'm only human after all. And I'm still the same as I've always been. If I'm not Sirius then how could I tell you all those things about your parents? Everything about Prongs, Moony, Wormtail and me?"

Harry didn't have an answer to that and his wand lowered. Sirius used that opportunity to summon his own wand from the corner of the room. "Petrif…" But before he could finish the spell, Harry had knocked the wand out of his hand and pushed his own wand against his throat.

There was a startled yelp from Ron and Hermione whispered 'Be careful Harry'.

"This is all the affirmation I need." Harry's voice was suddenly deep and cold, the same as when he prepared to face Voldemort. "Sirius broke out of Azkaban to protect me. He died protecting me. He would never attack me! Definitely not in such a cowardly way, during a moment of weakness, using my parents to distract me."

Sirius' then put a step back and let out a defeated sigh. Then he straightened up again. "Alright. And what if I'm not Sirius? What are you going to do about it?" He smirked, but the next thing Harry said put a chill down his spine.

"I brought you from beyond the veil and I can put you right back there. Avada…"

"Harry, NO!" screamed both Ron and Hermione.

"No wait! If you kill me, you'll kill your godfather as well!" The animagus was curled up with his hands covering his face, but the dreaded green light didn't come.

"What are you talking about? You've just admitted that you're not Sirius!"

"Yeah, what do you take us for? Complete idiots?" Ron added.

"No, just, just let me explain." The man sighed, realising he had nowhere to go. "No more lies, but trust me, the truth is even stranger. I'm Black, Valerius Black. A very distant relative of Sirius. I fell through the veil almost two centuries ago. The first thing I remember after that is a voice, I couldn't hear what it was calling, but it felt as if it was calling me. Then there was the strange awareness of having a body again, it just wasn't my body. A flash of light, sounds, the world felt upside down and too overwhelming. It took me a great while to recover. Much longer than it took Sirius. I believe now it's because I've spent a lot longer behind the veil than he. For Sirius it was like waking from a dream. But this turned out to be the best arrangement for me, because while I was gaining consciousness and strength I had the time to plan my strategy. I made sure Sirius wasn't aware of my presence, until I was strong enough to take over this body and then it was too late of course. Meanwhile he thought he was suffering from black-outs. So if you ever want to speak to your godfather again, I suggest you leave me alone." He finished the story, looking pleased with himself.

Harry didn't look pleased at all.

"This is bullshit!" exclaimed Ron. "He is only trying to save his own ass!"

But Hermione looked thoughtful. "No, Ron. Everything adds up. That's why he knew all those things only Sirius could know. I've also seen that strange look in Sirius' eyes a couple of times. Like he wasn't sure where he was."

"Me too, usually after he had been acting strange. He even said that he wasn't sure what had happened once," added Harry. "But how?"

"The spell! The spell and the potion never really matched. You wrote the spell yourself, haven't you Harry? You've used examples of course, but the spell itself was nothing more than very powerful raw magic. It's possible that, when it was released, it would instead of summoning Sirius Black, summon every Black that had ever fallen through the veil."

"But why only one body then? Why didn't two complete people came back?"

"I can think of two explanations for that. First, we don't know how long the veil preserves the bodies of ones that fall through it. It's clear that once beyond, the soul gets split from the body, but what happens to the body afterwards? Sirius' body was preserved excellent, but two hundred years is a long time. Maybe there was no body for Valerius' soul to get back to. Another explanation is the potion. The one in the cauldron. That one I got from a book. It was formerly designed to pull someone from water or fire, but was never used for that, because, well, it takes a month to make and by that time the person in need is likely to already have drowned or burnt…"

"Hermione, stay on topic please."

"What I'm trying to explain is that the potion was much more specific. Potions generally work on the body. This one was no exception. It was made to pull a body from beyond the veil. One specific body. Sirius' body."

They were thinking about it, when Harry suddenly jumped up. "I've had it with this guy! Petrificus Totalis!" When Hermione and Ron looked up, they noticed that the animagus had managed to get his wand again, but now fell back on the floor, petrified.

"So what are we going to do about all of this?"

"Well, first this." Harry took Sirius' wand out of the man's petrified hand and stuffed it into his own pocket. Then he lifted the spell, but immediately bound the man's arms and put a silencing charm on him. Then he shoved him into the closet.

'This in no solution, Harry."

"I know, but it'll have to do for a while. We have to find out if he has told us the truth. Hermione, you think you can find anything on Valerius Black in the library?"

"If that's really his name, then yes."

"Alright, let's go then."

And so the trio headed to the library. After digging through the books it was, as expected, Hermione who struck gold.

"I think I've got something here." She walked over to the table Ron and Harry were sharing and dropped a huge and very dusty book on it. "It says here that 'Valerius Black has been one of a group wizards who were responsible for several crimes concerning muggles. Those were so severe that all of them were sentenced to eternal exile in 1809'. With exile they mean the exile of the soul. As in being thrown through the veil."

"Great, at least now we know we're dealing with a criminal sentenced to death," sighed Ron.

Harry had grabbed the book and was reading the passage about Valerius over and over. When he looked up, his face was drained of all colour. "Uh oh."

"Harry you're scaring me."

"Yeah, what do you mean with 'uh oh'? I don't like the sound of it."

"Well, we may have a bit of a problem."

"You mean aside having a raving lunatic inside Sirius' body without any idea what to do about the situation?"

"Yes. Remember the exact words I used in the spell to bring Sirius back? The part about the archway taking what wasn't its and a life taken before its end?" Ron and Hermione nodded. "Well that is true in Sirius' case, but Valerius doesn't fit the description. His live was ended then on purpose. In those years criminals were sort of sacrificed to the arch."

"So…?"

"So we took something that was ours back, but also have stolen something from the arch. And the case being that in the spell I sort of make a blood-vow…"

Ron was still looking puzzled, but Hermione gasped and finished Harry's sentence "…the arch is now entitled to take a life in return."

"Whose life?" Ron was still confused.

Harry swallowed, "Mine."

Paste your document here...