At the end of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Dumbledore tells Harry that "To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure," so I decided to elaborate on that. I hope you like it.
Note: None of the characters are mine. Dumbledore's quote is not mine. It all belongs to JKR.
"To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure."
Dumbledore had said it once, but he knew nothing of death. It didn't seem like the next great adventure. It wasn't the rest I had imagined it would be because I simply wasn't old enough to be tired yet. I wasn't supposed to be here in death. The most basic part of my mind welcomed it as inevitable but my conscious self was screaming over and over "Not yet!"
People aren't supposed to die in their early thirties. They aren't even supposed to die in their early seventies. Sure, I'd been depressed enough to consider suicide before, but now that I was here not of my own will, I wanted to see the sun again. I wanted to laugh and be happy or fight and be angry. I wanted to walk and run and love and… live again.
I hadn't taken more than three steps forward since I'd fallen through, but when I turned around, the archway seemed immeasurably far away. I reached out a hand towards it but when I did, it seemed to skip back even further until I couldn't see it anymore.
I could be a ghost again... But it wouldn't be real life. It would be like being a second away from receiving a wonderful treat without ever being able to reach out and take it. I would feel like a starving man forced to watch others eat all they wished.
I turned back around. If I couldn't go back, I'd have to move on. Uncertainly, I stepped forward. Death seemed to me like a monotonously grey stone corridor. There were doors here and there... some of them were, well, doors, but others were trapdoors and archways, and there were also windows and tapestries concealing passageways. I paused, not knowing where to go, but I had to start somewhere. I reached for a door, but suddenly remembered something else I'd been told long ago about how foolish it is to go without a purpose. I thought, "What does one do in death?" But as soon as I had thought it, I knew the answer.
Find Lily and James. If they were dead, they were bound to be here somewhere.
But how would I find them? There was nothing to indicate what each door led to… I turned my head, looking at the variety. A sturdy black door drew my attention. It was heavy and solid with silver handle and keyhole. I reached out and turned the knob. It was smooth and cool to the touch and it opened easily.
Behind the door I saw papers. There were stacks and stacks of parchment, some old and crumbling while others glistened with fresh ink. I walked over to what seemed like the most recent one. There was a list of names and at the very bottom, with the ink still shining and wet, I saw the name "Sirius Black"—my name.
So it was a room listing those who were dead, and all those who had died, back and back from the beginning of time. I stood still and in awe of the vast quantity of names. There were tables full of paper, lined up in rows that went back and back in this gigantic hall. There were shelves against the walls, too, full of large, leather-bound books that I would have bet fifty galleons were full of names, too. Some were labeled "Wizards" and others "Muggles". A part of me wanted to stay here and search through the names, but I knew I shouldn't stay. "James won't be here," I told myself, and I turned to leave. But there were doors here, too! Between bookshelves, there were doors like the first. I looked up and saw trapdoors in the ceiling. There was even a statue in a corner where I could see the faint outline of a concealed passageway. And that gave me an idea.
The first secret passage we had ever found in Hogwarts had been behind a tapestry showing Uric the Oddball. I left the room from the way I came and after one more hopeful glance back down the hallway towards the archway (which was no closer than before) I searched the hall for any sort of wall hanging. There wasn't one. I walked on, deeper into death. The first thing that looked even slightly like something worth considering was a plain white drape. It was shining slightly, in a way that reminded me faintly of a unicorn. It was beautiful, really. I reached out and touched it lightly with two of my fingers. It shivered, as though blown by a light breeze, but it wasn't a tapestry, for it was not dyed and I saw no needlework on it. I was drawn to it, however, and I wanted desperately to pull it back and see what was beyond. Unfortunately, this was just like the archway that had led to my death. I knew that whatever was behind there, it wasn't healthy. I left it with difficulty, because it felt like a persistent itch that I had to scratch…
With a sigh, I turned and walked on. A bit further on, I saw a tapestry—a real one—but it was pale blue and showed three beautiful, scantily clad women laughing together. I smiled, shaking my head. James would have gone through this one if he'd been by himself… But he and Lily had died in the same night and she would have been with him. He wouldn't have dared.
I walked on.
Doors caught my eye every now and then, tempting me with hints of what might be behind them. Some glittered like gold or flashed like silver. Behind others, I heard familiar voices and laughter. Still others, like the tapestry, held hints of concealing women (and, I assumed, men who had not had my force of will). One door I barely was able to walk by, but not because I wanted to open it. Its emanations were enough to make my teeth hurt and my stomach churn. Inside, I knew somehow, was a raw power strong enough to rip my soul apart.
And then, after I had walked so long that my feet were bleeding, I saw it. It was a tapestry bearing a picture of Uric the Oddball trying to put on a pair of bunny slippers that were still hopping. This was it.
I drew back the curtain and…
To my dismay, there was simply another long passage. However, at my feet, I saw a twig. I bent and picked it up.
It was the twig from the end of a broomstick. It was decisively James's personality. I smiled. I must be going the right way. Better yet, I knew what I was looking for. It would, of course, be another tapestry… with something to do with Quidditch…
The first thing I saw that was even relevant was a trapdoor… but that was a Quaffle painted on it, and James was always the Seeker. Anyway, it wasn't a tapestry.
I knew for sure I was getting closer when I did see a Quidditch tapestry.
It was black with silver embroidery… Obviously, it was magical, because the stitches moved and changed, rather like portraits or photographs did. I watched it, searching for a sign that this was the right door…
And, out of nowhere, the stitches formed a circle that seemed to come zooming towards me, so life-like that I almost ducked. But then I grinned.
James was not the Beater, and that had been a Bludger if I had ever seen one.
At least an hour later, I was beginning to wonder if I had come down the right path, for there had been nothing else. I sat down against a wall, rubbing my sore feet. I was just staring at the wall opposite me when it changed.
There was a gold tapestry that I could only see when I tilted my head just so… And there, right in the center, was a tiny but perfectly defined golden Snitch. I stood up, careful not to lose sight of it, and reached out to pull it aside. I tugged but couldn't get the edge up… The Snitch flapped its wings as if goading me into catching it. I reached out… and it moved. I tried again but didn't catch it.
"Curse it!" I hissed. "This is what James is good at. I never was that great a Quidditch…"
Three times I tried before finally I grabbed it… and the tapestry blew open.
This time there was a brick at my feet.
"A brick?" I thought, confused. "Brick… But… but that's what their house was made of! Red brick!" My face split into a smile.
This time it would be a tapestry with both a Quidditch elements and a picture of Godric's Hollow. I was sure of it.
But this hall was different from the others. There were things in it, shadowy forms of people and animals who had certainly been dead much longer than I. I took a few tentative steps forward before the nearest one looked up. It was a lion… but when I turned my head slightly, a woman appeared where the lioness had been. She moved closer, first walking, then changing and stalking forward. It—she—sat on the floor in front of me in an odd position that made her look half human, half feline.
"What do you seek in these deep reaches of Death?" She purred the question.
"Lily and James Potter," I answered the Sphinx.
She growled slightly, though not menacingly. "I'll help you find them if you can answer my riddle…"
"And if I can't?"
She flicked her tail a couple of times. "Your body is dead but not your soul. There are some in Life whose souls are dead but not their bodies; they are the ones kissed by the dementors. There are but a few who are gone completely: neither soul nor body lives. If you fail to answer my riddle correctly, you'll join those few."
I shivered. Death once was quite enough. I could turn back now and find another place to reside, but the desire to see James again burned my heart. "Give me your riddle," I decided.
The Sphinx licked her lips in a disconcerting fashion and hissed the riddle:
"It can warm up the living, dispose of the dead;
Bring light to the darkness and melt away dread.
Its ravenous hunger's not softened by bread
And each finger it licks is quick to turn red."
My eyes widened. I never had been good at riddles. One line at a time, I told myself calmingly. "Warm up the living"? That could be a potion, maybe… Where's old Snivellus when you need him? And "dispose of the dead"? Could it be a spell, perhaps? But "Avada Kedavra" killed people; it didn't get rid of them. Well, I'll come back to that line. I was drawn back to the line about its ravenous hunger… "Not softened by bread"… maybe something that doesn't eat wheat. A carnivorous animal? But why would it lick a finger without eating it? Light… What had a tongue and glowed? It sounded like the beginning to a bad joke. Light and heat… I tried to put the clues together. How do we dispose of the dead? Bury them, burn them, or let them rot… Light, heat, burying or burning… Light, heat, burning… Burning...
"Fire," I exclaimed. It leapt out of my mouth before I could think about it. If it wasn't right, I didn't want to think about what would happen… I looked at the Sphinx, but she was smiling.
"Correct," she said with a noise between a hiss and a roar. "Follow me."
Feeling relieved, I followed the shape that kept shifting fluidly between the form of a woman and that of a lioness. We wove through corridors that twisted and turned, walked up and down steps, turned off this hall and onto another, through first this room, then that… Then she stopped suddenly, flinging out a graceful arm that ended abruptly in a paw. "This is where I leave you. Good luck on your journey, friend," she purred.
"Wait! I don't know what to do from here!"
She turned with a flick of her tail, winked one blue eye that turned the next second yellow-green, and stalked away into the grey shadows of Death.
I considered running after her, but she was gone before I could move a foot. Time moves so strangely in death… I turned to see what lay before me. Another hallway stretched endlessly before me. I looked down at the twig and brick I still carried in my hand. The brick wasn't red anymore. I blinked. Maybe my eyes were just growing accustomed to the grey light of Death, but it looked stone grey. The twig remained unchanged. I walked on, staring ahead, looking around me.
Suddenly, I stumbled, landing face down on the hard floor. I cursed and looked around to see what I'd tripped on. There was a rectangular hole in the ground about the size of a brick. I looked again at what I held in my hand, this time wondering about its purpose. Maybe it wasn't just a clue, but something like a puzzle piece? I set the brick down in the hole. It seemed to glow with silver light for a moment before settling into its space and blending in with the rest of the floor. And then… I must have not blinked because I didn't know where it had come from. There was a small wooden box just over the place where the brick had gone. It was closed. I tried to pry it open with my fingernails in the groove that went all around it, but it remained stubbornly shut. I turned it over. Death was indeed a strange place if magic happened without one to make it so…
The box seemed damaged. There was a long slash in it, thick enough for me to slide my fingernails into. It was like a puzzle missing the last piece, like it had lost just a fragment of the wood it was made of. I'd fixed the hallway with a brick. Should I fix the box with the twig?
There was nothing to lose… I fit the two together.
It was as if I'd turned a key. The box popped open and inside… how curious.
It was like looking into a Pensieve. I put a finger inside but didn't feel a bottom to the box. I inserted my entire fist. The box writhed and twisted, stretching. Within seconds, it was big enough to accommodate my head comfortably where in the beginning it was barely the size of my hand. Then my shoulders were inside and it dropped down over the rest of me.
I felt like I was tumbling over. I reached out my hands to break my fall… and tumbled lightly onto the ground in yet another cold, stone-grey room. It was beginning to make my head hurt. I glanced around… And there it was; the finest tapestry of all.
It was deep blue with golden threads forming the shapes of two people: a man and a woman. The man had his arm around the woman, and both were smiling in welcome. The woman had almond-shaped eyes. The man had messy hair that I knew would never lie flat.
I reached out and touched the tapestry, trying to push it to the side. It wouldn't move. It would ripple but the edge would never leave its place.
But this was it! This was where I wanted to be… Then a whisper so faint it could have been a memory said, "Name us."
I frowned.
"Name us!" It was more insistent.
I looked up at the two people and the hiss seemed to come from both of them. I opened my mouth and let it form the familiar names:
"Lily! James!"
It blew open and inside… there they were, and just how I remembered them.
"Sirius," Lily greeted me kindly. She hugged me. "We've been waiting for you."
"Padfoot! It's so good to see you again," was James's rather louder, more enthusiastic greeting. "It's been so dull here without you…"
Lily gave him a rather hurt look.
"I mean," he said quickly, looking guilty, "I mean, it would have been if it weren't for Lily here. Sorry, Lily…"
They all laughed and then James butchered the warm, friendly atmosphere by saying all too eagerly, "Want to come with me and set a firecracker in old Merlin's beard?"
Okay, now we all know what you do next... Please review!