The world beyond the Veil— the Borderland between life and death—was always shrouded in mist that never truly dispersed.
Sirius watched as the black cat curled its tail around a strand of silvery memory—freshly drawn from his mind.
He had no idea what his god intended to do. All he could do was stand obediently in place, so nervous he did not even know what to do with his hands.
As he watched, he saw the cat's tail go rigid and its whiskers tremble, as if it were suppressing some urge.
Sirius thought, It's probably trying not to swallow my memories whole… unless it's trying to resist batting the memories around like a cat with a ball of yarn?
That thought hit him so strangely that he laughed before he could stop himself.
The black cat looked at him immediately.
"It's just… there's mist everywhere here…"
He froze all over at once and hurriedly pretended to be busy, looking around in every direction.
What he said sounded awkward too. Talking about all the mist in the Borderland was about as bland and useless as commenting on the clean air in the countryside.
The black cat ignored him and worked hard to suppress its feline instincts.
"Please come with me, Mr. Black."
Sirius's whole body snapped straight as if electrified. Then he quickly moved closer to the black cat and sank into the memory with his god.
Falling, falling, still falling…
After a stretch of weightlessness that was neither long nor short, man and cat finally dropped into a familiar place.
—The Great Hall of Hogwarts.
The black cat was standing on Sirius's shoulder in the middle of the Hall, but this Hogwarts was not quite the one it knew.
The four house tables were gone. In their place stood over a hundred small desks, all facing the same direction. A student sat at each one, head bowed, scribbling furiously across a scroll of parchment.
The room was very quiet. The only sounds were the scratch of quills, and every now and then the rustle of someone adjusting a sheet of parchment.
They were in the middle of an exam.
Sunlight streamed through the tall windows and shone down on the bowed heads, turning their hair brown-gray, auburn, and gold in the bright light.
The black cat looked around carefully.
Young Sirius and James had to be here somewhere… this was Sirius's memory…
"Five minutes left!"
A voice suddenly rang out.
The black cat turned and saw a much younger Flitwick moving between the rows of desks.
He passed by a boy with messy black hair… incredibly messy black hair…
Sirius flinched beneath the cat. Then he started moving.
He moved very quickly. If he'd had a solid body, he would have knocked over several desks.
But instead he seemed to glide, as if in a dream, crossing two aisles and sweeping forward along the third.
The back of that black-haired boy's head came closer and closer. And now… he was sitting up straighter, setting down his quill, pulling the scroll toward himself to reread his answers…
Sirius stopped in front of the desk and looked down at James.
Then he lowered his eyes, turned his head away, and began to tremble.
The black cat looked at him the way one might look at Harry, only slightly altered.
James's eyes were hazel, and his nose was a little longer than Harry's. There was no scar on his forehead, but they had the same lean face, the same mouth, the same eyebrows.
James's hair was exactly like Harry's too—sticking up at the back—and his hands were Harry's hands.
James yawned hugely and raked a hand through his hair, making it even messier.
Then he glanced at Flitwick and turned around in his seat, grinning at the boy four seats behind him.
The younger Sirius, sitting there, raised a thumbs-up at James.
Young Sirius lounged carelessly in his chair, looking perfectly at ease. He was leaning back so that only the two rear legs of the chair touched the ground.
He was very handsome, with black hair falling into his eyes in a way that somehow made him look elegant without trying.
A girl sitting behind him was watching him with open expectation, but he did not seem to notice.
A few seats away in the same row—yes, the black cat recognized him—that was the young Remus Lupin.
He looked pale and drawn.
The black cat guessed it must be close to the full moon.
At the moment, he was entirely absorbed in his exam. He reread his answers, scratched his chin with the end of his quill, and frowned slightly.
And finally there was a small boy with mousy hair and a pointed nose.
Wormtail.
He looked anxious, chewing his fingernails, staring down at his paper, rubbing the toes of his shoes against the floor.
From time to time he would glance hopefully at the exam of the student beside him.
The black cat placed a paw beside Sirius's ear and flicked it backward. Eyes already red, Sirius finally gave up on throwing himself at the Wormtail in the memory.
He had spent too many years in prison. He wanted to kill that man too badly.
In the end, under the gaze of his god, Sirius did nothing but stare at Wormtail a little longer before turning his eyes back to James, who was now idly doodling on a scrap of parchment.
He had already drawn a Golden Snitch and was now sketching the letters "L.E."
What did they stand for?
That was easy.
Lily Evans.
"Quills down!"
Flitwick squeaked.
"That means you too, Stebbins! Stay in your seats while I collect the papers! Accio!"
Over a hundred parchment scrolls rose into the air at once and flew into Flitwick's outstretched arms, knocking him flat to the floor.
Some people laughed. A few students from the front row jumped up, took him by the arms, and helped him back to his feet.
"Thank you… thank you…"
Flitwick panted.
"Very good, everyone, you may go!"
The black cat looked down at James. He hurriedly scratched out the "L.E." he had been touching up, jumped to his feet, stuffed quill and parchment into his bag, swung it over his shoulder, and stood there waiting for young Sirius to come join him.
"Did you like question ten, Moony?"
young Sirius asked as they entered the Entrance Hall.
"Loved it,"
Lupin said cheerfully.
"Name five distinguishing signs of a werewolf. Great question."
"You think you got all five?"
James asked in a tone of mock concern.
"I think so,"
Lupin said seriously as they moved into the crowd pressing toward the front doors and the sunlit grounds outside.
"First: he's sitting in my seat. Second: he's wearing my clothes. Third: his name is Remus Lupin."
Everyone laughed except Wormtail.
"I wrote about the shape of the muzzle, the pupils, and the furry tail,"
Wormtail said anxiously.
"But I couldn't remember the rest—"
"How can you be this thick, Wormtail?"
James said impatiently.
"You run around with a werewolf every month—"
"Keep your voice down,"
Lupin pleaded.
Their conversation was interesting, but the black cat did not keep listening.
Enough. More than enough.
It had seen James. It had found him. Now that James had left an impression in the black cat's mind, the Borderland would have to obey the cat's rules.
The real Sirius still stood off to the side, watching the memory—watching the four of them joking together.
The scene was beautiful and unreal. His face felt cold. He thought perhaps it was raining in the Borderland.
Just before leaving, the black cat suddenly stopped.
It had spotted a wizard worth lingering for.
In the memory, beneath the shadow of the beech tree by the Hogwarts lake—
under the thick shade of the shrubbery—sat a dark-haired boy on the grass, absorbed in studying for his O.W.L.s.
He looked to be in his mid-teens, with a wiry, solid frame, but his face was pale, like a plant that had grown up in darkness.
The black cat bounded over to him, and now it could see clearly—
it was the young Professor Snape.
Sirius felt his shoulder grow strangely light. His god had already left him behind.
The cat crossed the grass and stopped in front of the wizard Sirius least wanted to see.
It was obvious to the naked eye that the black cat cared about this wizard in a special way. It had shown no such interest in anyone else here.
"That's Snape,"
Sirius said.
The black cat nodded, signaling that it was time to leave.
"You're very interested in him?"
Sirius asked tentatively when they once again stepped onto the white mist of the Borderland.
The black cat answered with silence.
"We should go, Mr. Black."
The black cat's voice carried no emotion. It seemed always to be like this, still and unreadable.
Dreams were an alluring place. Along the way, Sirius saw many strange and fascinating things.
There were little clumps of mist drifting through the air, each one displaying a bizarre and dazzling image,
and notably, they all seemed eager to drift toward Sirius, only to be brushed away each time by the black cat's tail.
And the farther they walked, the more houses began to appear amid the mist.
Each house was different, but they all shared one astonishing feature—they each had a little door. Some even had signs shaped like black cats standing beside them.
A few had gone so far as to erect entire black cat statues.
Sirius kept looking and guessing as they walked.
He realized he had still underestimated the black cat beside him.
The Borderland—the world beyond the Veil, where souls wandered forever—was somehow full of faith. There were wizards here, everywhere, worshipping a god.
For the first time, Sirius found himself doubting this magic.
What kind of being was it, to make such young wizards place it on an altar?
What kind of power did it possess, to reveal the future and walk between life and death?
What kind of wizards did it seek out, that it could allow them to wield such miraculous power?
Sirius had always thought that sort of thing was just legend—one more Merlin tale among many.
Now it seemed not only real, but enduring.
Soon Sirius's thoughts drifted off in another direction. One moment he was wondering whether James and Lily would look the way they used to when he saw them again—
or whether they would have the terrible faces of the dead.
After all, they had died violently.
The next moment he was wondering whether they hated him. Whether just seeing him would disgust them.
His brow tightened. Fear closed around his throat the way it had on countless nights before.
He thought it would pass, the way it always had.
This time, he was wrong.
Just as Sirius was drifting in that haze, the black cat's swaying tail suddenly stilled.
Far away, from the middle of a pitch-black mass of mist, it heard the howl of a dog.
It was the first time it had encountered something like this, but it had almost been expecting it.
"Mr. Black,"
it said, pulling Sirius sharply out of his daze,
"run straight ahead, if you still want to see them."
"What…"
Before Sirius could react, an enormous black dog burst out of the blur.
The moment Sirius saw it, his legs nearly gave way beneath him.
"What is that?!"
he shouted, shocked and enraged.
"Your fear, sir."
The black cat paid him no further attention.
This was the first time it had encountered a wizard's opposite soul.
It had invited many guests before. Aside from a few children who had not stayed long, only Newt Scamander had remained in the Borderland for any significant time.
And Newt had been so sincere at heart that the black cat had almost believed the Borderland was not all that dangerous—for wizards who wandered into it.
But now it was clear: how could a place that even Professor Dumbledore could not remain in for long possibly be peaceful and harmless?
"Run,"
the black cat said.
Sirius's calves were trembling, but he obeyed the cat's order and ran forward.
And then more black dogs appeared.
"Fear. Hatred. Self-reproach…"
The black cat sighed. Mr. Sirius was truly a troublesome wizard.
The three black dogs that leapt out of the mist were huge, each one towering over a meter high when it reared up.
In front of them, the black cat looked almost small.
In the distance, Sirius ran as hard as he could, feeling the wind stream backward past him, while hearing his god murmur:
"Run, sir. Run past your fear. Run past your hatred. Run past your guilt.
Throw away your yesterday. Yesterday is already dead.
Throw away your hatred—no man can keep a venomous snake alive inside his own heart.
Then throw away your fear. Bury your self-reproach…
If you can stand firm in the wind, you will understand that wind is only wind—whether it is the wind high on a tower where one stands on a rope, or the wind on level ground, it is still only wind.
Those who lose their footing in the heights do so because a storm is blowing inside their heads."
Sirius steadied a little and saw that his god had begun to reveal its true authority.
It was not only merciful. It had the wrath of a god as well.
Its body had grown seven or eight times larger, becoming a magnificent giant cat—even bigger than the black dogs.
And when it fixed those slit pupils on them, even the beasts formed from the dark half of the soul would pause, as if they feared the anger of a god.
"What sort of place is this… and what sort of being is a god…"
Sirius muttered as he ran across the open field.
~~~
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