And so I fell. Bella got her wish. It was she who got me. I kept telling myself that I should have gotten to her first. I should have gotten her ages ago. I wouldn’t have been able to do it though. I’m no bloodthirsty Death Eater. Bella is family, no matter how much I hate to admit it. I could never kill family.

I panicked when I woke up beyond the veil. I had no idea where I was. All I remembered was Bella hitting me and falling back. I’ve been here for ages and I finally have figured out many of the secrets of the veil. Many of them I’m not sure how to write. They’re just feelings that you can’t properly describe. Well, I’ll tell you what I can and decide where to go from there.

When I woke, I opened my eyes and saw nothing. Nothing is a very boring thing to look at, but at first, it’s the most terrifying thing in any world. Nothing has no color, no sound; no light or dark. There is no bottom or top of nothing. No ceiling or floors. It just is. I somehow managed to stand, but it didn’t feel like standing, for there was nothing to stand on. Though it didn’t feel like floating either. It felt like nothing. I wasn’t floating and I wasn’t falling. I just existed, but at the same time, it felt as if I didn’t exist at all. I had never felt so torn between two worlds before.

I started to run, but instead of me moving, the nothing beneath my feet squirmed backwards. I stopped trying to move, terrified about what would happen if I continued running. I was nervous and confused. I had no idea where I was and didn’t know anything about this strange place. “Hello?” I shouted and the noise was deafening. There was an echo in the emptiness. The echo continued; a never-ending repetition of the word. I started to walk, and as soon as I lifted my foot, the echo suddenly stopped, leaving a ringing silence so quiet that I would almost prefer the echo.

I took another step and the nothing didn’t move nearly as much as it had when I was running. I still wasn’t moving, or maybe I was. There was no way to tell in this nothing. There was nothing to look at and nothing to step on. There was just nothing. I felt something move behind me and turned around. What I saw was what looked like a ghost, but right in its core, there was a faint glowing light. I jumped at the sight. I spotted another and another and suddenly I was surrounded by these mysterious beings. They showed no signs of noticing that I was there though. Maybe I didn’t exist. The people were mumbling and whispering, but I couldn’t tell exactly what it was that they were saying, for they were all talking at once.

I decided that it was worth asking what this place was. I approached on of them. When he turned around, I recognized him immediately. “Sir Nicholas??” I asked, astounded to see anyone that I know in such a place. Nearly Headless Nick made no reaction to show that he even heard his name, though he was looking right at me. More like he was looking right through me.

Where I was standing, I was close enough to Nick to hear what he was saying. In a quiet, monotone voice, he said, “…Afraid of death. I didn’t want to see what came next. I was too young to have died. I wanted…” And he just kept rambling on.

“What?” I asked, confused as to why he was saying such things. He still gave me no answer other than his talk of his fear of death.

I gave up on him and started moving through the crowd, their non-stop mumbling driving me crazy.

I heard many different things as bits and pieces of the peoples’ whispers reached my ears. I heard people say things like, “I would have missed my family” or “I loved him”. Once or twice I heard something like, “I killed them”, but what I heard most was some fear of death, or fear of the unknown. Through all of these wandering people, not once did anyone notice or answer me. I had no idea how long I had been searching, for there is no time in nothing. How could you keep time without light and dark?

Though I had given up talking with these wanderers long ago, I still kept searching. I wasn’t sure what I was searching for, a familiar face, maybe, but I couldn’t tell you for certain. I was just about to give up when I saw a blur of color way off in the distance. The color stood out vividly in this nothing and I couldn’t wait for it to reach me. When it should have taken hours, the color was right next to me in mere seconds.

It wasn’t just color, it was a man. He was a tall, handsome man who had on green wizards’ robes. He looked extremely worn, as if he hadn’t relaxed in years. What I noticed immediately besides his clothing was that he wasn’t mumbling. He seemed completely normal.

“You’re not talking,” I said stupidly, not really expecting an answer.

“Well, you’re quite observant, aren’t you?”

“You can understand me?” I asked, shocked that I’ve finally gotten a response.

“It would appear that way, yes.”

A million questions ran so quickly through my head that I didn’t even have time to organize them before I started blurting them out. “What is this place? How did I get here? Who are you? What are those things? What--”

“Slow down!” the man said, obviously being careful not to shout so he would not disturb the nothing surrounding us. “This place is beyond the veil. It’s not a place for the living. It’s not a place for the dead either. It’s a place of souls. I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten myself. I’m Arthur Dane. You can call me Dane. And to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure how I ended up here. I was working in the Department of Mysteries when I tripped and that’s the last I remember of my life before this place.”

I held out my hand and Dane shook it. “Sirius Black. The last I remember is the battle. I was fighting off some Death Eaters and I was hit. I fell back, and when I woke up, I was here. So those things, they’re souls?” Dane and I started walking. There was the uncomfortable squirm of the nothing beneath my feet, but I was getting used to it.

“Yes. Souls of the wizards who can never fully move on.”

I looked up at Dane and saw that he was staring off into the vast nothingness. “So they’re the souls of ghosts?”

He looked at me to answer. His expression was excited, like he had been longing for company and I had finally given it to him. “Partially. When a ghost makes the decision at the light to turn around and go back, they can’t fully return to Earth; what they leave at the light comes here.” The expression on his face turned grave as he continued. “This place isn’t only for the pieces of Ghosts that were left behind, this place is for souls of all kinds. There are unfortunate souls who had no choice of coming here. There are a few, like you and I, who aren’t sure how we came to be in this place, but we are as normal as we ever were. Then, there are others. Others who faced the kiss of death, the Dementor’s Kiss. When someone is kissed by a Dementor, their soul comes here as well.”

I shuddered, reminding myself of how close I had come to being one of these mindless beings. “Why can’t they hear us?”

“Because they’re not whole. Your soul can’t think; it’s just a part of you. Your soul has no brain.”

Dane knew everything. He could probably tell me the answer to life if I asked him, but that’s not what I needed to know. “What are they saying? Do they talk all the time?”

“They’re telling their stories. Why they stayed behind. And yes, they talk constantly. Maddening, isn’t it?”

It all was starting to fit. I understood the mumblings suddenly; of how people were afraid. I wasn’t afraid. Whatever is after death can’t be worse than what’s on Earth.

I had one final question in mind. “Have you been here long?”

Dane smiled at me and slung his arm over my shoulder. “I’ve been here for eternity, and after enough time has passed, you’ll be able to say the same thing. I’m glad to finally have someone along for the ride.”