Sirius stepped towards the open door in a blank attempt to see and touch Harry. He watched in horror as Harry lunged forward towards Bellatrix, and battled with her before he went with Neville to climb up the steps and out the door. Miraculously, Albus Dumbledore came into the room. He muttered a spell and everyone was bound together in the middle of the room. Sirius attempted to walk into the room, but as he did so, Lily screamed and James grabbed his shirt, pulling him backwards. In the blink of an eye, the door was gone and the three friends were left staring at a blank wall.
Lily and James started towards the table they had been sitting at as Sirius began to speak.
"Why'd you stop me from going in there? Why!?" growled Sirius. He stomped over to the table, placed his hands down, and leaned forward to look directly into James's eyes.
James sighed, and then he, too, placed his hands out in front of him. "Padfoot, we told you before we agreed to let you see them," He said, continuing to look back at his best friend. "If you even try to step through the door, you --"
"-- Will disappear," interrupted Lily, and Sirius turned his focus the the red-haired-witch before him. "Along with anything or any body part you just happened to get through it."
Sirius swallowed as he sat down at the table, his eyes going back and forth between his two friends, almost like he was deciding which one to ask his question towards. "What happens to the things that disappear?" he said.
"They, ... well, they end up back into the place you were looking at." Lily used her wand to summon another firewhisky for Sirius, while James finished off his first one. Sirius took the glass and quickly gulped it down. Without thinking, he summoned four more, finishing them almost the second they appeared.
Ten minutes passed before Sirius finally calmed down enough to think clearly. All of the questions he still wanted answers to reappeared in the forefront of his mind, and he tried to figure out how to ask them all and where to start. Deciding that he should just open his mouth and ask the first thing that came to mind, he began.
"Did you guys know about me in Azkaban? Did you know how Harry hated me when he saw me in the Shrieking Shack?"
"Yes, we know about both of those things," whispered Lily. "We also know about Harry's Patronus being a stag, which is what James's Animagus form was." Lily smiled at Sirius as she watched him take in all of the information. She knew he had more questions for them, but she could also tell he was nervous about asking them. Lost in her own thoughts about her friend, Lily jumped suddenly, almost as if a gun went off, when Sirius began to talk again.
"So," he started off hesitantly, his eyes never making contact with either of them. "If I wanted to, uh, see someone else that is, um, you know, dead, ... how do I do that?" Sirius summoned one last firewhisky and stared into the glass as he waited for either James or Lily to answer.
Neither James nor Lily spoke right away, the both of them surely thinking the same thing about Sirius's question. Finally, though, James spoke trying to get his friend to meet his gaze, but Sirius remained focused on the amber liquid swirling in his glass. "There's actually a few ways that can happen, Padfoot," he said. "You could picture them here with you, or they could picture themselves here, or they can bring you to them in the same way."
James looked at Sirius as he tried to figure out who had died that his friend wanted to see. The only thought that came to mind would be either his father or his brother. But both of them were people James never thought Sirius would want to see. His brother, Regulus, had been a Death Eater from the age of sixteen until the day he died. And although he had tried to get out of Voldemort's service in the end, he had still paid the price with his life.
Orion Black was Sirius's father, and he had been very obsessed with a wizard's purity of blood. To Mr. Black, anyone who was less than pureblooded was dirty and those who went against their blood were considered as nothing more than a traitor. When Sirius was placed into Gryffindor in his first year at Hogwarts, Orion had been furious; he even wrote to Dumbledore demandint that his son's house be changed. He wanted his son to be in any other house except Gryffindor - even Hufflepuff had been acceptable to him.
Dumbledore wouldn't do it, though; the headmaster had told Sirius that the Sorting Hat never made mistakes. There had to be a reason for why he was placed in the house he was in, and throughout the years, the reason for Sirius's Sorting became obvious. He was brave and courageous. He stuck by his friends and always helped them when he was needed. In short, it became clear that Sirius was a true Gryffindor.
"I want to see my brother," said Sirius. "There are some things we never got to say to each other." He finally stopped looking in his glass and stared at James and Lily from across the table. "Do I do it the same way as the door?"
Shocked at his friend's words that he wanted to see Regulus, but a part of him understanding Sirius's thoughts at the same time, James nodded and watched as Sirius tried to relax enough to concentrate. After about twenty minutes, an outline of a man appeared across the room. Ever so slowly, his features began to show and become clearer and clearer as time went on, and ten minutes later, Sirius found himself standing face to face with the brother he hadn't seen in years. No one moved or spoke, and to be honest, it seemed like none of them were even breathing or blinking.
"Sirius?" said Regulus, breaking the silence that had fallen over the four people in the room. "What the hell? How did you -- when did you -- oh my God!" Regulus rushed forward and embraced his brother. Sirius was shocked at first at his brother's action, and the brief tensing of his body gave that away. But it only lasted for a second, until Sirius found himself hugging him back. They were both dead; granted, it was, for different reasons, true, but they were dead all the same. What could one little hug hurt?
"Yeah, well, I was pushed through a veil in the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry. I ended up her,." muttered Sirius shrugging before he continued. "And you'll never guess who pushed me."
"Bella." Regulus shook his head and sat in an extra seat at the table. He wasn't shocked to hear that their own cousin was the one who had killed his brother, but he was shocked that it had happened now. He knew the war had started again, but he thought his brother was still in hiding. He knew Dumbledore would never have let Sirius go out in public when everyone thought he was a murderer. (Regulus may have been dead for years, but he had been watching Sirius for a while.)
They had their differences, but in the end, they were still brothers. Sirius had hated him for being a Death Eater, but he had had no choice. Or so Regulus had thought. Their father had never been proud of anything he did, even though he was the one that was sorted into Slytherin and listened to (and believed) Mr. and Mrs. Black. He thought that being a Death Eater would show his father how brave he was and maybe, just maybe, his father would be proud of him. Sirius had the brains, the looks, and he got away from the family as soon as he could. If Regulus would have done the same, maybe he'd still be alive.
"Regulus, I know we never really got along when we were younger, but I wanted to ask you some things." Sirius looked at his brother and hoped he would know already what he wanted to ask.
"Sirius, if you want to know why I became a Death Eater, it should be obvious. You know our father always looked at you differently. He never thought I'd amount to anything," Regulus said, nodding a "Thanks" to Lily as she slid him a glass of butterbeer.
"You don't really believe that, do you?" said Sirius, the disbelief he felt at Regulus's statement evident in his voice. "He cared about you. He may not have said anything like that to you, but I know he did. It was obvious, Regulus, that he was proud of you as soon as you started working for Voldemort. You were the 'perfect son' as far as he was concerned, the one who didn't become a 'traitor to the family.' I was the one that he disowned because of being in Gryffindor and for not caring about his whole pure-blood supremacy crap." He glanced over at Lily, but noticed that she and James were talking quietly amongst themselves, apart from the Black brothers. Figuring, therefore, that she didn't hear him, Sirius decided to continue. "Haven't you seen our father since you've been here?" he asked. "You two probably thought of the afterlife the same way, after all."
"Well, to be honest, yes," answered Regulus, glancing back up at his brother. "I was talking to him before you brought me here, actually, and, well, we were actually talking about you, Sirius." Regulus diverted his gaze to the table, not quite wanting to see his brother's reaction to the fact they had been watching him, and hurriedly continued on. "You already know that Lily and James have been looking in on you, and Harry, and everyone else, but I guess what you didn't, Sirius, was that Father and I had been looking in on, well, on you."
Regulus smiled and looked up from his glass to his brother. He tried to read the expression on his face, but couldn't, and that simple fact made him laugh to himself. I must have been stupid for even thinking I could. I was never able to read his face, but he could always read mine. I don't know how, or why he would want to, but he could and he did.
Sirius stared in disbelief at his brother, thoughts swirling in his mind as he tried to grasp and understand what Regulus had just told him. They were talking about me? They were watching me?! Why? Why would they do that? They already had that old bat of a woman I call Mother in that stupid painting watching over me. Why did they feel like they had to?
Well, I guess there's only one way to find out.
"Regulus I want you to bring him here," said Sirius, glaring at his younger brother from across the table. "I want to see what he has to say about my being dead, and what he thinks about the reason for why I am dead, regardless of the fact, I'm assuming, he already knows."
"Sirius, I don't think that's -"
"I don't care!" exclaimed Sirius, ignoring his brother's plea. "I still want you to bloody bring him here!"
Regulus, James, and Lily all stared at Sirius, somewhat surprised by his outburst. They all understood, to a degree, why he would want to see his brother, but his father? That was a completely different story. They had no idea why he would even think of that. He never would have said anything like that if all of them were still alive. If Sirius had had the chance to see his father alive and well, he wouldn't want to. He wouldn't have even thought about it. The thought of his father would have made his blood boil, and it would have made him want to vomit. Why, all of a sudden, did Sirius want to see him now?
"But, Padfoot, why?" James asked, looking intently at his best friend. "You already know what he thinks, and you already know what he's going to say. Why even do that to yourself?"
"I have my reasons."
"But, Sirius --"
"NO! JUST DO IT!" Sirius shouted.
Regulus sighed, closed his eyes, and began to imagine his father there. He knew it was a bad idea, and he didn't really want to do it, but ever since he was younger, Regulus knew he should just listen to his brother. He may not have always done that during his life, but he always knew that he should. Bringing Orion Black into this room might be a bad idea, but who knows, perhaps something good would come out of the reunion of father and son.
It happened faster than when Sirius did it, but then again, Regulus had been dead a lot longer, and he knew what he was doing. Sirius hadn't. Before either of them realized it, a fifth person had joined the group.
The man stood on the other side of the room, not moving at all. He didn't want to know why he was brought there. All he wanted to do was go back to his own version of the afterlife and stay there. Even if he had to be there by himself.
"Father. It's been too long."