Sirius Black does not die when he falls through the veil but instead falls into this world.
The blow against the veil was not cold like death.
It was warm… like falling into dark water.
For a moment I thought Bellatrix had missed. Then the world vanished.
I woke up on black stone.
It wasn't ordinary rock: it was warm, like numb skin. The sky was a pale gray with no visible sun, and the air smelled of salt and ash. I sat up slowly, feeling for my wand. It was still in my hand.
"Good…" I murmured. "That's a start."
There was no stone arch, no Ministry hall, no battle. Only ruins older than any magical castle I'd seen.
And silence.
A heavy kind of silence.
Then I heard voices.
Not human. Not entirely.
I walked between twisted columns until I saw them: figures wrapped in dark cloth, drawing symbols on the ground with something I didn't want to identify. The magic they gave off was unlike anything I knew — it didn't flow, it crawled.
One looked up.
His eyes were entirely black.
"Stranger," he said, in a voice like stone scraping metal.
I raised my wand.
"I'm not in the mood."
A gesture from him made the air fold like fabric.
"Protego!"
The shield shuddered as if something enormous were pushing from the other side.
Then the shadows appeared.
They didn't walk; they slid. They were incomplete shapes, as if someone had tried to make creatures and regretted halfway through.
For the first time since Azkaban, I felt real fear.
I ran.
It wasn't a graceful retreat — James would have mocked me — but it was necessary. The shadows made no sound as they chased me, only a whisper that seemed to come from inside my head.
One of the sorcerers shouted something in his impossible tongue.
The stone beneath my feet began to darken.
As if it were swallowing the light.
As if it wanted to eat me.
I stopped.
I breathed.
And I remembered.
Not Azkaban. Not the war. Not the betrayal.
I remembered Harry laughing on a broomstick too big for him.
I raised my wand.
"Expecto Patronum."
Light exploded into the air.
A great silver dog appeared before me, solid as steel. Its coat gleamed against the impossible darkness of that place.
The shadows recoiled.
The Patronus snarled.
And so did I.
"Come on," I whispered. "Let's see who's hungrier."
The dog of light leapt.
When it touched the first creature, it fell apart like ash in the wind. The others shrieked — a high, ancient sound — and hurled themselves together.
The Patronus did not falter.
It ran through them as if the dark were tall grass.
For the first time since I'd fallen into that world, I felt something like hope.
"Impossible," said one of the sorcerers.
I turned toward him.
"I've heard that before."
"That light… it doesn't belong to this world."
"Neither do I."
I aimed my wand.
"Expelliarmus."
The force of the spell sent him crashing into a black stone column. He didn't move after he hit.
The others backed away slowly, like animals learning the meaning of fire.
Then they fled.
The shadows dissolved with them.
Silence returned.
The Patronus sat by my side, watching me with calm eyes.
"Good boy," I said.
It faded gently, like breath in winter.
Then I felt the exhaustion.
And the loneliness.
I walked for hours along paths of dark stone until I saw walls in the distance: five fortresses lined up like teeth against the horizon.
Places built to stand against something worse than armies.
As I walked, I noticed a block of black stone by the road, polished like a mirror. When I got close, my reflection took a second to move.
I didn't like that.
I laid my hand on the surface.
The stone was hot.
And it was beating.
I pulled my hand back immediately.
"Right…" I whispered. "Definitely not my day."
That night I slept within the walls of the first abandoned fortress.
The wind sounded like distant voices.
And I dreamed of the veil.
But this time I did not fall.
Something had pushed me to another place.
Something that did not want me to die yet.
On waking, I understood.
I didn't know where I was.
I didn't know how to get back.
I didn't know what those creatures were or who those sorcerers served.
But I knew one thing.
As long as I could lift my wand…
As long as I could remember the people I loved…
I was not lost.
I looked at the gray horizon.
I smiled for the first time since the fall.
"All right, strange world," I said. "Let's see what you've got."
And I started walking toward the Five Fortresses.