Sirius' Story

"Here it is, Sirius." She thrust the parchment at the face in the mirror.

Good girl!

"So what's this all about?"

Have you had a chance to look at it?

"No. Shall I?"

I guess it won't make much sense without an explanation. It's apparently a list of things Dumbledore meant to take care of before he died.

"Oh." Hermione couldn't keep a hint of irritation out of her voice. She'd always thought of Sirius as rather a shallow, flighty type. If he was going to waste her precious time making her run around looking for a laundry list...

As if he had read the look on her face, Sirius blurted, Wait, Hermione. I'm not talking about trivial, everyday chores like airing out the guest bedroom or have having your pet Kneazle declawed. These are promises he made to people. Big promises, Hermione, life-and-death promises.

She glanced at the headings on the list. A lot of the words were abbreviated, but she recognized some right away, prominent among them: "Mggl-brns", "D.Drsly", "DEs", "Kncktrn A.", "N.Mlfy", "Scrmgr", and "Pttgrw."

"He certainly cast a wide net," she murmured.

Sirius bowed his head and murmured, Albus Dumbledore cared about everyone he ever met...even Tom Riddle. There was the merest hint of reverence in his voice. Whatever else you might say about Sirius, he admired and respected his old headmaster

"You said something about this list being important to help Professor Dumbledore...that he was trapped or something."

I'd better go back to the beginning, said Sirius, clearing his throat. Did Harry tell you why he and Dumbledore were not in the castle the night the Death Eaters broke in?

"Yes, they were looking for Horcruxes...objects Voldemort has stored parts of his life essence in. Professor Dumbledore thought there was one in a cave by the ocean. He and Harry Apparated into it. Harry didn't tell me and Ron the details though. I think it hurt him too much."

What exactly did he tell you?

Hermione thought back. "Inside the cave, they found this lake. And then a little boat appeared, and they used it to cross over to an island. Harry said they could see this green glow coming from the island. That's what they aimed for. Then they stepped ashore... That was about all he said... I guess there must have been a Horcrux on the island."

While they were in the boat, did Harry mention seeing anything... in the water for instance?

"No, he didn't."

There were creatures called Inferi in the water...

Hermione nodded eagerly. "I've read about those..."

Harry didn't know what they were at first. He just saw these corpses floating along. Dumbledore would have told told him not to touch the water at any price. Do you know what Inferi are, Hermione?

"They're zombies, aren't they? Animated bodies of dead people...but mindless. I heard that Voldemort has been able to conjure a great number to do his bidding."

Well...

Hermione went on quickly, "They're something like Dementors, I think."

Sirius snorted. Not really. They are souls, tortured souls of people long dead, who have been given the loan of a body so that they can walk the earth for a time. And they're not entirely without thoughts. They've some of their own, and emotions too, unlike Dementors...

"What emotions?" she asked sharply.

Longing... regret... envy... among others. Sirius paused and stared out into the middle distance. But to go on with the story: the island wasn't very big...more like a rock sticking out of the water...and there was this pedestal with a bowl on top filled some greenish, phosphorescent liquid. That's where the glow came from. And they could see a locket at the bottom of the bowl. The professor tried every way he could to reach it, but there was some kind of invisible barrier that prevented him. So he pulled a goblet out of the air...

"A goblet? Why?"

This was a very special goblet. It was able to get through to the liquid inside the bowl.

"So how do you know all this, Sirius?" Hemione asked.

Lord Death told me.

"Lord Death?" That name again.

I'll come back to him later. Anyway, Dumbledore Accio-ed this goblet from beyond the Veil, from Death's own house, in fact. It's the only kind of vessel that would work, under the circumstances. That's some kind of magic, Hermione."

Hermione was with child to know more about this person "Lord Death" all the ghosts kept referring to. He sounded like another powerful Dark Wizard, as if one wasn't enough. She hoped he wasn't a friend, or even an acquaintance, of You-Know-Who's. She had a hundred questions about Sirius' situation as well, but she could see he wasn't about to answer them...not yet at least...so she concentrated on the story he was telling.

Now here's the really weird part, said Sirius. It wasn't enough to just penetrate the barrier or even to bail the fluid out of the bowl. For some reason, Dumbledore had to drink it.

Without knowing exactly why, Hermione was horrified by this idea. Perhaps it was because the liquid had been placed in the bowl by the person who most hated and envied the Headmaster. Was it a trap of some sort? "Drink it?!" she exclaimed.

Yes. Sirius'voice was grave. "The water from the River Styx must never be allowed to mingle with the waters of earth.

"The River Styx! The river the Dead have to cross to get to the Underworld," Hermione recited from her Ancient History class. "But that's just a myth, isn't it?"

But Sirius's face had taken on a grim, closed look. After a moment of silence, he went on. Before he began, the professor made Harry promise to force him to keep on drinking no matter how much he begged not to...until the bowl was empty. And Harry did. I don't know how he found the strength, but he did. Each time he offered him a glassful, the professor begged, pleaded with him not to make him drink any more. Harry had to lie each time and say it was only water or it was the last glassful...like that.

"It must have been the hardest thing he's ever had to do," Hermione murmured. For some reason she found herself remembering the look on Harry's face the night he described Voldemort's rebirth to her and Ron. He seemed bent on punishing himself for not being able to stop it. Once Ron would have cringed at such a description or made some lame remark, but that time, he just put a steadying hand on Harry's shoulder and held his eyes with a grave stare. It wasn't your fault mate, Ron had said, you did more than anyone else could have. For that, she should have kissed him right on the frown line puckering his freckled brow.

Sirius cut into her thoughts. My godson has certainly been through some rough times. But the worst may have been having to listen to the things Dumbledore said during the ordeal.

"What?" Hermione leaned in to the image in the mirror. "What did he say?"

Apparently, after a couple of glassfuls, the professor seemed to fall into a trance or something. He was twitching...all over...and he cried out, like he was having a nightmare...like he was guilty of some terrible crime...or witnessing one. He kept saying, 'I'm sorry. It's all my fault,' and 'I did wrong' and 'please, don't hurt them'...things like that.

"That sounds like the Headmaster," said Hermione, nodding. "He never seemed to care much about protecting himself."

Do you know how many gobletfuls he drank?

"What do you mean?"

Take a guess.

This sounded like the sort of riddle Ron was always posing: "how many hags does it take to screw up a potion, or those "Knock-knock" jokes of her father's. But Sirius was not smiling. "I don't know," she admitted impatiently. "Ten, maybe?"

"Close. There were eleven in all."

"So?"

So, there were twelve gobletfuls in the bowl. Somehow that number was important to the spell binding the water."

"That makes sense. In arithmancy, twelve is a mystical number, tied to the relationship between life and death. So there was liquid left in the bottom of the bowl. Was that important?"

Supremely so, according Lord Death. Because it was then that Harry did something that he never should have done, though it seemed the only thing he could do at the time.

"Oh, no," Hermione cried. "What was it?"

The professor said he was terribly thirsty, and Harry couldn't get his Aguamenti charm to work properly, so he filled the goblet with lake water.

"Oh, I know. He disturbed the bodies...the Inferi."

Yes, but that's not...

"No, no, it makes sense..."

Right. And that's the important...

"Exactly. Because it woke the Inferi, and Harry had to try and fight them off. I remember now. He did tell us that much."

Nooo...

Hermione was vehement. "Yes, I'm telling you: Harry didn't have enough power to fend them off, and they both might have been dragged under the water, but the professor came to his senses and drove the Inferi off... with a Fireball, I think."

Exasperation at her stubbornnes caused Sirius to shout, Yes, yes, but the really important thing, the Nogtail in the pigsty, one might say, is that apparently that action of Harry's...putting the goblet into the lake...carried the last of the Styx water from the bowl into the lake.

Hermione quailed at his reaction. "I...I don't understand. What's so wrong about that?"

Sirius calmed down, but only a little. He said acidly, You were taught that the River Styx marks the border between this life and the next. What they don't teach in those Muggle classes is that if its waters are permitted to mingle with earthly matter, unspeakable things may happen.

"But, Sirius, nothing did happen. Harry and the professor...they got away all right..."

That may be true, but it's only because the consequences of that rash act could not be carried out on the earthly plane. And I'm quoting Lord Death now: "By the immutable laws of the Afterlife, punishment could only be inflicted after death."

"W-why?" Hermione stammered.

Because the water of the Styx belongs to the Beyond. And, worse still, the first creatures it touched were already dead.

"The Inferi," Hermione said, and her brain started working frantically, recalling snippets from her classes and her readings, especially some she loathed, having to do with Divination.

Yes, it called to them, reminded them of their sorry fate.

"And shortly thereafter, Dumbledore died, making him susceptible to the water's magic."

Sirius nodded. The punishment I spoke of is even now being wreaked on his soul by the spirits of those dead who were present in the lake.

"That's what you meant when you said Dumbledore was trapped. You meant by Inferi?"

The image in the mirror nodded gravely. The way Death explained it, Inferi are a branch of the Dead who are imprisoned in a lower world...beyond a watery border early Greek Muggles called the River Styx. It's a kind of dull Hell reserved for the ones who never kept their promises in this life...liars, cheats, and like that. There are other Hells as well, but this is the only one that evil wizards like Voldemort can draw his undead minions from.

"Why is that?"

Having all these regrets about faithless pledges and broken vows, the Inferi are in closer touch with this life than other spirits. They long to come back, even if only as zombies. Have you ever read Dante?

"Only The Inferno. My parents were taking me to Florence one summer and thought I should have some background first."

Bella used to read it to me...for the fun of giving a small boy nightmares. I remember. It describes all the circles of hell with their torments in deliciously sadistic detail. Dante was quite a good at divination...for a Muggle. The eighth circle has all the liars, hypocrites, thieves, gossips, warmongers, counterfeiters, flatterers, fortune-tellers, and politicians. Probably more sinners are there than in any other level.

Hermine goggled. "So You-Know-Who's army could number in the millions."

Well, not quite. As I say, in order for them to be able to interact with living beings, he has to have bodies to join them to...that they can walk around in. But although they can only affect the living if they can control a physical body, when Dumbledore died, their souls were drawn to his through the bond of the Styx. And there was another link as well. Their sins of omission haunt them eternally, so they are able to hold him and torment him because of something they best recognize and understand...his unfulfilled commitments.

Hermione studied list she had found in the Headmaster's office. "And this contains some of those commitments."

All of them, if I'm right.

"How can you be so sure?"

Sirius' eyes unfocussed, and his mouth quirked in a smile, as if he was seeing events long past, happy ones. I remember some of the Order meetings he chaired. Dumbledore never let even a hint of magical danger to any wizard or witch...or Muggle even...go unanswered. Whenever someone would come to the Order with a problem or an injustice...especially if it had to do with the Death Eaters...he would write it down. At meetings, he parceled them out...to everyone but me, of course. He frowned. But he took a lot of those tasks on himself too...the most challenging ones I think, the ones with the greatest risk. And he always wrote down his obligations and crossed them off as he completed them. Our beloved Headmaster may have seemed disorganized in some ways, but where people's welfare was concerned, he was totally reliable. You can be sure that what you hold in your hand is the key to Albus Dumbledore's salvation.

Hermione beamed. "So if someone goes around and carries out the promises he made, the professor will be released."

The way Death explained it, it's more like the Inferi will no longer recognize him as one of their own, and so they'll lose interest. He will become transparent or sort of like invisible to them. Anyway that's what Lord Death says.

"We should get this list to the Aurors immediately. Even though they're busy hunting down Professor Snape and Draco, they'll still want to make this a first priority."

But the question is: would they believe you?

"Of course they would..."

But even worse, can we trust any of them? They report to Scrimgeour, you know.

Hermione was indignant. "Tonks would never..."

But if she asked for an extended leave and couldn't tell them why... This is a long list, Hermione.

Hermione admitted the force of his logic. "All right, the Aurors are out. The Order then."

I hate to point this out, but most of them are Aurors.

Hermione grimaced. Sirius was starting to sound like Ron at his most irritatingly logical. "Professor McGonagall...erm...no, that's right. She'll be busy...at school." She didn't mention to Sirius that the new Headmistress looked much older since Dumbledore died. And that look she got whenever she said his name...it would kill her to know he was suffering still. "What about Professor Lupin?"

Sirius' face turned sad. Have you seen him lately?

"No..."

I'm going to tell you something in strictest confidence, Hermione. He looked about and beckoned her closer to the mirror. While I was still alive, Remus Lupin took on the responsibility of infiltrating the rogue werewolf population to try and neutralize them. We can't let him be distracted from that.

"But Professor Dumbledore..."

...would agree with me. The werewolves are the biggest threat to both the Muggle and magical populations now, even worse than the Inferi or the Dementors... or even the giants. Remember, every werewolf attack means new members for the pack, countless potential Dark allies. And to be a werewolf is worse than death, Hermione, much worse. Dumbledore wouldn't want Remus to leave that post, even to save his soul.

Hermione had to acquiesce to his heartfelt plea. "Harry... or Ron... no, we can't bother them with this. Harry's been through too much already, and if he thought that he was responsible for the professor's suffering, it would just about kill him. Oh, and Ron's going to be celebrating his brother's marriage. I can't deprive his family of him now, especially since it might be the last time he ever... And Ginny...no, I couldn't put her through this. Oh, dear... what can we...?"

Don't you see, Hermione? The only person available... and qualified... is you.