Hogwarts: Proficiency Panel

Chapter 508 509: The Marauders

The world behind the Veil—the Lands Between—was a place of eternal, unmoving

mist.

Sirius Black watched as the black cat used its tail to delicately coil a strand

of silver memory—a thread he had just pulled from his own mind. He didn't know

what his "Divine" guide intended to do; he simply stood there, his hands

fidgeting with a nervousness he hadn't felt in years.

As he watched, he noticed the black cat's tail twitching and its whiskers

trembling, as if it were fighting some deep-seated urge.

Is it trying to stop itself from eating my memories? Sirius wondered. Or is it

just the natural instinct of a cat to play with a ball of string?

The thought made Sirius let out a sudden, involuntary bark of a laugh. The black

cat immediately fixed him with a sharp, glowing gaze.

"There's... er... a lot of mist here, isn't there?" Sirius stammered, looking

around awkwardly. It was a stupid thing to say—like commenting on the presence

of dirt while standing in a forest—but the silence was becoming heavy.

The cat didn't answer. It successfully suppressed its feline instincts and spoke

with a calm, resonant voice: "Come with me, Mr. Black."

Sirius straightened up as if he'd received an electric shock. He stepped closer

to the cat, and together, they sank into the silver thread of the memory.

Falling. Falling. Falling.

After a disorienting moment of weightlessness, the man and the cat landed in a

place Sirius knew better than his own heart.

The Hogwarts Great Hall.

The black cat stood atop Sirius's shoulder as they surveyed the room. It wasn't

the Great Hall they were used to. The four long House tables were gone. In their

place were hundreds of small, individual desks, all facing the same direction.

At each desk sat a student, their heads bowed low as they scribbled furiously on

rolls of parchment.

The silence was absolute, broken only by the scratching of quills and the

occasional rustle of parchment. It was the height of the O.W.L. examinations.

Sunlight streamed through the high, arched windows, catching the varied shades

of hair—auburn, gold, and black—of the focused students.

The black cat looked around curiously. Young Sirius and James had to be here

somewhere... this was their history.

"Five minutes remaining!" a voice squeaked.

The cat turned to see a younger Professor Flitwick moving between the rows of

desks. Flitwick walked past a boy with incredibly messy black hair... hair that

refused to lay flat no matter the effort.

Sirius froze, his breath hitching. He began to move. He moved so fast that if he

had a physical body in this memory, he would have knocked over half the desks in

the room. He glided like a ghost, crossing two aisles and sliding down a third.

The back of the messy-haired boy's head drew closer. The boy straightened up,

put down his quill, and pulled his parchment toward him to check his answers.

Sirius stopped at the desk, looking down at the face of James Potter.

He immediately looked away, his shoulders trembling with a grief he couldn't

hide. The cat watched the boy at the desk. He looked like a slightly altered

version of Harry. James's eyes were hazel, his nose a bit longer than Harry's,

and his forehead was clear of any scar. But the thin face, the mouth, the

eyebrows—they were identical. Even his hands were Harry's hands.

James let out a massive yawn and rumpled his hair, making it even messier than

before. He shot a quick glance at Professor Flitwick, then turned in his seat to

grin at a boy sitting four desks behind him.

The boy in the fourth seat—the young Sirius Black—returned the grin with a

thumbs-up.

Young Sirius was leaning back in his chair, balanced precariously on two legs,

looking utterly relaxed and bored. He was devastatingly handsome, his dark hair

falling over his eyes with an effortless, aristocratic grace. A girl sitting

behind him was watching him with a look of pure longing, but he didn't seem to

notice.

Two seats away from Sirius sat a pale, peaky-looking boy: young Remus Lupin. The

cat noted his gaunt appearance; it must have been close to the full moon. Remus

was focused entirely on his paper, scratching his chin with the end of his

quill, a slight frown of concentration on his face.

And finally, there was a small, mousy-haired boy with a pointed nose: Peter

Pettigrew. He looked sick with anxiety, biting his fingernails and staring at

his paper while his feet shuffled nervously under the desk. Every few seconds,

he cast a hopeful, desperate glance at the paper of the student next to him.

The cat felt Sirius's aura flare with murderous intent. Sirius's hand twitched

toward his belt, his eyes fixed on the memory of the rat. The cat reached out a

paw and gently pressed it against Sirius's ear, a silent command to stay back.

Sirius fought the urge to lung at the ghost of his betrayer. He took a shaky

breath and turned his gaze back to James.

James was currently doodling on a scrap of parchment. He had drawn a perfect

Golden Snitch and was now carefully sketching the letters "L.E."

Lily Evans.

"Quills down, please!" Flitwick squeaked. "That means you too, Stebbins! Remain

seated while I collect the parchments. Accio!"

A hundred rolls of parchment zoomed into the air, flying into Flitwick's

outstretched arms and knocking the tiny professor flat on his back.

Laughter rippled through the hall. A few students in the front row rushed

forward to help him up.

"Thank you... thank you," Flitwick panted. "Very well, everyone, you may go!"

The cat watched James as he quickly scrawled over the "L.E." he had been

decorating. He stuffed his quill and paper into his bag, swung it over his

shoulder, and stood waiting for young Sirius to join him.

"Did you like Question Ten, Moony?" young Sirius asked as they headed for the

doors.

"Loved it," Lupin said brightly. "'Give five signs that identify a werewolf.'

Excellent question."

"D'you think you managed to get all the signs?" James asked, feigning a look of

deep concern.

"I think so," Remus said solemnly as they pushed through the crowd toward the

sunny grounds. "One: he's sitting in my chair. Two: he's wearing my clothes.

Three: his name is Remus Lupin."

Everyone laughed except Wormtail.

"I put down the shape of the snout, the pupils of the eyes, and the tufted

tail," Peter said anxiously. "But I couldn't remember the rest—"

"How can you be so thick, Wormtail?" James said impatiently. "You run around

with a werewolf once a month—"

"Keep your voice down," Remus pleaded.

The cat stopped listening to the banter. It was enough. He had seen James; he

had captured his essence. Now that the image was fixed in the cat's mind, the

Lands Between would obey the cat's rules.

The real Sirius remained in the corner of the memory, watching his younger self

laugh and joke. It was a beautiful, painful sight. He felt something cold on his

cheek and realized he was crying.

Before leaving the memory, the cat paused. Something had caught its eye.

In the shadow of a large beech tree by the lake, a lone boy was sitting on the

grass. He was deeply engrossed in his exam paper, his dark hair shielding his

face. He looked strong but sickly pale, like a plant that had grown up entirely

in the dark.

The cat leaped toward him. Up close, it could see the sharp, hooked nose and the

thin lips of a young Severus Snape.

Sirius's shoulders slumped. He watched the cat approach the boy he hated most in

the world. It was obvious the cat was fascinated by Snape; it hadn't shown this

level of interest in any of the other students.

"That's Snape," Sirius spat.

The cat nodded, then signaled that it was time to go.

"You're interested in him?" Sirius asked as they stepped back into the blinding

white mist of the Lands Between.

The cat answered with silence.

"We must move on, Mr. Black," the cat said, its voice devoid of emotion, as

steady as ever.

The Dreamscape was a mesmerizing place. As they walked, Sirius saw strange

clouds of mist floating past, flickering with bizarre, kaleidoscopic images. He

noticed the clouds seemed to want to drift toward him, but the cat consistently

batted them away with its tail.

As they walked further, structures began to emerge from the fog. Each building

was unique, yet they all shared a startling commonality: each had a small door,

and many had a sign beside the door in the shape of a black cat.

Some even had full-sized statues of the cat.

Sirius watched and wondered. He realized he had vastly underestimated the "cat"

walking beside him. The Lands Between—the world behind the Veil, where souls

lingered for eternity—was filled with evidence of a widespread faith. A cult of

wizards worshipping a deity.

He began to question the very nature of the magic Sean practiced. How can a

wizard so young be worshipped as a god here? What kind of power allows a boy to

reveal the future and walk between life and death?

Sirius had thought the "Legend of the Black Cat" was just that—a legend. But

here, it was a living, breathing reality.

His thoughts were interrupted by a sound from the distance. From deep within a

pocket of pitch-black mist, a dog's snarling roar echoed through the white void.

The cat's tail stopped swaying. It looked as though it had been expecting this.

"Mr. Black," the cat said, snapping Sirius out of his daze. "Start running. Run

straight ahead if you wish to see them again."

"What—?"

Before Sirius could react, a massive, shadow-like black dog lunged out of the

darkness. At the sight of it, Sirius's legs turned to jelly.

"What is that thing?!" he cried in terror.

"Your fear, sir," the cat replied calmly.

This was the first time the cat had encountered a wizard's Inverse Soul in this

realm. Sean had hosted guests before, but most were young students who didn't

stay long. Newt Scamander had stayed, but his heart was so pure and simple that

the Lands Between had remained peaceful for him.

But now Sean realized why even Dumbledore couldn't stay here for long. A place

that reflects the soul cannot be peaceful for a man with a haunted past.

"Run," the cat commanded.

Sirius scrambled to his feet and bolted into the mist. As he ran, more dogs

began to emerge—not just one, but a pack.

"Fear, hatred, guilt..." the cat sighed. Mr. Black is a very complicated wizard.

The three shadow-dogs were enormous, standing nearly four feet tall at the

shoulder. Compared to them, the black cat looked tiny and fragile.

In the distance, Sirius ran with everything he had. He felt the wind rushing

past him, and through the roar in his ears, he heard the voice of his deity

whispering:

"Run, sir. Run past the fear. Run past the hatred. Run past the guilt.

"Discard your 'yesterday,' for yesterday is already dead. Discard your hatred; a

man cannot keep a viper in his heart and expect to live. Bury your

self-loathing...

"If you can stand steady in the wind, you will realize that wind is just wind.

Whether it's the gale atop a high tower or a breeze on the plains, it is the

same. A man falls from a height not because the wind is too strong, but because

the storm inside his own mind has made him lose his balance."

Sirius felt his panic begin to recede. He looked back and saw his "God"

revealing its true majesty.

The cat was no longer small. It had grown seven or eight times its original

size, transforming into a magnificent, divine beast that dwarfed the

shadow-dogs. When it turned its slitted, golden eyes toward the pack, even the

monsters made of darkness hesitated, cowering before the divine wrath in that

gaze.

"What is this place... what kind of being is he?" Sirius whispered as he reached

the end of the white plains.

Ahead of him, the mist began to take the shape of a familiar house in Godric's

Hollow. And standing by the gate were two people he had waited twelve years to

see.

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