Fic: PG-13 - The Horizon is Near - Sirius/Kingsley - The Final of the Series

[red-day-dawning.livejournal.com]

Title: The Horizon is Near
Author: red_day_dawning
Characters: Sirius Black/Kingsley Shacklebolt; Hermione; Harry Potter; George Weasley.
Prompt: “The horizon is near”
Word count: ~562
Rating: PG-13
Warning/s: angst; character deaths
Disclaimer: JKR owns the copyrighted HP characters & settings
Author’s notes: THE FINAL OF THE SERIES! Prompt table completed!
Continues on from To Feel, or not to Feel?
Link to prompt table: http://red-day-dawning.livejournal.com/18707.html

Kingsley pushed open the Sirius’s bedroom door, and entered the room. It was as messy and chaotic as its former occupant – clothes were strewn across the floor, rare and esoteric books were sprawled open across the desk, sheet and blankets were jumbled at the foot of the bed.

On the bedside table, next to a vase containing a single perfectly preserved scarlet and purple orchid, lay a leather dog collar.

It was not Sirius’s own leather collar – that went with Sirius through the veil. It was a collar Kingsley had bought for Sirius, a gift not yet worn. A fancy collar, high quality black leather with sterling silver studs and buckles.

Swallowing past the constriction in his throat and blinking away the burn of tears, Kingsley approached the bedside table. Picking up the collar, he held it in his hand gazing silently, then unbuckled it and fastened it around his neck. He whispered the words that resized the collar, and then muttered a spell to lock it in place, before leaving the room, carefully closing the door behind him.

~*~

Throughout the years Kingsley had been Minister for Magic; it was a secret known only to the enigmatic Unspeakables, that at the end of each day, if not earlier, the Minister would enter the Department of Mysteries, go into the Death Chamber, and remain in there for some time.

Occasionally one of the Unspeakables might hear the Minister’s voice raised in deep, rumbling tones, sounding almost conversational, as though he were having a chat with an old friend or companion.

At other times, he was silent – although what he did no-one knew.

Being Unspeakables, long cured of any tendency towards gossip, it was never discussed.

~*~

When the Minister finally resigned from his position, citing diminishing health as the reason, most employees of the Ministry were horrified as the prospect of losing the man who had, in the most tumultuous of times, introduced abiding stability and greater equality to the Wizarding World.

In the Department of Mysteries however, more than one employee wondered what would happen regarding his daily visits to the Veil.

And one particularly observant Unspeakable later told her friends, Harry Potter and George Weasley, that she had a presentiment of doom, a feeling of foreboding, on the day the Minister left his office for the last time and was seen entering the room containing the Veil. But being an Unspeakable, she told no-one else, and the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Kingsley Shacklebolt remained publicly unsolved.

And it was those three, George, Harry and Hermione, who went into the Death Chamber the evening following Shacklebolt’s disappearance. Sitting close enough to hear the Veil’s hushed and sinister whispers, they lit candles for the two members of the Order of the Phoenix who had passed through the flimsy barrier, never to return.

It was George, his voice shaking with tears, who finally said, “Goodbye, Sirius and Kingsley. I know you’re together now, at long last.” As laughter struggled to overwhelm his tears, he added, “Be good. And if you can’t be good, I know you’ll have fun being wicked.”

~*~

Later, Hermione always insisted that the joyous strains of laughter and shouts of farewell they had heard issuing from the Veil were merely tricks of the room’s acoustics and the fanciful imaginings of their grief. Wisely, Harry and George never argued.

~fin~