Heavenly Waters||Sirius Black

Chapter 44

{{this is pretty long—hopefully it makes sense!}}

When Harry sees his reflection, he's not sure what to feel.

"It's called a pensive," Hermione says quietly, like she too is unsure. It was uncovered when they walked into Dumbledore's office, the mirrors around it still shuddering slightly as if it had just revealed itself. Harry wonders if maybe someone had just been here, using it the way he was meant to. Hermione gently nudges him, "You'll have to select the memories you want to see. Did she mention a date at some point?"

"No," He shakes his head, "I doubt she would give me any real direction anyhow."

He feels as if he can't look away from the water, the reflection similar to one he'd seen hundreds of times. But he feels as if he's looking into the mirror of erised, waiting to see something more. He slowly lifts his head, looking at the vials of memories in the towering cabinet nearby, studying the gothic arches that look like they belong on a castle, not on a cabinet in Dumbledore's office. He looks through the windows to the many memories inside, studying them all individually before he grows frustrated and broadly sweeps his gaze over each level. He's not sure what he's looking for or waiting for.

He glances at a clock on Dumbledore's wall, positioned between portraits of headmasters that had long since left their memories behind to rest in the cabinet. He was running out of time. He needed more time. He quickly looks back at the cabinet, eyes drawn higher. The phials all look the same until he comes to one.

The strands of liquid-like memory look pearlescent, shifting from champagne to whiteish blue. He reaches up and opens the window, quickly grabbing the phial and studying the writing too smeared to read on the label. He couldn't be sure that these were the right memories, but he felt sure.

Hermione is silent, eyes wide as Harry tips the uncorked phial into the mirror like water waiting for him. He leans in closer to study the swirling memories, opening his mouth to ask Hermione what to do next when his nose brushes the water. His mouth stays open in a voiceless cry as he feels his feet disappear from the floor, his vision blurring and nearly making him sick with dizziness until he suddenly drops to the ground from what feels like fifteen feet in the air.

Crowded.

That was his first observation. The room he was in was crowded, bodies bumping into others. It was dark, a small room for the crowd. It's the only thing he notices until the people in front of him move. The light catches hair the color of pearl, dull in the faint light cast at what Harry realizes is a counter. The music, the dark, the crowd.

He's in a pub, and the girl he is looking at is sitting alone. Her shoulders are curled inward, face hidden by a curtain of hair. Her arms are bare of clothes but crawling in ink. He steps closer, muttering apologies when he bumps into people. It's when they move right past him that he remembers that this is a memory, and he isn't really there. Harry studies that tattoos curiously, distracted when the girl lifts her head, her hair shifting to the side and exposing more of her frame. Sunken in cheeks, arms spindly like the wintering branches of the whomping willow, shaking fingers clutched around a glass of dark liquid like it's her lifeline.

The music seems to grow louder, tempting him to press his hands over his ears. The girl turns, halting his thoughts of preserving his hearing and stopping his heart. She looks at him, looks through him with eyes so pale that they should belong to something amongst the dead.

Gwenyth.

He knows this is a memory, that she can't see him. She acts as if she can, her eyes framed in smudged black and frozen where he stands. Her face looks empty, far more desolate than her normal passive expressions. She looks ill, frail. Young. She looks young. She looks much the same.