Epilogue
Epilogue
Harry,
After so long without a direct word from me, I’m not sure how you’ll feel upon reaching the bottom of this packet and finding yet another envelope with your name on it, this one with writing that you will recognize as truly being mine.
When I emerged from Willow’s passage on the first day of high summer, the thing I most wanted to do, had planned to do, was to make my way to Hogwarts. Look in on you there. Try to find out how you’re faring. Figure out the best way to get a note to you. Bother all that business with planting the packet under the stone! I told myself. Why not arrange to give it to him in person? Harry will at least have reason to suspect I may have survived the battle in the Department of Mysteries, so my trying to arrange a meeting won’t come as a complete and absolute shock.
It was a fairly simple matter to transform myself into human form along the shore of the lake and unpack some paper and the little sack of money Willow had sealed for me, using one of her precious small store of plastic bags that she had spirited back with her from the future. She’d stashed sprigs of rosemary and mint in there to freshen it and the sweet, homey smell brought a lonely lump to my throat and tears to my eyes as I realized how much I will miss my old friend. While I sat in the evening sun and let my clothes dry enough to make me reasonably presentable, I pulled out a quill and small jar of ink she’d included and wrote down what happened on our way to the cave and my travels through the passage.
When that was done, I followed the road to town, amazed by the loudness of the automobiles and the swiftness of the lorries going by, blowing up great gusts of wind as they passed. But it wasn’t a long walk and I found a bus with a sign that said London. I didn’t hold my hand up for it. Only waited til a woman got on, carrying a baby, then followed her. I remembered about the little slurping box, though not what it was called. That was okay. I only asked the driver how many coins it needed. Then went to find myself a seat. Odd, Muggle buses not having any beds, even at that hour of the evening.
Once I’d gotten as near to King’s Cross as it would take me, I got off and made my way to the station. I was about to enter when two words leaped toward me from a conversation between two women huddled just outside the door. Hogwarts closed.
I shrugged one shoulder, contriving to let my pack slip to the ground so I’d have an excuse to remain close by as I gathered it up, and gain a chance to eavesdrop. I don’t have to tell you of the horrible shock and grief I felt when I heard the reason for school having broken up so early. I can hardly bring myself to write it. I don’t want to see the words staring up at me about what has happened to Professor Dumbledore.
Harry, I won’t pretend to know what you are feeling about his death. Grief, sorrow, anger, inevitability? I wasn’t there. Haven’t been with you in over a year. I won’t disrespect you by trying to guess at all you’re feeling. I know he was your mentor, your protector and your friend as, in the past, he had been to both your parents and me. What his loss means to you, or me, or any of the countless others whose lives he guided and enriched isn’t something that can be reduced to black words on a page and I won’t attempt to do so here.
What I will say, Harry, is that, it changed my plans about seeking you out. I am going back to the original idea Willow and I had about how to pass along the packet of pages describing the events of my life this past year. Obviously, a great deal has happened to you that I know nothing about. For one thing, I’m not certain whether I would find you still at the Dursleys, or whether Molly, bless her, will have taken you back to the Burrow where she and Arthur, you and Ron can all give some comfort to each other. Much as I might long to be a part of that, my sudden appearance might be an intrusion into events I haven’t shared with any of you these past months.
And the best, the highest tribute I can envision to offer Albus right now is to try and think what I can do that may best serve the Order of which he was the head.
Sirius Black, the spy, the criminal, the fugitive, for all intents and purposes is dead. I have, through Willow’s teaching and her friend’s assistance, been granted a new identity. A Muggle identity. One that, if anybody in the Wizarding community becomes suspicious of my resemblance to good old Sirius, has a distant, though traceable connection to the House of Black. Our distant cousins, the Burins, fled the country and the dark association more than a century ago. The last of the clan, Stephen, who’d have been about my age, apparently died as a young child. Allastor Moody had managed to ferret out that information to be used as a possible cover back when I was in the Order with your Dad. Always fancied the idea of using it. Kind of a tribute to that family’s attitude. I was trying to devise a way to resurrect that identity as a means of living outside Grimmauld Place last year, though those plans came to nothing at the time.
In the last three days, while I have endeavoured to discover the details of what happened to Albus and learn your current whereabouts, I have set about getting that identity established. What I am doing, Willow told me, was, in the old spy flicks, called being a “mole” or “deep cover agent”. Her friend has gotten me papers, modern papers. They’re confusing to me, but she assumes that is because I have traveled here from the past. Her husband has found me a job with the railway. Like apparating, one needs a license to drive the trains, but not to sell the tickets to ride on them. I will be starting to work at one of the stations next Monday. Merlin’s Beard, Harry, what could be more useful? They’ve assigned me to King’s Cross!
I want, need, more than anything, to see you, Harry! Give whatever help or comfort I can in these sad, horrible times. At the very least, to offer a listening ear or a shoulder to use as a punching bag. As I write this, I’m sitting in a meadow just up the hill from that small house just east of Godric’s Hollow, with its grove of rowan trees and its low stone wall. Can’t help wondering if I’ll see you coming along the road with a shovel in your hand. Or a small gardening trowel.
That’s more a dream than anything. I don’t know for a certainty you’ve ever gotten that last envelope at the bottom of the candy tin that Willow took to the cave all those years ago. So, if we don’t meet up soon, I will probably transform and begin wandering at night in the area of Privet Drive.
In the meantime, I’ll tell you when and where you can meet me if you choose. I’ve gone there to check it out. It’s a place on the East End. A little pub. Or, I suppose you’d really say it’s a bit more of a dance club. Your Dad and I went there once, hoping to meet up with Regulus. The waitress, Bronwyn, is no longer there, but she has a niece, Bree, who serves up the ale at the weekends. It’s called The Digs. I’ll have a table as near the door as I can manage, each evening from seven or so til a bit past eight. They’re rather strict about people not hanging round if they’re not buying anything and I really can’t abide much of that dreadful bitter beer.
So much to share with you, Harry. About this last year. About your life and mine. About the events that weigh so heavy on my mind in the darkest hours of night. I know exactly where that cave is, Harry. And the lake. I know the powers hidden there. I have long been aware of the date of Tom Riddle’s birth. The thought tickles my fancy as I lie awake. Maybe, if something were to detain the Witch who was his mother from going out to meet his father one night about nine months earlier maybe things would be different for Lily and James and Albus… For all of us.
But then, time is a fragile thing, and if I were to slip into that water again, who knows what new ripples that might create or in what directions they might spread.
So, I will myself to turn over and if I think about that pool at all, I think about Willow standing on its edge with a lantern beside her, her face a tangle of tears and smiles.
There are only two things that remain, Harry. They are not words that I am writing down, but rather, the two items you will find here, tucked with the note inside this envelope. I discovered them sealed in the plastic bag along with Willow’s money and the story of the time I spent with her.
The first one, Harry, is a small modern day Muggle-style photo of my friend, Willow, who saved my life over a hundred years ago. When I knew her, there was a few wisps of silver in that mahogany hair, but her eyes were just as green and her grin just as merry.
As much as I treasure that picture, Harry, I am giving it to you. I have a hundred memories I can take out and examine. I think Willow would understand why I am passing this dear keepsake into your hands, since, I have discovered that the two of us both share a connection with her. You will understand when you look at the second item I mentioned above. Just as I understood, at last, why, aside from the memory of meeting her as a dog the first night I transformed, why it was Willow often seemed so familiar.
It is a small sheet of stationery that was folded around the photograph. It would be yellow with age if it had not passed through time with me in that pool. I think you’ll find it very interesting!
Dear Stephen,
You took so much interest in all my family’s names, I thought this morning, before you go, I’d sit down and write them all out for you. Along with the photo, it will be something to remember me by.
My great-great grandmother was Rosemary and her daughter was Gentian, though everybody called her Jenny. Jenny had three girls, Ivy, Fern and Magnolia.
Magnolia was my grandmother She hated it and insisted everybody call her Maggie. Even so, she named her daughters Jasmine and Heather.
Jasmine had Jonathan, then Ivy and Rose. Heather had me.
I married Henry Evans, who everyone called Hal. We never had a daughter, but my son Dylan and his wife honoured the tradition by naming their daughters Iris and Daisy.
Their brother Kenton and his wife named their son William Evans and their daughters were, of course, named for flowers, Camellia and Amaryllis.
All of this, Stephen, is written in the Evans family papers, the ones I told you about seeing when I went to London to do research on Hal’s history. William had a daughter Aster and a son Gerald. Gerald and his wife had no sons, ending the Evans family name, so if the tradition is to continue, it will be with a new surname.
They had two daughters, however. The second, from what I was able to find out, was a very interesting young lady. Unusual. Something about what I read concerning her reminds me of you. The older girl was named Petunia. They called the younger one Lily.
Travel safe home, my dear friend. Think of me from time to time as I will of you.
Willow
The events I have written of, Harry, are what makes it possible for me to do my new undercover work against that old troublemaker, Voldemort. While the whole Wizarding world thinks Sirius Black, who grew up in one of the oldest, darkest, most arrogant Pureblood families around, is dead, the Muggle, Stephen Burin will move about as he pleases. He can help the Order of the Phoenix by gathering information as he proudly goes to work every day at the railway station at King’s Cross. Nobody would know the ticket seller is really there keeping his ears open for talk of any strange goings-on. He’s no longer a prisoner of family traditions. He’s escaped the Island of Azkaban. He is at last out of Grimmauld Place and back from the past.
His real freedom isn’t from the way he can come and go at will, beyond the confines of walls, but that he can trust himself to make choices without them needing to be actions of escape or rebellion. Moreover, as he promised his brother Regs and his unborn Godchild so long ago, he is putting his life to a purpose. He’ll do something to help The Order of the Phoenix. He hopes that, at last he can be part of the lives of the people he loves again- especially that of his Godson. And he’s honoured to be able to carry out his Muggle disguise because of the many things he learned during his six months of study under his dear friend and teacher, Willow, who, if you haven’t guessed it before now, is your wonderful great-great-however many times great-grandmother.
And he dreams, with a real belief that his dreams can come true! Remember when I was fresh from Azkaban, living in the cave? When I wrote that my biggest dream was to get on my motorbike and take you flying? Well, I’ve gathered a lot more since then. Like finding that beautiful Medi-Wizard, Hessia! I also dream of finding Peter and clearing my name. I see our world free from the threat of Voldemort and starting our community on the road to becoming a more tolerant one! I picture a house with lots of light in it, out in the quiet of the country, beneath wide, starry skies. Maybe with a woods out back where Buckbeak can spread his wings and a big black dog can run. Somewhere near my old friend Remus, perhaps. Maybe then, if you still want, you can come make a home with your Godfather. And I might talk to Hessia about starting a whole new branch of the House of Black- one free of dark Wizards and angry Magic. One where Nymphadora (oops! Sorry Cuz!)- where Cousin Tonks would feel welcome!
Now that I’ve come to the end of this, there’re only two things left to say. Please feel free to share this with Ron, Hermione and Professor Lupin, if you wish. I’m hoping we can organize a weekend at Remus’s place very soon so we can figure out the best way to get whatever information I gather to the Order and do a good, good deal of catching up.
And last, and most important, I am so looking forward to seeing you! Til then, take best care of yourself, Harry
All the Love in the World and between the Stars,
Your Godfather,
Sirius
About the Author
Stephen Burin lives near London, where, when he is not writing, he continues his day-job as a railway employee. This is his first published work.