Back in Black
It was the greatest night of my life.
Although I still had not found a wife
I had my friends
Right there beside me.
We were close together.
We tripped the wall, we scaled the graveyard
Ancient shapes were all around us.
The wet dew felt fresh beside the fog.
Two made love in an ancient spot
One chased a rabbit into the dark
A girl got drunk and balled the dead
And I gave empty sermons to my head.
Cemetery, cool and quiet
Hate to leave your sacred lay
Dread the milky coming of the day.
--The Doors, "Graveyard Poem"
So the drapery of doom in the Ministry of Magic apparently leads to Reno. In America. Now, I don't know a whole lot about Muggle religion, but a bird I once chatted up in a bar told me about a place called Purgatory, and if such a place exists, Reno is it.
After falling through the veil (thanks a lot, Bellatrix, you dirty bint; I will be returning the favour to you and then some, mark my words), I landed on my ass on a dusty, deserted street in the dead of night. Immediately, I felt around for my wand, which had gone flying when I landed, only to discover that it had snapped in half upon impact, the dragon heartstring core only loosely keeping the two severed pieces of wood from separating entirely.
"Bollocks!" I shouted into the dry, still air, but my wand remained in two pieces. "Reparo, you fucking piece of shite!" I ordered the wand. One of the halves slid off the core and clattered to the ground, where it lay there motionless as if mocking me.
"Fuck!" My useless curses dispensed with, I then snatched up the remants of my wand and ran down the street towards what looked like a major intersection. Frantic and desperate, I turned down the cross-street, eventually finding my way onto the main drag, which was well lit and lined with bars and casinos.
Unfortunately, it was my panicked state that did me in. In my frenzy, it had not occurred to me that I was wearing wizarding robes and carrying a broken magic wand...in a small desert town in America. This made it a very bad idea to run into the nearest casino screaming about how Harry's in danger and how I must get back to London before Voldemort kills him. Apparently, I wouldn't have been too out of place if I had landed in Las Vegas, but in Reno that kind of behaviour gets you taken to the nearest Muggle police station. But really, what other choice did I have? My wand was broken, I couldn't Apparate, I had no idea where I was--and I didn't know how much longer the Order could hold off the Death Eaters before Voldemort turned up.
So, at the Muggle police station, I was questioned and ended up getting carted off to the local loony bin. For all my talents in Transfiguration, Charms, and whatnot, I'm downright rubbish when it comes to wandless magic, so there was very little I could do. At the nuthouse, the Muggle Healers diagnosed me with "being in need of a good bath" and "harboring delusional thoughts." Now, I won't deny the first charge--my hygiene during my, shall we say, incarceration at my childhood home had been rather dreadful--but delusional thoughts?! I can think of a lot of thoughts that are far more delusional than the ones I've got. But I suppose that Muggles really wouldn't understand it when a wizard tells them that he needs to get to back to London before a genocidal Dark wizard kills his godson at the Ministry of Magic. Hey, I tried to speak in euphemisms at first, but when they insisted on being hardheaded, I lost control and whipped out the wizardspeak.
At el casa del crazy (look, I picked up some Spanish while in the American West!), I was placed in a room with this bloke named Jim. Apparently, he was the lead singer of an American band called The Doors, which I was vaguely familiar with, having gone through a brief rebellious phase in my teens during which I listened to as many Muggle rock 'n' roll albums as I could smuggle past my parents to play on my stolen record player. Jim had fallen through a particularly sinister bath curtain about 25 years before, which is how he first got to Reno. The fall had a strange effect on him: It stopped his aging. (I'd hope the same for myself, but my aristocratic good looks have already been ruined by twelve years in Azkaban, so what are a few more wrinkles and grey hairs?) As a result, he seems to be in a permanent state of 27 years old. One night a few months after he had first come to Reno, he got astoundingly drunk and was picked up by the Muggle police, who refused to believe that he really was Jim Morrison of The Doors, as Jim Morrison had supposedly been found dead in a bathtub of a drug overdose. They committed him to the wacko wing, where he remained until I arrived.
As destitute and frustrated as I was to be locked up, I became fast friends with Jim. To be honest, he reminded me a lot of James--in deed as well as name. Jim and I played some downright brilliant pranks on some of the nurses on our ward, we did.
But I digress. After a while, I managed to convince the hospital staff of my sanity (it helped that I pretended all of the wizard talk was the result of a binge on a Muggle herb called Mary Wanna that Jim told me about), and eventually they discharged me. Jim had also been working on getting released for a while, and several days after I left hospital and procured a small, dingy state-subsidized flat, Jim joined me.
Of course, my heart was still in London with Harry, but I had absolutely no way of getting there. I searched all of Reno for a fireplace connected to the Floo network or a shop that could sell me a wand, or perhaps a broom, but the closest to anything magic related was a little hole in the wall where a Seer tried to sell me a skull replica (my family had enough of those, thank you very much) and used something called Tah-Row cards (which seemed suspiciously Muggle to me) to tell me that my wife is pregnant and having an affair with another woman. I always knew Divination was a rubbish subject.
So, stuck in Reno without any wizard means of transport, and no money to purchase a seat on a Muggle airplane to go back to London, I did the only other thing I could think of: I got a job. Jim and I found a couple of positions at a gas station near our flat, and we spent our days pumping gas and our nights drinking, singing, and engaging in some other activities in which I prefer not to go into too much detail at the present time.
After a while, I managed to save enough money to buy a one-way ticket to London on a Muggle airplane...which brings me to the here and now.
Unfortunately, Jim decided to stay in Reno, but before I left, I bought him an owl, so I expect we'll keep in touch fairly frequently. He's a good man, Jim Morrison.
Now that I'm back in London, I'm looking forward to finding Harry (I hear he's alive and well at Hogwarts), reconnecting with Remus, and making new friends.