Part Two: "Beyond the Veil"


"My, but your Uncle is a thoroughly unpleasant man, isn't he?" was the first thing Sirius said once he'd caught his breath and had a chance to sit for a bit. "Can't believe that he's related to Lily at all."

"Lily was my Aunt's sister," Harry corrected him, and felt Sirius shrug as he leaned against him.

"Ah."

"So?" Harry prompted. "Where have you been?"

Sirius let out a long sigh that seemed to rattle his too-thin chest. "Beyond the Veil, Harry."

"Yeah, I know that," Harry said impatiently and sat back to meet Sirius' piercing grey eyes.

His Godfather once more looked like he had on his 'wanted' posters three years earlier: thin, starved, sallow, exhausted, and filthy. His black hair brushed the middle of his back and was shot through with white. Two long ribbons of silver arced back from his temples - if his hair was clean and tied back, they might've made him look dignified.

Right now, they just made him look weary.

The scraggly beard on his chin was also peppered with silver and Harry secretly thought that never had his Godfather looked so, well... old before. His robes were muddy and tattered along the hems, and just as filthy as the rest of him. If he hadn't been in his dog form, someone probably would have called the cops on him for being 'indecent'.

"Sirius," Harry breathed, "Have you been to Grimauld Place? The Order should know..."

"I'll go - after. Not yet. I wanted to see you first. Nothing there for me..." Sirius let forth another dry laugh. "Just a painting of my mother that screams at me."

Harry shrugged. "Why not just cut out the wall?"

Sirius blinked. "Cut out the wall?"

"Yeah, I've been thinking about it all summer - I saw them do it on a television show about home renovations. If we can't get her off the wall, why not just cut out the wall? We could just rent a chainsaw."

"Tell-a-vision?" Sirius repeated uncertainly. "Chain-saw?"

For a split second, despite the mud and the cold, Harry couldn't help himself: he smiled, happy to be around Magical folk again. "I'll explain later. The Veil?"

"I... don't really want to talk about it Harry. It ... wasn't all that nice."

Harry watched silently as Sirius averted his haunted grey eyes, scratching listlessly at the whiskers on his neck. "Worse than Azkaban?"

"Not worse... different."

"How so?"

"Harry," Sirius whined, hand dropping to pull the blankets closer around him, sounding like his dog self, "Please don't make me..."

Harry wanted to let up, but he had to know. Had to know so he could... protect anyone else. Everyone else. Everyone he could. If he knew the secret of how to escape the Veil, none of the Order of the Phoenix would need to worry about its threat ever again. "Sirius - just tell me, now, just once, and I won't ask anything else. I'll tell the Order, so you don't have to."

Sirius sucked in a deep breath and leaned back on his hands, moving slowly and wearily, as if his joints pained him. Harry could see small angry red scrapes up and down his arms, a few on his face, lots on his shoulders. Scratches from the undergrowth he had hidden in? Or something else?

The breath Sirius had sucked in was released with a shudder and a hiccup. "If Azkaban was the place that made you relive your most horrifying memories, then the Veil is a place that..." Sirius fumbled with his words for a moment. "Dammit, I'm so c-cold..."

Harry told him to hold on, rushed inside in his cloak and made the fastest pot of tea he had ever remembered making, then brought it out in a thermos for Sirius, who thanked him heartily for the warmth it provided.

"The Veil is a place that..." Sirius began again after a long swig of the steaming tea, seeming to not care as it scalded his tongue. He clutched the thermos against his chest, as if willing the heat to seep into his skin through the plastic. "...that... takes the place you knew and ... makes it not what you want." He frowned at his own vagueness and Harry waited him out. "Everything that you ever feared would become reality ... is. It's not really the ... the land of the Dead, so much as it's the... the land of Dead Fears. Dead Nightmares." He turned his face to Harry. "Does that make sense?"

Harry nodded his head, wanting to be encouraging, although he had no clue what Sirius meant. Maybe Dumbledore would.

Sirius went on, his gaze fixed on the clouds in the middle distance. He took another long pull of the hot tea, and his shivers subsided slightly. "I was always afraid that I... that I would turn out like Regulus, my brother, and then... there... I was, and I couldn't stop myself. I... I was a Death Eater, and I was standing beside V-v-vol-... You-Know-Who, and we'd killed so many innocent Muggles and," she shuddered, "and I ... I killed them... with my own wand... James and ... and L-Lily," his thin shoulders began to shudder and Harry's eyes and mouth grew round in astonishment, "It was m-me... and I ... they made me... but I didn't want to! And Lily was screaming at me, begging me not to... not to hurt her... I didn't want to hurt her... and Peter too, I killed him too, and you, oh, Harry, you were just a little baby and I...!" The sobs came in full force and wracked Sirius' frame.

He dropped the thermos, the rest of the tea spilling out into the damp grass, steaming slightly before it vanished into the soil.

For a second, Harry was horrified. Sirius was supposed to be the strong one, wasn't he? Sirius was the adult, the ex-convict with the mischievous smile. The charming rogue who knew everything and always gave Harry the best advice, and the best ideas for getting into trouble. Godfathers weren't supposed to break down into half-hysterical sobs under rosebushes, were they?

Not knowing what else to do, Harry carefully put his arms around his Godfather. "It's okay, I'm alright, really, I am!"

Sirius turned his face into Harry's shoulder, and his ramblings became more incoherent, his shoulders shaking harder, "Moony, oh Moony, chained him up... gave him ... he... maul people ... f-full moon... hated me... hated me... they all hated me, and I wanted to die, to just die..."

"How did you get out?" Harry asked, desperate to get Sirius' line of thought away from the horrors he had been forced to dole out on those he had loved. Harry ran one hand up and down Sirius' spine, hopping the petting motion was soothing.

Against Harry's chest, Sirius shook his head, pressed his palms against his temples as if trying to force everything in his head to fuse and settle down. "Don't know, I don't know. Saw a mirror, heard your voice, had to find you, had to protect you... you were in the mirror Harry, so I just... I just crashed thought the mirror, you know? And then I was... I don't know where I was... laying on the floor, bleeding all over, glass in my palms...there was a mirror beside me and I'd smashed it. When I looked down at the pieces ... faces... bloody faces... Regulus and ... Lily... James... Moony...you... I ran away. I was in a shop, somewhere... Spain maybe, or Portugal. Antiques. I just... I became a dog and I ran. I picked all the glass out of my hands and I ...I ran, and ran, and I got on a boat and I just... hid. For a long time."

"The mirror?" Harry repeated, thinking of the time in his dorm when he had screamed at the mirror Sirius had given him to contact him through. So it HAD worked! And somehow it had helped Sirius come back into the world of the living.

He still had the mirror, shoved in the bottom of his trunk, locked under the stairs in the small cupboard that had once been his bedroom. He wondered if it would work the same way with any old mirror. If so, then Sirius had just made the Veil a non-threat to the Order.

"Alice in Wonderland - Alice Through The Looking Glass... makes you wonder which stories are true."

Sirius managed another laugh, only this one was wet and burbly. "I'll have to read 'em."

"I'm so happy you're safe," Harry said suddenly and hugged Sirius fiercely. "We'll get you to Grimauld Place as soon as possible."

"Don't wanna," Sirius said softly. The tears began to subside. "They'll lock me up. Keep me 'safe'. Can I... just stay here?"

"Uncle Vernon would never let me take in a stray."

Sirius whimpered again and Harry realized just how tired and sick his Godfather really was - both physically and mentally. His hands were filthy, and Harry wondered if the cuts on the palms were infected. He was weak and timid and really rather doggish. Harry reflected briefly on the possibility of this doggishness was maybe this was his mind's way of coping with the horrors he'd seen; did dogs have nightmares?

"Alright then," Harry said softly, cradling his Godfather's limp form as the older man's strength started to give way. Sirius began to slip sideways and Harry caught him just in time. "I'll do what I can. Sleep under the bush tonight, and I can..." Harry trailed off. He was silent for a moment before, "that may work..."

He prodded Sirius to his feet and coaxed the older Wizard into taking his dog form. Then, throwing the Invisibility Cloak over the both of them, he led Sirius around the house and across the street to the front porch of Ana's house. There he laid the spare blanket on mud of the abandoned garden by her front door and helped Sirius lay down on it.

"Hopefully Ms. Oldwyn is nicer than my Uncle," Harry whispered. "I'll see you tomorrow, Sirius."

The dog whined and closed its eyes. Harry scratched the door and ran.


Ana heard the low whine of an animal outside of her front window, followed by a scratching sound, and stood up from her unpacking to peer past her blinds. It was nearing ten o'clock, and she was sweaty and dusty from her work. She had another lollipop hanging from her lip and she sucked on it briefly as she walked over to the large bay window at the front of her house. She was surprised to find the big black dog from earlier laying in what would eventually become her front garden.

Setting aside her odds and ends and throwing her hair up into a small, stubbly ponytail to keep it off her sweaty neck, she opened her front door and went outside to crouch beside the dog.

"Oi, pup," she said softly, one hand hovering just above the mutt's head. "Hey you, wake up. Hope your old owners didn't used to live here, doggy."

The dog lifted one eyelid. It's eyes were a piercing, brilliant grey.

"You look like shit," she told the dog and its mouth opened in what she assumed was a doggy smirk. "You're shivering. C'mon inside, I'll get you a bowl of water and a hot bath. Sound decent?"

The dog pulled itself to its feet at her whistle and slap on her knees, and followed her calmly into the house.

"Geeze, someone trained you well," she commented as he followed her up the stairs. "And you don't seem to have a problem with me. That's new."

She drew a bath in the tub with bubbles, and the dog nearly leapt in. He accepted the offered bowl of water when she placed it on the side of the tub, and leaned into her touch as she scrubbed his patchy fur clean. She took careful care to clean out the many cuts on the pads of his feet and along his shoulders and legs.

When she tried to scrub under his tail, the dog sat down in the water quickly, pinning her hands under his flanks and dragging her into the water up to her shoulders. She sputtered, choked, and yanked her hands free. For a second she glared, and then she burst out into peals of laughter.

A modest dog!

He answered her laughed with a tongue-lolling doggie smirk and a short bark.

After drying him (he seemed too weak to shake himself dry), and wrangling him out of the tub, she pulled a few cushions and towels out of their boxes and set him up a bed in the corner of the living room, then resumed unpacking.

The dog slumped gratefully into the corner and fell into a deep sleep.


The next morning, Harry sprang from his bed and mowed the lawn before Dudley had even waddled downstairs. Uncle Vernon was thankfully at the golf course, so Harry shouted a "I'm going over to Ms. Oldwyn's," to his Aunt and ran out the door before she could tell him 'no.'

Just as Ana had predicted, the weather was clear and hot. Glorious summer.

Harry was ecstatic to hear the deep rumbling 'woof!'s on the other side of the door when he rang the doorbell. It took a few minutes for Ana to open the door, and when she did she glared blearily at the sun, shading her eyes.

"Come inside," she croaked, "It's too bright."

"Who's this?" Harry asked eagerly as he toed off his shoes. Sirius rubbed into his side enthusiastically, just like a big happy puppy.

"Dunno," Ana offered, yawing and stumbling into the kitchen. Today she was wearing black yoga pants and a bright red tank top. He had obviously woken her up. Harry watched as she retrieved a mug from a box, cleaned it in the sink, and poured something from an opaque jug in the fridge into it, and leaned back against the counter, sipping. She didn't offer Harry any. "No collar, no tags."

"He may be the stray you saw last night," Harry said, and the dog 'woof'ed in agreement. "Will you keep him?"

Ana shrugged. "If he wants."

The rest of the afternoon was passed in helping Ana vacuum, sweep, mop and paint various sections of her house. She took off for an hour and came back with sandwich fixings and an embarrassed explanation that she had nothing in her house to feed him, or the dog, and didn't know what kind of dogfood to get.

Harry was happy just to be away from the Dursley's, even if he did have to do physical labour and was paid in plain sandwiches. Ana, strangely Harry thought, never really let him touch anything she had in her boxes, peeking inside them before she declared whether or not they were fit for unpacking yet.

She had set up the smaller spare bedroom as a sort of library and office. She had no less that six shelves lining the walls, all filled with books and sheaves of loose papers and strange nic-nacs. Some of the books were still shiny and new looking, and others looked positively ancient. There were tomes of poetry, plays, mythological texts, horror stories, penny dreadfuls, harlequins, historical fiction, and every single work by Lord Byron known to man. Ana also had the complete collected works of Anne Rice, Laurell K. Hamilton, Piers Anthony, P.N. Elrod, Isaac Asmov, J.M. Barrie, Jane Austen, Jonathan Polidori and dozens of other sci-fi and fantasy authors Harry had never heard of.

The second bedroom was used as a place to stack boxes and trunks that Ana didn't feel the need to unpack. Harry asked her why she had bought such a big house if she was only really using one bedroom and Ana had shrugged and said, "It looked like a nice, quiet neighbourhood. You know, one of those places where nothing important ever happens."

Harry swallowed his retort about Dementors and just smiled blithely.

Sirius trundled along behind them, sometimes pointing out missed cobwebs with a bark and a shake of his tail, sometimes putting pawprints on the floor on purpose.

When they stopped briefly for lunch, Ana had another mug of the drink from her jug in her fridge and made Harry a huge sandwich with way more deli meat than was really feasible - it was like she didn't know how to make a proper sandwich. The dog whined and she made him a huge sandwich, too.

"I've never had a dog, before," Ana admitted as she sat at her kitchen table to watch Sirius eat out of a bowl she had placed on the floor. "I suppose it would be nice to have someone else around this place to keep it from being all quiet and tomb-like."

"No?" Harry asked around mouthfuls. He was starving from all the work earlier, and the diet that Dudley was on and he was forced to participate in. Harry was a growing boy, an athelete. It was good to be on the smallish side, as his smallness meant he could be a faster Seeker, but it was bad if he was too weak to hold onto the broom. Not that the Dursleys would ever care. "I like dogs, especially big black ones."

"Yeah?"

"Why haven't you had a dog?"

Ana shrugged. "Most of the time, the critters don't like me."

Harry swallowed his last bite of sandwich. "Don't like you?"

Ana shrugged again and took a swig from her cup. "Most animals don't."

"That's too bad," Harry said softly. Maybe Sirius was okay with her because he was an Animagus. Once glance to the floor told him that Sirius was listening and probably thinking the same thing as well.

"Well, I guess we should name him," Ana said, following Harry's gaze down to Sirius. "Rover?"

The dog whined and sat down on the linoleum, eyes closed. Harry shook his head.

"Blackie?" he suggested.

"Too generic," Ana disagreed. The dog shot him a glare. "Half his hair is missing. How about Patches."

The dog started to growl and she reached out and scratched between his ears. The growl vanished, his tail thumping happily against the floor.

Ana laughed. "Guess not. I just can't get over how smart this pooch is. How about... Shigure?"

"Why?"

"Name of a dog in a popular comic. Never mind." Ana finished up the last of her drink and set the mug aside on the kitchen table. "That dog was kind of a pervert, anyway."

Harry laughed and Sirius growled low in his throat. "How about... Sirius?"

Ana raised an eyebrow at him, thoughtful for a second before repeating, "Sirius?"

"Yeah - the Dog Star."

Again she seemed to be contemplating. She started to speak and then stopped herself. Finally she said, "Yeah, after the dog star. Good idea."

Sirius woofed his approval.

They had barely agreed to his name when there was a quick, polite rapping at the front door. Ana stood and wiped her dusty hands on her pants, and answered it. On the other side stood Petunia Dursley, looking over-dressed and very stuck in the 1950s.

"Yes, Petunia?" Ana said cordially, and Harry bit back the snicker that threatened to escape at the peevish look his Aunt favoured his new friend with at the use of her first name.

"Miss Oldwyn, if you don't mind... Miss Figg is... currently away," Petunia Dursley made another face and Harry knew why. They liked to dump him on Miss Figg whenever the family went somewhere fun and they didn't want him to ruin it. But Miss Figg wasn't around Privet Drive much, as she, like the rest of the Wizarding community, was out helping the war effort. Her most especially, as she was involved with the Order. "... and Vernon and I have been called away to the Club," (a tavern outside of the city centre that Petunia liked to pretend was a country club) "So, would you mind watching Diddy-Duddy-kins and Harry?"

"Aunt Petunia!" Harry protested from behind Ana. "I'm sixteen years old! I don't need a babysitter!"

Petunia shot him a glare, which turned syrup sweet as she turned her eyes back to Ana. Harry could see Ana's eyes narrow, unimpressed. "As you can see, he's quite the handful. We don't dare leave him alone in the house. Do you mind?"

Ana split a look between Harry and his Aunt and then shrugged. "Sure, okay."

"Wonderful!" Petunia looked more relieved than she should have been allowed to look. Harry scowled. Not that he didn't like Ana - he just hated being treated like he was some petulant child!

He was the saviour of the known world at least four times over - Harry was pretty sure he could take care of himself for a few hours.

Petunia turned on her heel and clicked away to where her husband was waiting by the car. Harry waited until they were in it and all the way at the end of the street before saying again, for good measure, "I don't need a babysitter."

"You know that, and I know that," Ana said, turning back into the kitchen. She shoved some unlabeled plastic bags from the fridge into her pockets, pulled on a zip-up hoodie that had been tossed onto the back of a chair, and returned to the front door. Then she pulled her umbrella from the stand beside the door and opened it up. Sirius slipped out the door behind her and Harry followed as she crossed the street under the shade of her red and yellow-spotted cover. "Diddy-Duddy-kins, on the other hand..."

Harry nodded, "Okay, you have a point there."

Dudley was waiting for them on the front stoop, a scowl on his face. "I don't need a babysitter," he snipped as she walked by him and into the house. "Especially a silly bint like you."

"Be that as it may," Ana snipped back in equally venomous tones as she folded away her umbrella. "I am here to watch you, so be a good little Diddy-Duddy-kins and do something constructive for a few hours, okay?"

"You can't bring a dog in here!" Dudley shrieked as Sirius pressed passed him.

"It's too hot for Sirius outside," Harry said behind Dudley. Dudley elbowed him viciously in the ribs and Harry went down, tumbling into the front garden. The ground was still damp from the rainfall the day before, and Harry ended up face-first in the mud.

Dudley guffawed loudly, but it dwindled into a terrified shriek as Sirius rounded on him and barked loudly, snapping his jaws a few times for good measure. Ana began to move forward to restrain him, but he stopped as soon as he was satisfied that Dudley was about to wet himself. Dudley waddled as fast as he could for the kitchen and slammed the door shut.

"Hm," she said, and left the dog to trot away and upstairs, presumably to search out a soft place to sleep, or just following Harry's familiar scent. "Unnaturally smart dog." Ana opened the door into the kitchen and walked in, and Dudley yipped from his hiding place under the table.

"Stand up, you coward," she said and Dudley stood and sat down on a chair.

"It was going to eat me!" he howled, his face growing red.

"Oh, it was not, baby. Here, shut up." She tossed a bag at Dudley's head and he just managed to fumble it so it landed on the table in front of him.

"What's this?"

"Candy."

They were brown and white hay-stack looking things and Dudley, who was never one to turn down sweets, dug in. He made a small face at the first taste, but kept going. Chocolate was chocolate. Harry entered the kitchen, thoroughly muddied, and was disgusted as Dudley laughed with his mouth full of brown and white goo.

"Ew," he said to himself, then was startled by the feel of a hand on his shoulder and a cool damp cloth on his cheek.

"Jeeze, Harry, you're a mess," Ana said softly, peering intently at his face as she wiped away the streaks of mud with a damp dishcloth. Harry thought she looked very lovely like that, her lips half parted in a smile, her gaze kind, leaning over just enough that the front of her tank top sort of fell away from her... he shoved those thoughts away. She was almost ten years his senior and besides... she was his babysitter.

And what about Cho? Didn't Harry still love her?

Harry thought very hard about Cho instead.

"I got candy and you got none!" Dudley gloated and Harry narrowed his eyes, jerking his gaze back to his whale-like cousin.

"Oh, don't be mad at him," Ana said low enough so only Harry would hear. He froze when he felt her cool hand brush back his bangs and wipe at the mud on his forehead. She paused for a brief second and he knew she had seen his scar.

"Isn't it ugly! She'll never be your girlfriend now, scar-head!" Dudley hissed, spattering the table top with chocolate.

"Adds character," Ana said loud enough for both to hear.

"Scar-head, scar-head, got it when his Mum and Dad were killed--!"

"Shut up Dudley!" Harry suddenly screamed, and twirled around to snarl at his cousin, his fists clenched at his sides. Ana took a startled step back.

"Whoa, whoa! Chill out!" she said to Harry. Then she pointed at Dudley. "Dudley, that was absolutely uncool of you."

Dudley didn't look the least bit sorry.

"I hate him," Harry whispered to himself, and Ana turned him back around with a gently hand on his shoulder to face her so she could get the last of his face clean.

Apparently, she'd heard him.

"There is one consolation," Ana whispered back, pulling a second plastic bag from her pocket and handing it Harry. "I saved the better candy for you."

"What's this?" Harry asked as he sat at the far end of the table from Dudley, who was looking seriously unimpressed that he had eaten all of his sweets while Harry had a fresh bag.

Ana pulled a red lollipop from the last bag in her pocket and popped it in her mouth with a relish.

"Fizzing Whizzbees," she said, "and I gave Dudley the--" she paused and mouthed the words 'cockroach clusters'.

"What are you saying?" Dudley whined as Harry's jaw dropped to the table top.

"Just saying that I gave you only the highest quality CCs I could find, Dudders." She winked at Harry, who was still shell-shocked.

"What is that you have?" Dudley pointed at her lollipop. "I want one."

"Trust me," Ana smirked, "You don't. This is an acquired taste."

"I want one!" Dudley insisted and Ana shrugged, made a 'your funeral' face, and handed him one. Dudley tore off the wrapper, popped it in his mouth, then made a face and spat it out. "Ew! Tastes like copper!"

Ana only winked at Harry. "Something like that."