Disclaimer: I do not own HP, SINF.

Review Comments:

samurai trooper: Thanks for your continued interest in this story. I'm assuming that the stories will be posted to this site? I'll keep my eyes open for them!

Sorry for the long wait. Please enjoy nonetheless :-)

Chapter 38

Dr. John Dee had two connections to the world of Tom Riddle: the world which Nicholas Flamel was using as a façade to hide behind. One was Tom Riddle himself. But Riddle thought that Dee was dead and Dee had no interest in correcting him. The other connection was the young man who had visited him and asked about horcruxes: Regulas Black.

Black was probably dead. However, Dee had found out that he had an older brother and a mother who were still alive. No one knew where Sirius was, but the mother was reliably at her home on a street called Grimwald Place. Therefore, Dee found himself staring at a bronze "12" on a brick apartment building. He had worn a black wizard's robe for this house call. He knocked on the door.

A tiny creature, no more than two feet tall, opened the door almost immediately, bowing to Dee as he entered. Dee suspected it was a house elf, a slave creature that Dee had read about in researching Riddle. The elf did not make eye contact and Dee did not acknowledge its presence.

"Good morning sir," a woman said smiling at him from the kitchen at the far end of the hall. She was in her late fifties and her face looked like Dee had interrupted a cleaning routine. Even so, she was dressed in a very nice emerald green witch's robe. Dee noticed there was a large painting of the woman in the entry hall. "I'm afraid I have not had the pleasure of making your acquaintance," she said.

"You have not, though I did meet your son," Dee said.

Her face dropped. "I have no son anymore," she said. Dee said nothing. "But where are my manners, please join me for tea. Kreatcher, tea!"

"I assume you had a reason to call," Mrs. Black said after the house elf had poured them both a cup of tea. They were sitting at one end of a large kitchen table.

"A few months ago, Regulas helped me in a long search for an individual," Dee said, careful not to call him her son.

"For whom are you searching?" she asked, a little fear seeping into her voice.

"I have discovered that the man I am seeking is currently hiding out at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," Dee continued ignoring the question. Still, her shoulders seemed to relax. The man known as Lord Voldemort wouldn't be hiding out in Dumbledore's castle. "Unfortunately I did not attend Hogwarts and am not sure how to," Dee paused for effect, "discretely arrive. I was wondering if the head of such a prominent magical family as the House of Black would be able to help me."

"Hogwarts," she said, taking a sip of her tea. "is a castle that is guarded by some of the best magical defenses known to wizard-kind; especially after the rise of the Dark Lord. You wouldn't be able to apparate anywhere within the grounds. I suppose you could apparate into Hogsmede villiage, but then you'd have to notify the groundskeeper to let you into the school grounds themselves."

"Are there any secret ways into the castle?" Dee asked.

"I doubt Dumbledore would allow such a thing to exist," Mrs. Black said.

"How does a student get in?" Dee asked, sipping the tea.

"By the train, of course," she said. "A giant gleaming red train. It leaves from Kings Cross and travels to Hogsmede. Then carriages carry the students into the castle."

"Kings Cross," Dee prodded, a plan forming in his head.

"Yes," she said. "And it'll be leaving on Sunday to bring the students back from break."

Dee stood next to a massive number of interlocking train tracks the following Sunday. His plan was flawed to be sure, but he hadn't been afforded the time to think of a better way. He would follow the train, using the magic of air to speed his travels, and then use the air to make him invisible. This would allow him to walk through the gate with the carriages carrying the students.

An engine that could only be described as a gleaming red train came steaming out of the station an hour later and Dee took to the air. He had been practicing the act of flying though manipulating the air ever since he had seen Riddle do it a month earlier, but he was by no means an expert. Still, he was able to keep up with the train long enough to be flying on a single rail headed into the countryside north of London. After seeing some faces looking out the back window in amazement, Dee slowed down and lost view of the train.

The tracks weaved through the snow covered English countryside and into southern Scotland. It passed some of the breathtaking scenery that the humani seemed bent on destroying. It was views like the huge valley the railroad had destroyed with a bridge that caused Dee to keep up the search for Flamel. Once the Dark Elders returned, they would return the world to its original beauty.

A fog decended upon the tracks and Dee had to slow down to keep on the tracks. Luckily there were no other trains upon the line and there still had been no forks along the way. It was like this track had been laid specifically for transportation to Hogwarts. Dee emerged from the fog ten minutes later and raced to catch up.

Twenty minutes later, after almost seven hours of following the train (luckily Dee had stored up some auric energy before the trip), Dee landed and slammed the ground in frustration. The track had reached a dead end and the Hogwarts Express was nowhere to be seen.

A/N:

Mrs. Black is an interesting charcter. Obviously she had never had any interest in Sirius. There is no reason to suspect that he would have told her about the secret passages or about Lupin's "furry friend." But she adored Regulas during his life.

In this chapter, I have her basically disown Regulas as well. The reason for this comes from the fact that Sirius knew he had rebelled against Voldemort before his death. How did he know this since Regulas couldn't have told anyone before going into the cave with the horcrux and he never came out of the cave? The only explanation I can think of is that he left a note for Mrs. Black, and somehow Sirius either discovered the note after Prisoner or someone else did and managed to tell Sirius. It could not have been public knowledge or Voldemort would have checked on his horcrux between Goblet and the end of Half-Blood Prince. If he had left a note saying he was fighting back against Voldemort, who Mrs. Black also adored, she would have disowned him too; even if she couldn't bring herself to remove the final member of the Noble House of Black from the family tree.