Disclaimer: The characters that look familiar to you belong to J. K. Rowling. The ones you cannot find in any of her books are mine. I don't intend to make any money out of this. I'm just having some fun.

The ashanriis

Sirius Black was absolutely speechless. And even if he had been able to utter a sound, what could he have said? "Yes, please, no sugar"? Anyway, he wouldn't have had the time, because just then the door of the room opened with a bang, and two more women appeared there, one carrying a very big umbrella, the other, a pair of scissors.

"Sandrine, what's wrong? Are you OK?" The shorter one demanded, looking from Sirius to her friend and back to Sirius, a pair of scissors in her right hand, though it was obvious she wasn't a very dangerous opponent, since she was trembling like mad.

"It's OK, girls. This man just fell on my web. You know... THE WEB."

"Ooooooh!" Both women said at the same time.

"Wait a minute," said the one carrying the umbrella, "do you mean that it worked? You brought someone back from the dead?"

Sandrine shrugged and looked at her friends as a child caught doing something wrong by its parents.

"Well, so it seems." And then offered them an apologetic small smile.

The other women looked at each other, and then the one carrying the umbrella just let it fall to the floor with a clatter and, without even a second look at Sirius, said:

"Oh, for all the Princesses! I need some coffee."

She left the room, and then the girl with the scissors just laid them on a stand next to the door, smiled shyly at Sirius and left after her. The third girl had got out of the bed, and was now next to Sirius. She offered him her hand to help him get back on his feet, and then just guided him out of the room, through a very muggle-looking corridor and into a very modern muggle-looking kitchen, where the other two women were already busy preparing coffee and some biscuits. The woman still holding Sirius' hand let go of it and offered him a chair, which he took gratefully, still unable to speak or to simply get over the shock. He just looked at the three women and studied them for a while. The first one, the one the others had called Sandrine, was a breathtakingly beautiful woman, with blonde long hair, green warm eyes and a very kind face. The second one, the one who had been carrying the scissors, was a bit plump and shorter, very beautiful too, although her green long curls and crystalline eyes were kind of disturbing. The third one, the one who had needed the coffee, was the tallest of the three, although still quite shorter than Sirius himself. She had long chestnut hair and very clear blue eyes. Sirius didn't know why, but he had the feeling she was probably the older of the three, and probably the owner of the house where they were now, since she moved around the kitchen with obvious ease. The voice of the green-haired girl interrupted his musings:

"Would you rather have some tea, Mr...."

"Black," Sandrine ended, "his name is Sirius Black."

"How..." Sirius finally uttered, but then stopped, because he didn't know where to start. How did she know her name? How had he got there? How was it possible that he felt so alive when he was sure he had been in the realm of death a few moments ago?

The women were looking at him expectantly, so he finally settled for something easy to say:

"Tea, please."

Sandrine and her friend smiled at him, as if congratulating him on his achievement. He had finally been able to say two words together. Wow!

"Milk? Sugar?" The green-haired girl demanded.

"No, thank you," he answered, with a little more fluidity this time. He reached for the cup offered to him and drank the hot liquid. It had and instant effect on him. He felt suddenly much, much better, and let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding.

Now the three women were seated around him, their gazes directed at him. The blonde and the brown-haired girls were drinking coffee, the green-haired girl, seated in front of him, was drinking tea. Emboldened by the cup of tea in his hands and their beautiful faces, finally Sirius summoned his Gryffindor courage and started speaking:

"Ok. So... I have many questions and don't know where to begin, so I think I will just start by telling you who I am, although you seem to know," at this, Sandrine nodded, "and what is the last thing I remember."

"Oh, well, he talks! I was starting to think the time in the abyss had affected his brain," the brown-haired girl said, not without a certain amount of sarcasm.

Sandrine kicked her under the table and scowled at her. But Sirius didn't really care. He wasn't in the mood for sarcastic remarks now, so he just started explaining all about his fall through the veil, his fight with Bellatrix, how and why he had got to the Department of Mysteries in the first place, how he had been in Azkaban for a crime he didn't commit, and everything that came to his mind, which was really a lot, taking into account the circumstances. All through his explanations, the women remained silent but obviously hanging on his every word. It wasn't every day that a man appeared in their home in the middle of the night and out of nowhere, and furthermore, this wasn't even a typical man. When Sirius finally finished talking, they were all already on their second cup and had even eaten some delicious biscuits. Then Sandrine told the other three what she knew had happened, about her dream, and how Sirius' life had been spared thanks to her enmity with Bellatrix Lestrange. And then, it seemed, was the time for a round of questions and answers.

"So, Bellatrix is out of Azkaban?" The brown-haired witch asked first.

"So it seems," Sandrine replied with a sigh.

"She definitely is," Sirius added, "and it doesn't look as if the time spent there has diminished her magical powers in the least. Some time ago some death eaters escaped from Azkaban, probably with Voldemort's help. She was among them."

They all remained silent for a bit, pondering this information, and then Sirius finally knew where to start:

"So, if I may ask. Who are you and how come you're powerful enough to bring someone dead back to life. Where are we and am I really alive? I mean, could I leave now and go back to Hogwarts or wherever I want and see my friends and talk to them, and do magic, and..."

"Ok, ok," Sandrine said half laughing, "let us answer those questions first, and then you can ask us some more and we'll try to tell you everything you want to know. Sirius just nodded, so she went on:

"My name is Sandrine Aires, this is Amanda Ming," and she pointed at the brown-haired woman, "and this is Sha-adi Ming," she pointed at the green-haired girl this time. "We are ashanriis, you know, fairies with human appearance. I don't know if you're familiar with our kind, because the ashanriis really don't like much mixing with wizards and witches, so many of them don't even know that we exist."

Sirius had indeed heard of the ashanriis, beautiful women that knew how to control the fury of the sea, the strength of the air and the power of the fire, beings with such a magical power that, so the legends said, one of them could fight against ten very powerful wizards and witches and defeat them easily without even lifting a finger. But like most wizards and witches, he had thought they were a legend, that they weren't real.

"We're not really typical ashanriis, you know," Sandrine continued. "For different reasons, but basically because of disagreements with our kind, all of us left the community years ago, and now we live as muggles. Not that that's a very strange thing, as most ashanriis live as muggles anyway, but they still keep in contact with the rest of the community and take part in meetings and all kind of events. Still, well, usually we don't use magic. We live as real muggles do."

Sirius didn't know what to say. He was really surprised that someone who had that magical power would rather live as a muggle, so he wondered what these disagreements had been, though he didn't dare to ask. Anyway, Sandrine had changed the subject and turned to more immediate matters, like Sirius' situation.

"The reason I could rescue you from the dead, as I told you before, is because of this ritual I performed thirteen years ago. But no, it's not a common thing. Ashanriis usually stay out of the way of wizards and witches and definitely don't change the fate of anyone. Everybody has to die some day, and if we were to interfere, then the world wouldn't be enough to hold all of us. We die too, of course, immortality is not very appealing to us. We think that one life entails enough suffering and trouble, so we really prefer being spirits for eternity."

At Sirius shocked expression, she smiled, and then explained further:

"Yes, we exist as spirits, in the water, in the fire, in the wind, in the trees... even in the stars! Nature is composed of ashanriis spirits, that's our destiny in the end, and so life for us is not that important. It's just the way to get to our real and final destiny. And then, of course, there's a certain drawback to bringing someone back from the dead: a link for life is created between the saved being and the saviour, which could certainly be very annoying, depending on how well the both of them get on with each other. So... I hope we're gonna be good friends, Mr. Black."

At this she smiled at Sirius, while the poor wizard could only stare.

"We are bounded to each other for life?"

"Yes," she said, and smiled again at him, a little bit apologetically, as if being bonded to her for life could be worse than being dead.

Sirius looked around the table. Amanda and Sha-adi were also smiling at him, Sha-adi in a very kind and reassuring way, Amanda with a hint of humour in her lips.

"Well..." Sirius started. "Well, thank you, then. I mean, thank you anyway, but, well, thank you."

Amanda laughed heartily at Sirius chaotic words, obviously ignoring Sha-adi's and Sandrine's angry looks, and then raised and said:

"Well, it's almost daybreak now, and much as I'm enjoying this, I'm afraid I must start getting ready for work, and so should you both, girls."

At this, Sandrine and Sha-adi only sighed. After the excitement of the night events, they weren't feeling much like going to work, but Amanda was right, they really had to, so they'd better go and have a shower. Sirius just didn't want them to leave yet. He still had so many questions. The women realised this, and so Sandrine said:

"Amanda is right, we really should be going. I'm sure you still have many questions, though. Just so that you can relax a bit, let me tell you that yes, you can go on with your life as usual, your friends and enemies alike can see you, you can use magic, and everything will basically be the same as always, with the only small difference of us being magically bounded, but that isn't really that important. I mean, it won't interfere with your live at all. You'll probably feel if I'm in danger and I'll feel it when you are. And then we could communicate in the ashanrii way, which is similar to telepathy, but not quite... And maybe a few things more, but nothing really drastically different. We can talk it over in the evening, when I come back from work. Now it would be better if you just took a hot bath and went to sleep. Amanda can give you something that will make you sleep through the day, and at dinner we can talk over how you're gonna go back to your home and how we're gonna tell your friends that you are still alive, because I'm sure they're gonna be a little bit shocked at first."

"You bet," Sirius said, smiling at the thought of Remus shocked expression if he just apparated in his flat. In fact, that could be funny... But then he shook himself, and turned serious again. After all, Merlin knew how good Moony's reflexes were, and he didn't want to depend on Sandrine bringing him back from the dead again.

*****

Thanks for the reviews!

shadowycat: Hi! Thanks for reading. I was very surprised to get your review, because I wasn't even sure if my story was up yet. I'm glad you liked this chapter. If you could tell me where were the rough spots, I'd love to correct them. If you don't have the time, it's OK, forget about it. I hope my grammar will improve with practice. ;-) And I'm glad you like Sandrine, because we're gonna see a lot of her and her friends in this story. As you see, she is definitely very much alive. The story of the ashanriis is very complex, but I'll try to explain some more about them in the next chapters.

Kady Rilla Wholi: Thanks a lot for your review. I can assure you that Bellatrix is not going to like this story at all, but I'm afraid she won't appear in it for some time yet. I hope you are not disappointed about that. You know, although my name is Lupin I belong to Slytherin, so I'm gonna take may time before killing her. I want her to suffer a bit first... :D