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.
Helloes and goodbyes
Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall arrived only a few minutes afterwards at Grimmauld Place. Definitely not time enough to allow the coffee win over the effects of the firewhisky. When they entered the kitchen, Tonks was still unconscious, her head lying on the table. Sirius and Amanda had very silly smiles on their faces and it was obvious that they had trouble focusing their gazes on the newcomers. Remus was the only one sober enough to stand and greet them. Albus' eyes twinkled, amused at the sight in front of him. McGonagall's narrowed dangerously and fixed on her niece without pity.
"Amanda! I expected better from you!" She went to the girl's side and stood there, her hands on her hips, her eyes scrutinising the table and then the girl's face.
"We only had some rounds..." Remus tried to soften the older witch.
"How many?" She asked, turning her angry stare at him.
"Er... must have been around four or five, no more than that. Promise." He said taking his right hand to his heart.
Professor McGonagall's eyes almost popped out of her face, spectacles on and all. "What? Four or five rounds?" She asked indignantly.
"I'm sorry, auntie..." Amanda managed to say.
"Minerva..." Albus tried to calm his friend.
"What am I gonna do with you? Merlin! Four or five rounds, Amanda? A McGonagall is supposed to be able to drink four or five bottles! Are you never going to learn to drink as a McGonagall should?"
Albus, Remus, Sirius and Tonks - who had awaken with the shouting - all looked at the strict Professor McGonagall with disbelief. They had thought she was angry because her niece had been drinking, not because she hadn't been drinking enough. Amanda, on the other hand, didn't look surprised at all. She knew her aunt too well. It wasn't the first time Minerva McGonagall had complained to her niece for her lack of a proper 'McGonagall stomach', as she would call it.
"Auntie, I've improved my resistance of wine and liquors, but firewhisky is really too strong for me. I've tried to reach your standards, but you know it'll never be. Remember the first time? I got dizzy by only smelling the whisky. Now, at least, I can drink it. To some extent, that is." Amanda sounded like a little girl trying to defend herself. Sirius, who had always seen in her a very self-assured and confident woman, had trouble believing this could be the same Amanda Ming.
"Ok, ok," Professor McGonagall said, a little bit exasperated. Then she started to rummage in a bag she was carrying and took out four small bottles. "Our Potions Master gave us these remedies. You should be ok in a moment. Drink it now." She proceeded to hand a bottle to each of them.
Amanda and Tonks started opening the bottle, but Remus and Sirius looked at it suspiciously.
"Snivellus gave you this?" Sirius asked. "Did you tell him it was for us?"
"SIRIUS BLACK!" McGonagall roared. "If you ever as much as suggest that Professor Snape is trying to poison another member of the Order, I'm gonna sit you in my lap and give you such a biting as you've never had in your life!"
That was convincing enough for Remus, who opened the bottle and swallowed its contents in a second. His friend, though, looked still suspiciously at the liquid inside the bottle.
"Sirius, you must really learn to trust Severus," the Headmaster said a little bit annoyed. "I guess Remus and Tonks didn't have time to tell you, with this little celebration going on, but it was he who warned us all that Harry had left Hogwarts. Harry could be in Voldemort's hands or even dead by now if it weren't for Severus' prompt reaction." The Headmaster paused here, and then added in a more cheerful voice. "And speaking of being dead or alive... welcome back!" The old wizard offered Sirius his hand, and then embraced him as a father. Professor McGonagall approached the young man too, and kissed him profusely. Sirius was so shocked that he thought he'd much rather she had given him the biting she had mentioned a few seconds before.
Once all of them were again in control of their senses, Dumbledore asked Remus to help Tonks get upstairs and have some rest, she had been in a worse condition than the rest of them, and the potion would take a little bit longer to make her feel completely recovered. When the young wizard was going out, holding Tonks' left arm with his right hand, Dumbledore gave him a package no one had realised he was carrying until then. "I thought you might find these useful. I'm sure you'll want to start getting ready as soon as possible."
Remus smiled and took the package with his left hand. "Thanks! I really appreciate it." Then went on walking out of the kitchen and upstairs.
"And Remus," the Headmaster called him again, "you know what I would like you to do in a couple of hours, don't you? The little trip we talked about last week..."
Remus nodded. "Sure, Headmaster, I know what you mean. I'll leave when the sun sets."
"Fine," Dumbledore responded. "And please, before leaving, tell Tonks what we expect her to do."
Tonks looked quizzically at them, but said nothing, and just followed Remus out of the kitchen.
"Amanda, dear, now that you are more sober, there is something I wanted to talk to you about. Maybe we could go upstairs." Professor McGonagall said, and looked meaningfully at her niece.
Amanda rolled her eyes. If the Headmaster wanted to talk to Sirius alone, they could just say it, no need to look for silly excuses, but she didn't complain and obeyed her aunt.
"Amanda!" Dumbledore called her. She turned to him from the kitchen's door. "Thank you," he said with a smile.
"You're welcome, Headmaster," the girl said, and then closed the door after her.
"Nice girl," Dumbledore commented, his eyes twinkling, but Sirius just grunted his agreement. Now that he wasn't drunk any more, he remembered again their little trip on the astral world and he wasn't happy about it. He hadn't forgiven her yet.
Seeing the young wizard wasn't in a mood for small-talk, Dumbledore signalled a chair and then said "Please, make yourself at home" with a very amused face.
Sirius took a sit in front of his old professor and then Dumbledore turned to more serious matters.
"First of all, let me congratulate you on having such good friends. I'm sure you realise how lucky you are to be with us again. And we are very lucky to have you back too, of course," Dumbledore added as an afterthought. Sirius just smiled, so the Headmaster went on. "I guess your last experience was too much of a shock to let you realise, but your encounter with the ashanriis could turn out to be very good for our cause. I hope they won't try to remain neutral this time. They learned their lesson the hard way some years ago, and if we are lucky they will help us defeat Voldemort. With the ashanriis by our side, we have a fairly good chance of winning the war."
"And without them?" Sirius asked, a bit worried at Dumbledore's dejected tone.
"Without them, we might win it too, but the war will be much longer, and we'll loose many more lives."
Both remained silent for a moment, lost in their thoughts. Sirius was the first to speak, as a sudden thought came to him:
"But you would have contacted the ashanriis anyway, wouldn't you? I mean, Amanda is Professor McGonagall's niece."
Dumbledore looked surprised at Sirius' question.
"Didn't she tell you?"
Sirius shook his head.
"Well," Dumbledore started thoughtfully, "I can understand that she doesn't like talking about it, but I had thought that after so many years she would be over it." After a pause, Dumbledore went on: "Amanda was thrown away by the jilguereis when she was a very young girl. Her mother was accused of being one of the traitors who let the dortors in on the Ice Castle and thus caused the death of a monstrous number of ashanriis, not only at the Castle, but also all over the world. That was the first attack of a long series of killings."
Sirius was trying to take in this information.
"So?" he asked doubtfully.
"So, Amanda is persona non grata, she is not allowed near any of the ashanrii Castles. She couldn't have brought us their help. In fact, if we had used her as a messenger to the ashanriis, they'd have probably closed their doors on our faces."
"Well, but what about the other girls? What about Sandrine, the girl who saved me? You know Sandrine, don't you?"
"Yes, yes..." Dumbledore nodded, "I met Sandrine once, many years ago. A very clever child. Very quiet too. She never accepted Amanda's expulsion. They have been friends almost all of their lives, since they were maybe seven or eight. Her friend's fall from grace was a great shock to her, specially after her mother's death and the many dead people she had seen in the previous months. So she decided she was ashamed of her kind, left the dansarines and went on living as a witch, before deciding that she'd rather have nothing to do with magic at all and moving on to live as a muggle."
"But she would have helped us? They would, wouldn't they?" Sirius was very surprised at the Headmaster's scepticism.
Dumbledore looked thoughtful for a moment. "Yes, I believe they would have helped us anyway, but they would have been alone, the other ashanriis wouldn't have joined them."
"I don't get it. So you tell me that Amanda's mother was a traitor..."
"She was accused of being one," Dumbledore corrected him. "It's never been proved, and as she died and couldn't defend herself..."
"Ok," Sirius said, while passing his fingers nervously through his hair, "let's suppose that Amanda's mother was indeed a traitor, she was only a small girl then, what danger could she entail?"
"It's not a question of danger, it's a question of honour, Sirius. The ashanriis have a very strict code of honour. If one of them breaches the ashanrii laws, any of them, then the shame falls on all the ashanriis of her same blood. Amanda has to live with the guilt of her mother's mistakes. When disgrace strikes an ashanrii family, even the unborn generations will have to live with it."
There was another silence, and then Sirius spoke again.
"I'm sorry, but I still don't get it. You say that the ashanriis realised last time that Voldemort was a danger to them as well, so what did it matter where the information came from? Even if it was Amanda or Sandrine who delivered it, still they would know that Voldemort was back and would be ready, don't you think?"
Dumbledore sipped some more tea and looked thoughtfully at the table. After some time, he replied in a tired voice: "I don't know, Sirius. I honestly don't know. The ashanriis are a little bit like our beloved Minister. They live in their comfortable world and like to think that nothing can harm them. I'm not sure they would want to consider Voldemort as a real threat. They'd probably try to ignore it. After all, they blamed some ashanriis of the ultimate attack by their enemies. That their enemies had gained strength thanks to Voldemort didn't seem to matter much. And now many of the ashanriis that survived are very old or not properly trained to defend themselves, so they might just prefer to put their heads on the sand, as ostriches do, and hope that this time the danger will pass them by."
"So... How does my meeting the ashanriis change any of this?" Sirius asked.
Dumbledore smiled for the first time since this difficult conversation had started. "Well, as I told you, Amanda can't really help us. Well, she can, but not by putting us in contact with other ashanriis. Sandrine is a different matter, though. She would have probably been hard to convince. I doubt she would be willing to contact the dansarines again. But now she's seen for herself that the danger is real, she'll probably be willing to be our messenger to the ashanriis and spread the news of Voldemort's return."
Sirius nodded thoughtfully. "Well, in fact I think she's doing that already. Just before I left, Sandrine and some others left to deliver the news to their friends. Oh, and now that I think of it, the giants have attacked the fuocciri."
Dumbledore's head shot up at this. "What? Are you sure of that?"
"Well..." Sirius hesitated, and then explained all about the two children who had appeared surrounded by red fire at Sandrine's flat.
When he finished, Dumbledore crossed his fingers and rested his chin on them. "I had hoped I was wrong, but I'm afraid my worst fears have come true once more."
Sirius moved nervously in his seat, he didn't like the Headmaster's dejected tone.
"We have lost precious time. Fudge's blindness has allowed Voldemort time enough to regain his strength and contact some of his old allies. I knew the giants had accepted his proposals, but I didn't expect them to strike so soon, nor to attack the fuocciris. Of course, it might have been just coincidence, but if the giants are attacking the fuocciris on Voldemort's orders, as I suspect they are, then it means that Voldemort is far stronger than we'd like him to be. He's already deprived us of the help of the giants by winning their support, and now he is attacking the people who could be our most powerful allies. We can only hope that at least he doesn't win the jilguereis' support this time."
"What?" Sirius was nonplussed.
"Well, it wasn't openly known last time, but Voldemort married many of his Death Eaters to jilguereis. The ashanriis are very interested in the dark arts as well, you know. They only use them in extreme cases, though. Anyway, it seems that many old jilguereis thought Death Eaters would be very eligible husbands for their daughters, and so arranged their marriages." Sirius' eyebrows rose in surprise, so Dumbledore explained a little bit more. "Most ashanriis' marriages are still arranged nowadays, it's an old tradition. They are very conscious of things like purity of blood and all that nonsense. In fact, they agree with Voldemort in some points. Not that that's surprising either. Even our beloved Minister and his lapdog Umbridge agree with him to some extent..." Dumbledore's face turned gloomy. "Anyway, as I was saying, some jilguereis thought Voldemort and his followers had the right ideas, and that they would make wonderful husbands. So some marriages were arranged, we are not certain how many, but probably more than we'd like."
"What do we care who the jilguereis marry?" Sirius asked with contempt. "As far as I'm concerned, they could marry the devil if they wanted to."
"I'm afraid it's really important, Sirius. By marrying an ashanrii, the husband gets her magical protection. A special magical bond is created between them, which means that they could stand many of our curses or even escape. Look what Sandrine could do, she brought you back from death. Imagine if the jilguereis married to Death Eaters wanted to protect them, or even worse, avenge their imprisonment or death. We are not strong enough to fight them, Sirius, we are definitely not."
Sirius was finding it hard to control himself. He had had no doubt that the ashanriis would support them or, at least, remain neutral. But now it seemed that there was a big probability that they would join Voldemort. And what then?
Dumbledore seemed to read his mind, because just then he added: "Even if some jilguereis join Voldemort, not all of them will, and the other ashanriis definitely won't, I'm pretty sure of that. The fuocciris would rather kill themselves than marry a 'black worm', as they call the Death Eaters."
Sirius laughed a bit at that. A black worm? Not that 'Death Eater' sounded very nice, but 'black worm' sounded even worse.
The Headmaster stood then, and put his hand on Sirius shoulder. "Listen, Sirius. I really must go now. The news of the giants' attack changes a lot of things. I must act immediately. But before leaving, there's something I wanted to tell you." He paused here, and swallowed with difficulty before going on: "I know I haven't treated you as you deserved. I was trying to protect you, and all I got was your death. I know you are an excellent wizard, Sirius, and after you died, I realised how wrong I had been for trying to avoid the unavoidable. We are all bound to die sooner or later, and I'm sure you are not afraid of dying if you've had the chance to fight with us first. You're capable enough of defending yourself and others, and from now on I intend to treat you as any other member of the Order. You must still be careful, but I won't keep you confined in here. I want you to do some more active work for me."
Sirius' eyes were shiny with tears he was trying very hard to restrain. "Thanks, Headmaster, that's all I could ask for."
Dumbledore nodded. "Now don't get too excited. I'm not sure yet what I want you to do, though I have some ideas. Just try to relax and give me some time to think about it, ok?"
Sirius nodded.
"And while you wait..." Dumbledore sounded a bit amused now, and Sirius had the feeling he might not like what the old wizard was going to say. "I thought you might as well train yourself a bit. You were always very powerful, but I must admit I was very surprised when Bellatrix got you. You could do better than that when you were younger. Of course, I'm sure years of inactivity in Azkaban can rust the skills of the best of wizards... So I want you to be a good lad and take some lessons, just to recover your lighting reflexes." Dumbledore smiled very mischievously at that.
"Wait... Headmaster, I don't need any training..." Sirius started to say, but then another voice said from the kitchen door:
"Oh yeah, you do. And let me tell you this: I'm not gonna let you relax a single second."
Sirius looked at Dumbledore with his mouth open wide.
"Yes," Dumbledore smiled, trying hard to contain his laughter, "let me introduce you to our best Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor ever, who has been good enough to accept you as a pupil. Mr. Sirius Black, meet your new teacher, Professor Lupin."
Sirius groaned in despair. Moony was going to make him work hard as hell, he knew that.
"Mr. Black, I hope you'll be a good student," Remus said mockingly. "I must tell you that some other students are gonna join my classes too, and they are very good, so I hope you will be up to their level."
"Who?" Sirius inquired, his left eyebrow much further up than the right.
Dumbledore and Lupin looked at each other and smiled a bit to themselves.
"You'll know tomorrow morning," Remus announced, trying to sound as pompous as Lockhart. "Classes start at nine o'clock in the room at the end of the fourth floor. Bring your wand, some parchment and a quill. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go."
"Where?" Sirius asked immediately. He wanted to talk with Remus about the ashanriis.
"I'm afraid that's top secret information," Remus said, and then started laughing heartily at Sirius' angry look. Sirius' mood didn't improve much when the Headmaster decided to join Lupin and started laughing as well.
"Remus," Dumbledore said, still laughing, "I'll leave with you now, there're some things I need to do. Give me a second, I'll just go and find Professor McGonagall."
"Ok, I'll get Tonks," Lupin said, and left the room with the Headmaster.
After a few minutes, Sirius could hear people coming down the stairs, so he left the kitchen. They were all there, Dumbledore, Remus, McGonagall, Tonks and even Amanda, all ready to go.
"We'll be back in a moment, Sirius, so try not to get yourself killed in the meanwhile, ok?" Tonks said.
Sirius just nodded, a little bit annoyed, and then a thought occurred to him. "What about Harry?" He asked. "Can I write to him to tell him what has happened?"
"No," Dumbledore replied, "it would be too great a shock for him and he could try to do something rush, like coming here on his own or something of the sort. We'll take care of that. Don't worry, you'll see him pretty soon."
Sirius just nodded dejectedly. It was ok for them, they were leaving, and he was the one who had to remain alone once more.
"Buckbeak would be glad to see you, Sirius," Remus added, sensing his friend's sadness. "He's been pinning over you. It's as if he could sense you had died."
"Ok," Sirius sighed, "I guess I'll go and see him." Then he looked at Amanda, she looked very distressed and nervous, maybe Professor McGonagall had some bad news for her. He felt sorry for her and suddenly all of his previous anger disappeared. "Are you leaving too?" He asked her.
"Yes," she replied with a sad smile. "I have to meet Sha-adi and the others, they must be worried about me."
"Will I see you again soon?" He asked hopefully.
Amanda shook her head. "I don't think so, I'm gonna be very busy over the summer. Maybe in a couple of months, if everything goes well."
Sirius' heart jumped to his throat. "Ok," he said, and then approached her to shake hands with her, but when he reached her, Amanda ignored his hand and hugged him instead.
"Take care," she said, smiling at him.
"Yeah, you too," Sirius responded sadly.
She nodded, and then they all left Grimmauld Place and Sirius was, once more, alone.
*****
Thanks for the reviews!
Thanks all for reading and reviewing!
More information about the ashanriis in this chapter, and some of it is gonna be very important in the future. ;-) Chapter 9 is gonna be very long, almost twice as long as this one, I think. I don't know, I might split it in two yet, I'm not sure. I can tell you something though, it's gonna be action-packed.
Kady Rilla Wholi: I cannot tell you that. What do you think, will they? And I explained the reason why Sandrine hates Bellatrix in Chapter 1. ;-)
K-Black: Thanks, I find writing funny scenes very difficult. What did you think of McGonagall in this chapter?
Ann: Thanks! Well, I updated really soon this time. ;-) Chapter 9 is almost ready too, I'll try to have it up in a couple of days.
