An/ well this chapter has been a long time in the writing. Sorry to all those fans anxiously awaiting it (yeah cos I have so many of those). Credit on this chapter goes to Steph for continuing to pester me about it long after I had decided to give up.
The exceptions to the "it's hard to be scary when you're short rule" are Sin Si Joe, who although not much taller than me (5"4) pulls off scary very well, all credit to him, and my sister, barely five foot, who has come to be known as the man beater at school due to her right hook.
Credit to Edgar Allen Poe who taught us all that the best place to hide things is often in plain sight.
I must also confess to stealing the three rings idea from "The Mask of Zorro" although I've reversed it and added enough of my own stuff that only the very basics of the original idea remains.
Also Aberforth's "speed of mind" thing is quoted from "the Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas just because I love it.
Chapter 4: A trip to Nithan
Sirius spent the next day wondering why he hadn't asked her. The question hadn't even occurred to him until after the two of them had parted outside The Last Gate.
He had returned very quickly to the Gryffindor Tower as soon as the rain had stopped, both of them had assumed that even the teachers most determent to catch rule breakers would have retreated to their offices during the storm. The incident had definitely taught him to be more cautious, he would never walk in the open so obviously again and he would renew his attempts to persuade James that they needed more than one copy of the Marauders Map. This was one of the rules that James had insisted on to try to keep their animagus abilities a complete secret. By James' way of thinking if there was only one map there was less chance of one of the teachers getting hold of it. Sirius had always thought that having only one map spelt trouble if it were to be confiscated; as it would mean redoing all the complicated spell work which had taken the four of them an entire summer holiday to complete. Having only one copy also meant that it had to be kept where the majority of the group were, although James was notorious for keeping it with him even when he was part of the minority. So far as he was concerned the map was his baby, the second one of his grand ideas to become a working prototype. Sirius stopped his train of thought the moment he realised he was considering taking the map and copying it of his own accord.
"If you can commit treason against your friends" he thought, "that would definitely be one of the offences on the list".
He was waiting by the door to the Last Gate the next night, unable to enter without Alin being present, covered yet again in James' invisibility cloak. She was late. Just as he was beginning to consider that she had made the whole thing up, there was a rustle in the trees behind him and she pushed down the hood of her invisibility cloak.
"Sorry" She said, shortly. "My Father decided that tonight would be a good time for one of our 'talks'. He had a lot to say tonight".
Sirius, about to ask what she and Professor Dumbledore had been fighting about, decided against it when he saw that, although her voice was calm, her hands were shaking quite violently. "It's cool", was his only reply, "at least it's not raining tonight".
She smiled half heartedly at him, before turning and opening the door to the passage way. Sirius managed the journey down the stairs this time without incident, reaching the room at the bottom with his toes all in one piece. When the torches were lit he could see that she had been back to the room since the night before, as the books on the table had been replaced with some small bottles and jars which she appeared to be filling with potion ingredients from a small purple sack.
"You might want to leave the cloak here", she said, "not that I don't trust my club mates, but it's an expensive bit of kit and some of Aberforth's mates are tricky enough to steal your underwear while making you believe that they're helping you with a business deal."
"Your underwear!" he asked amused. "Does she exaggerate everything this much" he wondered to himself.
She turned from setting the fire and looked up at him, one eyebrow raised and said, with complete seriousness "If they thought they could make use of it yeah. Most of them would enjoy the challenge of getting hold of it".
"I'll leave the cloak" he replied, a little unsure of whether she was serious or not, "James would kill me if I lost it". He took it off and set his training kit, which consisted of a small holdall and a long thin case, on the floor. He then threw it over the back of the same chair she'd left hers on the night before. While close to the table he caught a glimpse of the herbs in the jars. While he recognised some of the by sight, most were completely unfamiliar and the labels on the jars that held them seemed to be in some kind of code which was made up of numbers and Roman numerals.
"Are you ready?" she asked "we need to leave now, my uncle's waiting for us and thanks to my father we're already late"
"Sure, whenever you are" He replied. Suddenly the doubts he'd been having all day about this resurfaced. Pendon and his membership there was truly the last link to his family. Once he joined a club his father had always referred to as "bloody Nithan pacifists and blood traitors who permit mudbloods to join and pollute the oldest and purest sport", his contact with them would really be finished.
"What am I thinking?" the other half of his brain asked, "Since when do I want a relationship with them anyway. I left". With that he picked up his stuff and joined her by the fire.
As he walked he realised that she had no training kit with her, not even a change of clothes. "Are you planning to fight in your school robes?" he asked, confused.
"What?" she asked, looking distracted as she fanned the flames in the grate. He repeated the question. "I leave my stuff in a locker at the club. You can do that tonight if you want, it saves carrying it back and forward. The Nithan house elves will take care of the laundry. There". The fire had just sprung to light, making the room flicker and casting twisted shadows of himself and Alin on the wall.
"First or following" she asked when he stood beside her at the fire. She held a jar with more of those strange numbers and Roman numerals on the label out to him. He did however, recognise the contents of this one β it was floo powder.
"Following" he said, "just so as you can't ditch me"
She grinned, "Ok then". Sirius noticed that her hands had stopped shaking while she set the fire. She looked up at him and handed him the jar after taking a handful of powder. "Just do as I do" she reassured him, "you'll be fine"
He nodded to her, surprised that she could tell he was nervous. With that she turned and threw her floo powder into the fire. "Diagon Alley" she said, stepping into the green flames, she span rapidly then disappeared. Sirius waited for the flames to return to their normal colour before following.
The Diagon Alley grate always looked odd to those not brought up around floo powder. Instead of having the fireplace built inside a house, it had been built freestanding, complete with chimney, in a small alcove close to Gringotts.
Sirius emerged from the fireplace with the grace that only someone with a life time of practice of travelling by floo powder could manage β he didn't fall flat on his face like most people did.
"Why Diagon Alley?" he asked, looking around at the empty street, which was deserted apart from a few wizards who were obviously heading for the Leaky Cauldron. "Doesn't Nithan have a fire place of its own?"
"Yeah" she replied, glancing at the wizards the down the street, "but the security won't let you through without a membership disk. Until the council gives you one or throws you out we come in this way and we walk".
She set off down the street leaving him jogging to catch up, while he juggled his training kit. As they walked an awkward silence grew between them. Searching for something to talk about he commented "it must cost them dear to keep the location secret while still being attached to the floo network. The council at Pendon had to bribe four officials to protect the address from the ministry".
She giggled at that and suddenly looked very pleased.
"Care to share the joke?" he asked, becoming slightly annoyed at her secretive attitude.
"Sure" she replied, ignoring his tone. "It amuses me greatly that our 'brothers' at Pendon have to pay through the nose for something that we get for free". She continued when she saw how puzzled he looked, her tone becoming almost conspirital, "one of our members works for the floo department. I think he told them that the address is of his muggle wife's granny. That's not strictly allowed but they don't say anything because the old woman is family after all". She laughed again.
"Well ain't that a neat trick" he said, still slightly put out that she seemed to know everything that was going on. He turned to look at the darkened shops that they were walking passed, wishing he'd never spoken. "How far is it?" he asked, after they had walked in silence for about five minutes, knowing that there was very little of Diagon Alley left to walk through.
"Not far now" she answered, turning into the blind alley that led to the other, lesser used entrance and exit of Diagon Alley. She walked to the red brick wall, wand out, and tapped the right brick without even having to look for it. The archway formed in the wall and they both stepped through. This exit didn't come out behind a pub like the other did but was just hidden behind a large grey dumpster. This was one of the reasons it was less frequently used β there was much more chance of being seen. The alley was filthy. There was muggle rubbish everywhere and it smelled like the public urinals at a rock festival by the end of a long day. They were both concentrating so hard on not putting their feet in anything nasty; that when what Sirius had assumed was a pile of rags sat up and spoke they both jumped out of their skins.
"Hello Miss Alin, how's your uncle? Is he buying this weather?" The person who spoke was so bedraggled that it was hard to tell that it was a person in the moonlight. His hair and beard were so wild and tangled that he appeared to have no real facial features, just brown matted fuzz. His clothes were also tattered, and Sirius suspected that at least half the foul smells in the alley were coming from him.
On hearing the voice recognition crossed Alin's face. "Byron you terrified me". The man gave a little bow and looked towards Sirius questioningly. "A friend of mine" was all the introduction Alin gave. "I don't know whether he's buying or not. But I'll tell him you were asking" she paused for a second then threw a silver coin she had removed from her pocket to the man, "it's cold out tonight Byron, get yourself a coffee or something."
"Ah Miss Alin you're too good to an old wastrel like meβ¦"he said, the coin vanishing from his hands as if it had never been.
"A wastrel you may be" she replied, "but you're not that old. It may be I'll be seeing you soon".
"That it may" came the voice, as Byron curled up and seemed to go back to sleep.
They walked on, Sirius burning to ask for an explanation, but not expecting her to offer one. Her face had a fixed expression about it, as if she was considering some complicated puzzle, and as they stepped out of the alley and onto the island of light given off by a muggle street lamp, he could she that she was biting her bottom lip in concentration.
They had turned left onto a street of slightly run down Victorian terraced houses. The whole neighbourhood looked like it was very slowly falling from disrepair into decay.
"It's just up here" Alijanna said as Sirius opened his mouth to ask for an ETA yet again, proving that she hadn't been as lost in thought as he believed.
This statement left Sirius feeling incredulous. This place, these houses looked like the least likely place in London to hide a secret wizarding club. The place where Pendon's training ground was at least had surroundings which fitted its activities. It was in an old house hidden deep in the country side, by both every concealment spell imaginable and through the remoteness of its location.
It suddenly occurred to Sirius that he was about to become one of the few people in history to know the location of both training grounds, a secret the clubs guarded from each other as much as from the rest of the world.
He was pondering what he should do with the unique information he would soon posses when Alin pushed open the iron gate of one house, and bounded up the granite steps. As he climbed the steps after her, Sirius heard a clock chime 8pm somewhere inside the house
The door was oak, old and covered in chipped black paint, but still solid looking. There was no door handle indicating that it could only be opened from the inside. There was however, a door knocker which was in the shape, as were so many of the others in that street, of a roaring lion. There was nothing unusual about the house, Sirius thought. It was a little better kept than the others in the street, but that was its only distinguishing attribute. In short, it was as well hidden in plain view as it could be without magic.
Alin stretched out her hand towards the door knocker but instead of using it, took the charm, a small spiral, from her bracelet, and inserted into the lions mouth.
The lion sprang to life, opening its mouth in a silent roar. Then a low growling voice, which sounded as if it was really the lion speaking, not just a charm which had been placed on it, demanded "who seeks entry? You stand before the door keeper". It seemed to gaze around, its cold steel eyes scanning them.
"Alijanna Dumbledore and her guest Sirius Black" she replied, while Sirius wondered if he should identify himself.
"Miss Dumbledore is recognised and welcomed" it stated, its voice a little less cold than before. "Her guest is welcomed also, provided that he keeps within our boundaries. Those are the terms"
"I accept" she said,
She then promptly began elbowing him until he got the idea and said "I accept too", which caused Alin to roll her eyes in his direction.
"Very good" the door keeper said "his name is registered in the log book. Welcome to Nithan Mr Black".
The door then swung open of its own accord, revealing a square, dimly light entrance hall, its windows swathed in red velvet curtains, in which figures in Nithan emblazoned, midnight blue practice robes walked down the stairs and into a door on the right, while men and women covered in sweat, and in one case blood, climbed to the upper floor.
Sirius was now very glad that he had brought plain black practice robes instead of his black Pendon emblazoned ones, "I'd probably have been lynched if I'd worn those" he thought.
After giving the blood covered woman a sympathetic glance, Alin beckoned for Sirius to follow her up the stairs. When they reached the first floor landing she pointed down the corridor to the right, "that's the way to the women's changing rooms" she informed him, "men's are down that way" another gesture this time to the left, "they're out of bounds to members of the opposite sex. The door straight ahead where the witch with the blood went is the medical centre. Up there" she pointed to the stairs to the third floor, "are the council rooms, no one goes up there unless invited".
"I'll see you in ten minutes back here" she said, "Just pick a locker without a name tag and be as quick as you can". Then she turned briskly on her heel and strode into the female rooms, leaving Sirius standing in the middle of the hall, mouth open, poised to ask several questions.
Swallowing them, he entered the changing rooms, which were thankfully empty, and changed quickly, before returning to the landing. While changing he relieved his frustration over her superior, bossy attitude by talking rapidly under his breath. He had begun to get the feeling that the only reason he had seen the friendly, sharing side of Alin Dumbledore last night was because she had felt she owed him something, now that she felt her debt was paid she was going to be as unpleasant as school gossip made her out to be.
Although Sirius had thought he had changed quickly, he walked on to the landing carrying his sword, find her waiting for him. She was dressed like the other Nithan members he had seen, in midnight blue practice robes. She had her hair pulled back in a straight forward bun, and the various pieces of jewellery that she normally wore were gone. She was also carrying her sword. She looked beautiful, yet so deadly, like steel sheathed in silk, that Sirius was almost scared. Almost. It was hard be truly scared by anyone that short.
Strictly speaking practice robes weren't robes. They were loosely fitting wide legged trousers and a wrap around jacket, the idea for which most wizards conceded came from the Japanese muggle sport of karate. This from of dress had been adopted in 1875 when it had been ruled in a supreme council meeting that the current uniform, where the competitors competed in only a loin cloth did not serve to make the sport look civilised or modern. There were some Pendon members who had started a campaign to reinstate the rule of loin cloth fighting, but most other members had thought that they were just dirty old men who wanted to ogle the women in the club because they weren't getting any at home. However, when Sirius started to imagine Alin fighting in only a loin cloth, he began see an appeal to those men's idea.
"Stop that" he mentally scolded himself for that thought, "I must not leach at scary short woman, she'd probably gut me if she found out, that or stick her sword in some very uncomfortable places".
She said nothing to him but beckoned down the stairs with her sword. They descended to the ground floor, Alin with her sword in one hand and running the other down the oak banister. The stairs creaked very loudly underneath the faded blue carpet which Sirius thought was probably an original feature of the house. When they reached the bottom they entered the practice room through the same door the others had come out of.
The room was much bigger than he had thought it could be. Sirius suspected that it was probably enhanced by magic. It was big enough that there were different areas dedicated to every different part of the sport. From where he stood Sirius could see people working on many different styles of kicks, punches and sword work. There were also three full size sets of practice rings, where duellists moved back and forth, practising for competitions.
Alin got many nods, waves and shouts of hello as she moved through the fifty or so people in the room. Sirius was beginning to see why she had been so eager to recruit him: most of the people in this room were in their forties or even fifties, a very different story to Pendon which had had an influx of young members over the last few years.
The two of them moved towards what appeared to be the oldest group of people in the room, all of whom were men. Their discussion finished as the group broke up and a man who had to be Alin's uncle stepped out of it.
Aberforth Dumbledore looked like his brother. Only odder, if that was possible. He had a lot less of Dumbledore's softness and readiness to smile around his eyes and mouth, and less of his slightly distracted good humour. He was taller too, and was covered in what must have once been impressive muscle for a lightly built man, but had become wiry with age. He had the same piercing blue, intelligent eyes which seemed to look through you. Sirius received this treatment as Aberforth looked over his niece's shoulder while hugging her.
When she was done hugging her uncle she turned back to Sirius and introduced the two of them, "Uncle, this is Sirius Black".
The blue eyes swept over Sirius again. They contained a level of suspicion that Sirius could never imagine being contained in Professor Dumbledore's face. Aberforth reached out to shake his hand, his impression of oddness being increased by the fact that a faded tattoo of a goat, of all things, rippled on his wrist.
As Sirius returned the hand shake he felt the calluses which covered the man's hands, including one odd feeling scar which stretched from little finger to thumb across his palm. He also had a scar on his bare forearms, a sign that perhaps not all of his fights hand been sanctioned ones with a healer in attendance.
"She tells me you're good" Aberforth said, while his niece made an indignant noise in the background over being called 'she', "So good that we're to ignore where you came from." He paused, eyeing Sirius again "Are you good?"
"I'm not bad" Sirius replied, feeling eyes on his back. Though he could see no one watching him he realised he was being watched out of the corners of all the eyes in the room.
"You haven't danced in the dark of the moon" Aberforth said giving the name for the open competitions which took place each month on a deserted moor, " I would remember you".
Sirius shook his head. "By Pendon laws to take part you must be recommended by your trainer. My father hasn't picked between my brother and me, so neither of us can compete".
The look on Aberforth's face portrayed his distaste for the Pendon practice of part training many apprentices before choosing the one you would pass your sword on to. Pendon felt that this insured that only the best fighters became full club members with their own ancestral sword. The number of these sword bearers had been set a an exact number of 8746 for the whole world in the Middle Ages and only a true sword bearer could train an apprentice to replace themselves as one of the 8746. Pendon's methods left a huge number of half trained swordsmen who could do nothing with their skills. By Nithan's laws you could only pick one apprentice from the beginning, so you hoped to pick well, and then you had to follow them through from about the age of ten until they either surpassed your achievements, and earned your sword or you died and they inherited it. Nithan's methods also had their drawbacks as far as Sirius concerned. The reason there were so many grey heads in the room was that Nithan sword bearers were reluctant to choose their apprentice until they found the perfect one. Often this meant that they died without picking one, leaving their swords to rust with out a wielder.
"The only way to tell if your good enough" Aberforth said, calling Sirius back from his contemplation of the rules, "is for us to see you against someone of your own class. You can fight Alijanna; the rest of us will judge you on your form".
Alin showed only a very brief flicker of surprise at this before nodding. Sirius however felt the need to protest that he was too much bigger than her for it to be fair. She looked slightly insulted at this, but her uncle only sighed and said "Fine, just middle and sword ring if you're feeling chivalrous. Warm up both of you".
Five minutes later Sirius stood opposite her in the centre of the three concentric circles, with half of Nithan watching them. Had he been about to fight her in the inner ring he would have felt more sure of winning, but more guilty about the prospect. In the inner ring, with all the fighting at very close quarters, the height weight and strength advantage he had over her would have made it nearly impossible for her to win. Even in the middle ring she would have to be very fast to overcome his natural advantages.
From the thirty seconds after the bell rang for them to begin he realised that 'fast' could not begin to describe her speed. She was lightning, spinning through the forms so quickly she blurred before his eyes. It was all he could do to stop the majority of her quick blows, aimed at his nose in hope of drawing the first blood and winning. To win he needed to pin her down so as to make his advantages count. But every time he thought he had her she whirled away, adding acrobatic flips and roundhouse kicks to the mixture. They didn't even get to the sword ring and their weapons before she had him. She changed tactics so quickly he didn't have time to react, changing to close quarters and using a simple hip wheel to throw him to the ground, she placed her foot on his wind pipe.
"Yield?" her voice was innocent but her smile and eyes were full of laughter.
He was about to reply when her Uncle said "don't gloat Alijanna." She removed her foot. "Good. Both of you" he said, as Sirius sat up, "lets do the inner ring now. Five minutes rest".
But his niece was shaking her head at him. "No" he asked, eyebrows raised much in the same way she did, "why?"
"I can't beat him at close quarters" she replied shaking her head and panting slightly, "I'm not fast enough, not yet"
Sirius expected him to order her to fight on, but he smiled suddenly and addressed the crowd saying "well, this appears to be a momentous day. Alijanna, it seems, has finally learned that she has limits, even if she did add 'yet' to the end of her confession", at this point his niece ducked her head behind the hair which had fallen from her hair to hide her blushes at the laughter in the room. "And Mr. Black has learned that the stronger swordsman does not always win", he turned toward Sirius, "It is speed of hand; speed of mind". He helped Sirius up, "lets work on that shall we".
Three hours and many speed improvement related exercises later Sirius stood out side the door to The Last Gate. He was about to put James' invisibility cloak back on when the question which had plagued him all day returned to haunt him.
"How did they know I was there?"
"What?" she asked, distracted as she watched the door to The Last Gate vanish.
"Last night. To trap me the teachers had to know where I was. How did they know?"
It surprised him that she looked sad when she replied, "Your brother told them, he ran straight to Slytherin common room and Vulpus, his head of house. Must have thought it good revenge on both of us". She paused allowing him to digest this information.
"I train again in three days, if you're interested" she said.
"So I passed the test" he asked ruefully.
"You passed. Be here in three nights; if you've recovered from tonight that is" she smiled a goodnight at him, then disappeared into the night.
