A/N: Well thank you to everyone who is still reading this. Remember... If you like it or hate it... Please Review.

Also I still want to hear who people want Harry to end up with. So far the top two are Ginny and Draco... such a tense race. Heh. I am also trying VERY hard to keep my chapters a bit shorter then they have been. For some it's just hard to find a suitable break point. This chapter was supposed to be MUCH longer, but I broke it in half... I'll try and keep the chapters at 3,000 words at most...

Enjoy.

Chapter 4

Black would be a good colour to paint my ceiling. Then I could get some of those little glow in the dark stars and place them all over, make them into the constellations. It was an idea I had when I was a child, but my parents had never let me do it. Now staring up at my ceiling, in my own bedroom, in my own flat, trying very hard to not think about other things, that was the first thing that popped into my head. I could do the entire room like I had wanted as a child. Granted my tastes had changed since I was eleven years old, I didn't want murals of unicorns all over anymore. But the ceiling thing I think is still a good idea. It would undoubtedly be a very calming thing to look up and see stars on your ceiling.

Of course if I were a witch I could probably enchant the ceiling to actually show the night sky. There was something like that at Hogwarts according to the books.

Damn it.

That was exactly what I was trying not to think about.

I sat up angrily, swinging my feet over the side of the bed, running my hands over my face trying to wipe away the thoughts with the motion. It wasn't working of course, now that my mind had latched onto the magic idea, my brain was going with that and all the things I had been trying to push back were coming to the front again.

Harry Potter was a reality. The books had been real, at least to a certain degree, and their author was in reality a squib. She didn't have any magical ability herself, but she had grown up surrounded by those that did, as well as the story of the greatest wizard of her time, the great Harry Potter. Things hadn't been going too well for the reporter, and she chose to use the events surrounding her to write a series of books to sell to the muggles. No muggle would believe any of it was true. And that was what had happened. The Harry Potter book series had been an instant bestseller, a classic children's series that had crossed over all sorts of barriers. Old people loved them, children, males, females, every race imaginable. It was truly astounding. The books had spawned movies, video games, hundred of thousands of fanfictions on the internet... And all because of the true story of one boy's life.

I had met Harry Potter two months ago, and that was when I had learnt about the greatest trick pulled on mankind ever. Us muggles had no idea that we were reading about a reality. It was disturbing to think that we hadn't even realized how close we might have been to a horrible reality of Voldemort in charge... It would not have been a pleasant world. But he had been defeated. That was how the books had ended.

Truth happened to be a bit different. The young genius wizard had informed me of the truth of the situation. Lord Voldemort had left behind one more horcrux, that was hidden, and only one man could help find it. Sirius Black. Too bad for the good side that he had been dead for quite a while.

Which was where I came in. My field of expertise is the occult, and all that deals with it, especially relics and rituals. So I have been asked to bring one Sirius Black back to life, so that he can hopefully remember where his evil dead brother hid a horcrux. A horcrux we don't even know the shape of, or if Sirius Black would even know where it is.

I buried my face in my hands once again. This was the thought that kept me from sleeping well over the last two months. None of this made me very confident. I trusted Harry well enough, after all he had done great things in his seven years at Hogwarts, but now he was trusting too much in luck. But I suppose he didn't have too much of a choice.

I got up from my bed, stretching, wearing only a pair of black silk shorts, and a tank top. It was August in New York and the weather was too hot to wear real pajamas. If I wasn't afraid of random people showing up in my fireplace, I might have been tempted to just wear nothing at night. The thought of Cairn finding me naked in bed though had killed that thought quickly enough. I liked the weasel eyed man, but I didn't think we were close enough for that sort of situation. I padded quietly to the kitchen, realizing that I wasn't going to get any more sleep that night. Once again I would find myself awake half the night.

A glass of water firmly in hand I went over to my kitchen table and plopped down in a chair there, tugging at the messy ponytail I had put my brown hair up when I left the bed. I was sipping my head, and staring at the things that were on the table. I found that I did this most nights when I couldn't sleep. So in other words, I did this every night. I sat here at my kitchen table, and stared with a great deal of concentration at the supplies for a horrific ritual sitting there, rather calmly, on my mundane kitchen table.

Piled on the table were all the things I needed for the ritual to bring Sirius Black, minus one. The clag a' bhàis, and it was that other thought that helped to keep me from sleeping. Somewhere in England, Harry Potter had that other object. It was good that I didn't have it, as scared as I was of it, my fingers still sometimes itched to feel the wood over my skin. It was not a safe object in the slightest. If you believe in dark magic, then that would be a good example of a relic of such magic. But I don't think it really is that, but it's purpose is not right. I don't agree with bringing back the dead. But I had been hired by the boy that lived, and I couldn't deny that his purpose was righteous enough. I also had gotten a firm idea of him from our couple hours together. If I didn't do this ritual, he would do something else, and I certainly didn't want that on my conscience. Not if he got desperate, tried to attack Voldemort and ended up dead. That tragedy aside, it wouldn't bode well for me either. Or any one else for hat matter.

So I had agreed. Sometimes I still feel a bit sick about that. It's hard not to with what I've seen over the years. Resurrection of the dead never brings back what you want it to. But being honest with myself all the rituals I had seen were basic, and very primitive. I had the clag a' bhàis to help in this. According the legend it was a supreme object of mystical power. When it was filled with human blood, any one could be brought back to life. No doubt you could bring Jesus back if you wanted.

There though was a large problem with this artifact, this ritual. It required blood, human blood. Enough to fill a cylinder about a foot long. I was grateful at least that it didn't require death, just a lot of blood. It also required quite a few other things, things that I had spent two months preparing and searching for. And now two months later they sat here, quite innocently on my table.

There was a ritual dagger of course. I had bought it in a little magic shop on a back street in the city. That had been simple enough. The dagger itself wasn't overly important, as long as it was made of silver. The real problem had been the preparation that had to be made to it. It had the be cleansed in a clear lake, in the moonlight of a full moon, and left there for a month. This had been one of the main reasons why I had to put off the ritual for two months. I had only just retrieved the dagger a few weeks ago. It hadn't even been the hardest of the ingredients.

Ground bones of a human had been a problem. I am sure that the original users of this spell probably killed people to retrieve their ingredients, but I didn't. And in today's day and age one simply doesn't have to go that far. All I did was purchase a teaching skeleton. I am a teacher after all, that hadn't been too suspicious. It was just greatly disconcerting to sit at this very table, a pestle and mortar in hand, grinding a human finger into dust.

Then there was the chalk I needed. Couldn't have normal sidewalk chalk of course. No everything in this ritual had to be special, purified. I had to actually find a pure piece of calcite, without human touch. That part had been fun. I had spent a rather dirty day mucking about in a quarry up in the north of the state, trying to find the purest piece of white calcite I could, and making sure that it had never been touched by another human. It was fine for me to touch it, since I would be performing the ritual.

But the worst really had been the dirt. I had to fly down to Hawaii, an expense I didn't mind due to the money I was getting from Harry, and go to one of the volcanoes. I had to find soil with a specific composition of carbon in it. It hadn't been really hard work, just extremely tedious. I had a lab taste a vast amount of samples looking for one with the EXACT composition I needed. It had taken three weeks of testing. Though a vacation in Hawaii had been nice.

And now all four things sat on my table. In the quiet of the night I could hear the drumming of my fingers over the oak. The only three things I needed was the clag a' bhàis, the words for the ritual, and the location of the body of one Sirius Black. Harry had the first, I firmly had memorized the words, and the location would come later.

A rather loud bang brought me streaming to my feet, and I rushed into my living room to stare at the large cloud of dust billowing into the room from the fireplace. I waved my hand to try and clear it, and when most of it had settled, Cairn stood in the middle of it, looking surprised to see me, before he blushed and looked away.

I looked down, and noticed that perhaps my shorts and tank top were a bit skimpy for someone like Cairn. He got embarrassed quite easy apparently. I apologized and quickly ran into my room, sliding on my bathrobe, even as I realized that it was too warm for it. But it was better to save Cairn a few blushes then to be hot for a short while. When I reentered the room, he seemed relieved. My lips twitched, until I remembered the time.

"Cairn! It's only three in the morning!"

"Sorry. It's the time difference." He looked around, almost to check and make sure nothing else was in the room with them. It was like he was expecting a dementor to come round the corner. When this wasn't the case, he relaxed and exited the fireplace. "It's the beginning of the month, and Harry wanted to start as soon as possible. You said it was okay didn't you?"

I sighed but had to nod my head. Of course in England it was a suitable hour in the morning, and it wasn't surprising that the boy wonder wanted to get started immediately. Maybe I should have reminded him of the time difference. I knew I should have been worried about strange men showing up in the middle of the night. Cairn certainly qualified as strange, though at least this time he was at least wearing a normal wizard's robe, even if he was a squib. Thank god I had decided against sleeping in the nude.

"It's a good thing I'm not tired." I led him into the table, and gestured for him to sit down. "All those things on the table are for the ritual, I'm perfectly set to perform it." When he reached to touch the dagger I slapped his hand away. He looked a bit like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar, so I smiled at him. "Sorry, but they're purified, and can't be touched by anyone other then me."

"Sorry..." He mumbled under his breath, and I couldn't really quite control the urge to pat his head. He reminded me of a dog I used to own when I was a child. It had been a small schnauzer that always had it's nose in places it wasn't supposed to be. At the pat on his head, he looked up at me, a surprised grin on his face. I had to wonder if he ever was shown much affection. It was a little odd to me though, since he was still quite a bit older then me. But in terms of personality, I couldn't shake the idea that he was much younger then me.

I looked around. "Stay here. I'm going to have a quick shower, get changed and then we can leave. All right? Try not to get your nose stuck in anything"He looked a bit confused, not surprising. It was just that earlier impression of my old dog coming to the surface again. I walked out of the room, shaking my head.

When I came back in it was to see Cairn staring into the fridge, amazed at all the foods staying cool in there. He really was like my dog... I pulled him out of it, and sat him down at the table once again. I dropped a backpack on the table. I didn't expect to be in England for more then a day or two. The ritual itself would only take one night, so I had only packed a few clothes, and I now used them to carefully wrap the items on the table and pack them into the bag. Once that was done I smiled slightly at Cairn, who was fidgeting where he sat.

"What do wizards use to keep food in?" I asked, a bit curious. He obviously hadn't seen anything like a fridge before, so that was out of the question.

"Our food is kept in a room... it's magically enhanced to keep certain foods in it cold." He tilted his head. "It's actually a lot like your white box there."

"It's a fridge Cairn." I chuckled softly. "Us muggles do have to get by somehow."

He looked a little lost at that point. "I suppose I'm basically a muggle. After all I don't have any magic, I'm pretty much useless."

I sat down across from him and looked at him seriously. His hair was hidden under a baseball cap again, and his narrow features were looking a little worn. Things must have been hard in his life to look this tired. Perhaps he wasn't even as old as I had assumed.

"Cairn. How old are you?"

"25"

I doubled over, coughing hard at the sound of surprise that had tried to escape from my throat. Instantly Cairn was up and patting me on the back, as he had done in London. I looked up at him, my eyes wide in shock. He was younger then I was, but he looked so old. I surprised myself by reaching out to hold one of his hands, noticing now the unlined skin on it. Narrowing my eyes on his face this close, it was easier to tell that what I had assumed was his age was due to deep stress lines on his face, and the wearied expression in his eyes.

"What happened to you?" It was blurted out before I thought it through. Blushing instantly, I shook my head. "Sorry, nevermind." Anger, or embarrassment would have been expected but Cairn was actually smiling at me.

"Back when I was 15, I was kidnapped by Lord Voldemort, or more exactly his cronies. There was no rhyme or reason for it, it was just the death eaters wanting some amusement. I was kept in a dark room for what I was later told was a month. They tested certain... ideas out on me. I was saved by Harry when he finally came to stop Voldemort. And that is why I would do anything for that man..." While talking about it, Cairn got a distant look in his eyes, but there was also a degree of determination to it. I didn't doubt he would do anything for Harry Potter.

Part of me wanted to ask what they had done to him, but that would have been unkind of me, making him relive something that was obviously extremely painful. Of course it wouldn't have been pleasant to hear about either, but it was sometimes hard to control my researcher instincts.

"It was a part of the story that woman never got a hold of. Not that it would have made good reading for a children's book, the torture of a young boy... I really suspect that Harry actually had a hand in keeping that part out of the story."

I found myself squeezing his hand, trying to offer a small amount of affection for the person I now realized was younger then I was. The story made me want to protect him, I didn't doubt this was exactly what Harry felt as well.

"You remind me of an older sister." Cairn said softly, his face flushed from the touch of my hand on his. I grinned brightly up at him.

"I never had a younger brother. If you want the job, you're welcome to it. Though I have to say I shall expect extravagant Christmas presents."

He laughed, and I felt for a moment there that it might have been the first real laugh that had made it past his lips in a very long time. It warmed me to be able to do that for him. I jumped up and on impulse gave him a sisterly hug.

"So little brother. Should we head back to London then? I don't want to cause Harry to have a hissy fit." He snickered slightly at the idea of his saviour having a fit, but he hugged me back before pulling away.

"Well it is important to get this ritual done soon..." He tried to sound serious, but his lips were still smiling, and for once Cairn wasn't fidgeting needlessly. I tilted my head at him.

"All set to go then." I shouldered the bag and marched purposefully into my own living room, Cairn following after me. I stood by my fireplace and waited for him to pull the envelope out of his robe pockets. He held it out to me, and reaching in I grabbed a handful of the dark powder. "Are we going to the Leaky Cauldron then?"

"No, 12 Grimmauld Place. That's where Harry is living. That is where you'll be staying as well."

That didn't sound too pleasing. From what I remembered of that house in the books, it was old, dirty and filled with nasty house elves and screaming portraits. But I didn't intend to be there more then one night. I took the powder and threw it down, winking at Cairn before stating the name of my intended location and then in a flash I was gone.