A/N: Well Well Well... The story of three wells.

Another chapter... This being my vacation off of work and everything else, I shall be writing pretty much all the time, So I'll have a chapter up every day or every other day.

This chapter brings up more about Aine's past and family. I know alot of people consider this story to be a Mary Sue story with the main character being an OC, but since the story is about HP being a reality, it made sense to have the main character be an outsider. I shall try quite hard to keep away from the usual mary sue qualities :)

Chapter 12

The call to my work was certainly an odd one. What explanation could I give to why I wouldn't be going back to work for at least the first semester that wouldn't loose me my job? It was also made harder by the fact that it was Matt that I had to call. In the end I went with the good old standby of being sick. Though I made it a little more extreme by saying that I had gotten sick while I was researching in China. A doctor's note would likely be necessary, but I didn't doubt that Harry could easily pull off charming me up a suitably believable one.

Disappointment rang clear in Matt's voice as he accepted the excuse. I didn't doubt though that he would quickly enough forget about me the second he saw another attractive woman. He was fickle when the object he lusted after wasn't around. I had only sustained his interest for the past few years simply because I said no to him. There is something about men and getting what they can't have. Especially when that's a woman. It's ten times worse in an attractive man. They always seem to think they deserve everything they want purely based on their looks.

If I thought the call to work was bad, the call home was even worse. There were no excuses that could be given, none that would be believed at any rate. My family knows me well enough to know there would be no chance of me getting sick in China and not contacting them straight away. Not to mention it would have been quite a feat to get sick in Asia, when I had told them I was in England.

My parents were two upstanding citizens. Not a single parking ticket between the two of them. Each understood the laws of their adopted country. After all they had made a concerted effort after moving to the United States from Scotland. Appearances were quite important to them, as was responsibility. Both things they had taught me. People don't take you seriously if you don't look serious. Responsibility is hard but worth the effort.

They were perfectly respectable, except of course for one other thing they had also instilled in me. Their passion for history and things of an, unusual nature. My mother had been a professor at Glasgow University before having me and moving to the United States. On the other hand, my father had been just an ordinary police officer. Even if he had a strange interest in strange things. It had been that which had introduced my parents to each other.

Growing up around crystal balls, ritual daggers, skeletons, geodes; it all made an interesting childhood. Showing that the environment we grow up in indelibly marks us when we are older. I would say they were proud of me when I grew up, even as I had always been proud of them. But I knew they would be downright furious to find out what I had done. Even worse they would be disappointed. While I had shared my parents enjoyment of things occult, I had always gone one step further. I tried to find out how things were done instead of just reading about them. Instead of just knowing, I wanted to see and to try. Being older, and now I could say they were certainly wiser, they knew that the things they enjoyed learning about weren't necessarily safe. I though couldn't be stopped. And that was what had landed me in the situation I was in now. I dreaded this phone call, disappointment, anger, condescension were likely. Even so I also couldn't lie to them. It was just not in me. I guess they had raised their daughter right... enough.

The phone rang until the answering machine picked up. This had been expected. After all my parents never answered the phone, it was likely it would be a telemarketer or even worse one of my father's extended family wanting a loan or a place to stay. In all likelihood one of my parents was home, they would just wait until I announced who I was.

"Mom, Dad. It's highly likely that you're home so would you..." I was cut off by the abrupt termination of the answering machine, my mother's voice blaring over the phone. Her soft accent hard to hear since she was yelling. It was always rare to hear my mother yell.

"Where HAVE you been? You call us and tell us that you're going to England for a few days. That's right and fine. Three weeks later you haven't spoken to us once, none of us can even get in contact with you. Even calling your office got us nothing. I'm well aware you're a grown woman, but even so you have to think of other people. You have responsibilities to those around you after all. We were worried, thought maybe the sidhe had taken you. You certainly have trouble enough following you around all the time!"

I let my mother rant over the phone, knowing well enough that it was best to let her go. She did deserve it as well. But I had to smile at the idea that the sidhe might have kidnapped me. They were fairy folk, elves, and they certainly didn't exist. Though a small voice in the back of my head questioned that logic. Hadn't I just resurrected a dead man, for the sake of a wizard. Who was to say the sidhe weren't real as well. I thought my mother might be pleased if she found out they were real. She still had enough of her old superstitions from home.

"Are you done?" I asked during a pause.

"Are you all right?" She finally asked me, all the anger at my disappearance gone with the one question, worry and concern heavy in her voice.

I considered how things were going for me at the moment. I had performed a black ritual, brought a man back to life, fallen unconscious for three weeks, had a wound that hadn't healed yet, and was now linked to the once dead man. Really the truth was I wasn't all right.

"I'm fine." Well lies like that were in a parent's best interest at a time like this.

"And I know you're lying." She said sternly. I could easily imagine her tugging on a lock of dark red hair, glaring at the phone as if it was me. It's quite annoying that no matter how old you get, how mature, how grown up you act, your parents can still see through you.

"Fine. I'm not all right. I did something you and dad are going to kill me for. I performed a ritual." I grimaced at the hiss I heard over the line. "It was an involved one too. It included blood." I didn't need to wait for the explosion that was going to cause.

"AINE SIOBHAN MACKINNION!"

The full name always precedes the worst talking to you will ever get, at any age.

"I wonder if perhaps the hospital dropped you on your head when you were born. That would be the only way to explain this. To be stupid enough to get involved in a blood ritual. I don't even want to ask what it was for."

I snorted softly. That was certainly a lie. She expected me to tell her what it was for, knew I would do it.

"It was a resurrection. I had a clag a bhais."

The quiet on the other end of the line was ominous to say the least.

"It actually exists then?" There was a note of wonder in my mother's voice, betraying her interest in the knowledge if not the actual practice of the ritual and the relic. She certainly didn't want anything to do with the ritual, but the relic. Well it was something that had been considered just a legend, so hearing one existed. I shouldn't have been surprised at her immediate interest. Of course I also shouldn't have been surprised at her quick change of direction. "A resurrection ritual! Are you daft? I had thought you knew better, after what you saw in China I thought you had gotten rid of those stupid ideas."

"To answer the first question, yes it did exist. But it was destroyed in the performance of the ritual." That wasn't going to go down too well. The idea of destroying a relic was not something mom would have liked. "And as for the second. I think perhaps I am daft, yes."

"What went wrong?" She asked this with a note of certainty, knowing that of course a ritual of this kind could not have come off without a single hitch.

"Actually the ritual went off without a problem. I ended up unconscious though for three weeks, hence why you haven't heard from me." Not to mention the wound that was burning on my arm even as I spoke, but perhaps I'd just leave that little bit of information out of the way for the moment. "I was just calling to tell you I was all right. In case you had called out the police to look for my body." I joked this, but the silence that met the comment suggested heavily that this had been a viable option. Not surprising really since dad was a police officer. He easily could have called out his old friends. "Anyway, I'm going to be staying in England for a bit longer. I'll call you though so you know I'm all right this time.

"And you're keeping something from me again. If this little resurrection of yours went smoothly..." At this my mother sounded skeptical, not that I blamed her. The idea of bringing someone back to life was a bit of a fantasy. "If it went well why do you need to stay over there? You have work to do."

Damn that incomparable pinpoint accuracy of a mother's intuition.

"Well there was a little side effect. I appear to be somehow linked to the man I brought back to life. We can't be more then 300 yards apart."

"Aine, apparently I didn't teach you well enough. Haven't I told you time and time again, when blood is involved bad things happen? You should have easily remembered that using blood binds people together."

"The criticism isn't really helpful at the moment mother." I had since dropped into a chair in the hallway, the phone painfully clutched in my hand. My left arm was starting to burn a little uncomfortably. I considered hanging up and finding Draco, but I wasn't in the mood for another sarcastic session with the good doctor. Mom had a right after all to criticize me as well. "I need to come up with a way to break the connection. Any helpful comments?"

Mother was one of the best people to ask this question to. After all after me, she knew the most about the occult. Though unlike me she didn't publish books and papers, go on lecture tours or hire herself out to people for advice. She preferred low profiles. For her this really was more of a hobby. And I knew she would be able to help me, which she did, quickly listing off a few books that I should look into. It was a bit closer then I had been at the start of the day.

I said goodbye then, finally managing to end the call with a promise of calling to keep her up to date. And of course dad as well, since she would tell him everything the moment he got home. I was just lucky he didn't have the number here since that call would be loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Things okay at home?" Harry had left the kitchen, and was looking at me strangely as I sat on the chair, looking rather pale again. He probably thought it was because of the call, but it was just my body still not up to snuff. "If I had known their address before I would have told them you were all right."

"That would have just made things worse." I chuckled softly, thinking of the image of Harry Potter telling my parents their little girl was in a coma after bringing someone back to life. Not everyday a fictional book character shows up at your door. My parents might have ended up unconscious as well. "They're fine. My mother is just a little displeased with what I did. And concerned over the tie I have with Mr. Black."

"I really wish you'd call him Sirius. He's not a bad man, and he hates the formal name..."

"Too bad my life isn't to make that man happy." The mere mention of the man was making me annoyed. After all the fight yesterday hadn't really endeared us to each other, and today things had stayed just as bad. I had managed to not see him too often, but when I did snide comments abounded. Usually in regards to my previous lack of clothing.

"You two..."

"Are connected for the time being. A short period if I have any say in the matter. Now can I go to the library? Or is he sulking somewhere, refusing to let me go?"

Displeasure was obvious on Harry's face, but he didn't try to argue with me anymore about his Godfather. Of course he wasn't pleased with the way things were, but there was nothing I could really do about it at the moment. The argument hadn't sat well with me, this was true, but I was stubborn. And since there was no movement to apologize from his side, I wasn't going to make the first move.

"No, he'll go as well."

Harry gave me directions to Guildhall library, a local library that had a large collection of historical books and manuscripts. It was probably going to be a better bet then a normal library with mostly fiction books. I don't know what Harry had said to Sirius, but considering the fact that I traveled out of the house, and made it all the way to the library, which was over 500 yards away, then obviously Sirius was following somewhere behind me. I didn't really care where he was, the inconvenience comment still smarted.

I settled myself in at a table at the library, and with the help of some of the librarians, surrounded myself with a batch of books which may or may not hold the answer to mine and Sirius' problem. I don't know how long I stayed there, staring at book after book of what was turning out to be useless information about things that bared no importance to anything I needed to know. The light had started to dim outside the windows, and I wasn't sure when the library itself closed, but I was sure that I would be told by someone, so I bared it no mind and continued to read until my eyes started to hurt.

I felt a tingle go down my back, followed by a surprised jump as Sirius rather unceremoniously dropped into the chair in front of me. He looked rather put out, his brows knit together. Even annoyed he still looked good enough to eat. His hair was coming loose from it's hold at his neck, free pieces curling around his ears. Not to mention the muggle clothes Harry had apparently provided for him looked wonderful. Who would have thought just an old blue shirt, and a pair of normal jeans would have looked so tremendous?

"How long are you going to stay here? I would love to go home and eat." His eyes looked over the table and the large pile of books covering the entire surface. His voice was edged, either annoyance or hunger. Likely both. I had completely forgotten that he couldn't move more then 300 yards from me. So he couldn't go home until I did.

I started out of my daze and realized that he was sitting there across from me, and I was worried. He shouldn't be out in public, should he?

"What are you doing out here?" I looked around, waiting to see a policeman, an auror or worse pop up. I was just happy to know that the Dementors had been disposed of in that seventh book. "You're a fugitive aren't you?"

Sirius laughed at this, a deep sound that echoed through me and caused a rose colour to cross my cheeks.

"Harry didn't mention that I suppose. After Voldemort was killed, and Peter was proven to have been alive all along, I was cleared. Posthumously of course, but the thought was nice. So no scary aurors are going to pop up and drag me away. I know how depressed you'd be if I wasn't around. Wouldn't have my face to stare at all day."

I frowned at him, now angry with myself for wasting even a minute to be worried about the insufferable man. Maybe if I was lucky a rogue wizard would arrive and deal with the man for me.

"Mr. Black you do realize what I'm trying to do here? I know you don't want to be attached to me for the rest of your life." I sighed, rubbing my eyes tiredly, they ached from hours of reading. It was about time for me to go home, but now that he suggested it I was determined to stay here for the rest of the night.

So occasionally I'm a bit stubborn.

"I don't suppose it would be that bad actually." Sirius mused softly, but a smirk fell on his features at my confused look. "As long as you kept your mouth shut." He had been quite close there to getting back on my good side, but of course he had to go and ruin it.

I opened my mouth to show him exactly what my open mouth would do when he interrupted me. It was a rather surprising question, so I closed my mouth immediately and looked at him considering.

"How did Remus die...?"