SERIES: Beyond the Veil

TITLE: 4 – The New Neighbor

AUTHOR: Scorpio

FANDOM: Harry Potter/Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Multi)

RATING: PG (Varies)

SUMMARY: Xander Harris goes to collect Sirius Black from the Council's Infirmary.

Beyond the Veil 4 – The New Neighbor

Sirius was beginning to worry about making a mess in the hospital bed he was tied to when a tall dark haired man with a black leather eye-patch and an easy smile walked around the privacy curtain. "Hey man, you Sirius?"

Sirius nodded. The man seemed friendly enough, but the look in his one visible dark eye was intense and disconcerting. It reminded him of Kingsley Shacklebolt a bit. Not that Kingsley wasn't a great guy, because he was and Sirius would hex anyone that said differently. Sirius was only free of Azkaban because Kingsley's personal ideals of justice were stronger than his loyalty to the Ministry. Still, that did nothing to change the fact that Kingsley was one of the more dangerous and deadly fighters that he knew. And something about this dark haired man reminded Sirius of his Auror friend.

"Yeah. I'm Sirius."

"Cool." The guy's smile widened. "I was told that you can get outta those cuffs. Dawnie & Wils have been researching that creepy Veil thing-a-ma-bob and they said you most likely didn't come here on purpose to steal anything or kill anybody. So…." The man clapped his hands together loudly in front of him and bounced once on his heals, "ready to get sprung free?"

Sirius nodded and smiled back even as he stretched his hands towards the man as far as he could in his restraints. "Hell yes! And if you could show me to the nearest loo, that would be great 'cause I gotta piss like a race horse."

The man barked a loud laugh and quickly pulled out a key and unlocked both sets of shackles. He then helped Sirius climb out of the bed and steady himself on his feet before leading him out of the patient ward and into a hallway filled with desks, and medical equipment and other odd stuff. It was only a short walk to the nearest loo and Sirius dashed into it with a sigh of heartfelt relief.

When he came back out moments later, the man was standing there waiting and holding out a blue and gray striped terry-cloth robe in one hand and a pair of brown slippers in the other.

"Here. This'll get you through the hallways on our way to the dorm areas. They assigned you to the room across the hall from me." He paused and shrugged with a smile, "And I'm Xander Harris by the way. I'll answer to Xander or to Harris, but none of that Mister crap if you don't mind."

Sirius quickly put on the robe and then held out a hand. Xander shook it. "Nice ta meet ya Xander. I'm Sirius Black. Call me Sirius 'cause I try hard to forget I'm a Black."

Xander nodded in understanding although Sirius wasn't sure why since he didn't seem to recognize the name Black. That wasn't so surprising if this really was some strange world on the other side of the Veil instead of Heaven or, Merlin forbid, Hell. Although, Sirius was pretty sure that if this were Hell then the name Black would be very well known.

"Come on, I'll show you how to get to your room and then we'll get you changed into real clothes if we can find any that fit. Mine'll probably be the closest until we can get you some of your own."

Xander started leading him off through various halls and up a few flights of stairs while pointing out different things and introducing him to the people they ran into. Sirius found it odd that most of them were women. Well, teenage girls actually. It was more than a little odd.

When the finally reached the room that was to be his, he saw that it was just a simple, if clean, bedroom and an attached bathroom. It was all muggle in nature with no real magic anywhere except for the wards which he could feel all over the entire building. That was just another strange thing in a long list of strange things about this place. They obviously knew about magic since they had wards, but there were very few enchanted items that he'd seen in the walk to the room and none in the room itself.

"So... tell me about this place. Where am I? What do you do here? How did you end up with a copy of the Veil in the basement? What's to happen to me?"

Xander blinked rapidly with his one dark eye for a moment before taking a deep breath.

"Well, this is the main headquarters of the Reformed Watcher's Council in London England. The Veil has been there for as long as the Council has existed and no one really knows where it originally came from." Xander gestured for him to sit on the bed right before he flopped into the chair by the desk. "Best that Dawnie and Wils can figure so far is that it's a sort of magical doorway, a portal between worlds. Some of them, like yours, is a lot like ours, but others are wildly different. I'm sorry to tell ya that you're stuck here and can't go home, but until they figure out a way to pick a specific place and determine that it's really your home world, they don't want to send you back through."

Sirius nodded. That made sense in a way. He didn't want to go back through the Veil and end up someplace underwater only to drown or something. Still, he was worried about Harry and he wanted to go home. Well, maybe someday soon.

"So, Xander…. Tell me about this world. I mean, there are an awful lot of pretty young girls running around here, don't you think?"

[END: The New Neighbor