London — inside a seemingly ordinary two-storey house in the eastern suburbs.
Bright white light spilled from the ceiling fixtures, illuminating a modest room with pale walls and a white tiled floor. There were no windows. Only two doors—one appeared to lead out, the other, with frosted glass, likely to a bathroom.
Basic furniture filled the room. A narrow wardrobe stood against one wall, with a small dresser beside it and a single chair pushed in close.
The bed was placed in the far corner. It was a single-sized one, and the sheets were still crisp and neatly arranged except for the part disturbed by the man lying in it.
This man was Sirius Black.
He lay unconscious, his thin frame still beneath the plain shirt and trousers he now wore. The ragged clothes from his escape from Azkaban were gone, but the starved, worn-out look was still there.
It was clear that someone had cleaned him up, and although the hollowness around his eyes remained, he looked at least a little more like a person than the walking corpse he had been just two days ago.
A low groan slipped from his throat as he stirred. His fingers twitched. His head rolled to the side, and slowly, with some hesitation, his eyes blinked open.
White.
Everything was white.
He squinted, groaning again as the brightness stabbed at his vision. For a moment, he couldn't tell where he was, and his heart beat quickened as a flicker of panic rose inside him.
"Where… am I?" he muttered hoarsely, voice dry and cracked like brittle parchment.
His mind clawed at half-formed memories—a rat in the newspaper, the cold of Azkaban, his godson. Then came the clearer part: getting captured by some pretentious bastard and dragged into an interrogation. Everything swirled together like smoke, scattered and hard to hold on to, and it felt like his skull might split at any moment.
So for a while, he just lay there, pressing his eyes shut and letting the ache pulse through his head, not yet ready to make sense of where he was or how he had ended up here.
Half an hour passed. The room was dead silent, until—
Click.
A soft sound reached his ears, snapping through the fog in his mind. His groggy head turned toward it, and he saw a man enter through the door—a stranger with Middle Eastern features and sharp eyes, wearing an expression he couldn't quite read.
He tried to place the face, digging through his already muddled memories, but nothing came. Then, a sudden realization hit him—this wasn't the important issue right now.
With a jolt, he sat up and pushed himself off the bed. He glanced left, then right. There were only two doors, and both were behind the man standing in front of him. Without thinking, he took a step back and pressed his back against the wall.
His breath quickened as his eyes stayed fixed on the stranger, who approached casually and stopped a few paces in front of him inside the room.
"Who are you?"
"Good," the man said with a nod, ignoring the question entirely. "At least you have not gone completely mad yet."
The accent was thick, unmistakably Middle Eastern, and he at least ruled out that this stranger was a Brit. He saw the man tilt his head slightly, motioning toward the bed.
"You should lie back down—"
"I said, who the hell are you?" he snapped impatiently. "Why am I being locked up?"
The man didn't seem even slightly bothered by his outburst. "My name is Ali. And you're not a prisoner, Sirius Black… at least, not in the traditional sense."
Sirius tried to place the name. Ali. It rang no bells. He didn't know anyone by that name—not from the past, not even from Azkaban.
Then he saw Ali's arms move beneath the coat he wore.
Is he reaching for a wand? Should I tackle him? Could I even manage that?
The thoughts ran through his mind, but Sirius just stood there, only more tense than before, and did not move an inch. He watched warily as Ali reached into his coat without hurry and pulled something out.
It wasn't a wand.
"This is rejuvenation potion," Ali held out a small vial filled with a swirl of colourful liquid. "I already gave you six doses since you collapsed the night before last. You must take one every six hours, unless you are eager to die the Muggle way… what they call malnutrition."
Two days? Sirius blinked in thought. The ache in his head had eased enough now for memories to start falling into place. I passed out… and it's really been almost two days since then?
He didn't reach for the potion right away. Instead, as his mind cleared a bit more, he finally gave the man in front of him a proper look.
"Are you… his person?"
"His?" Ali repeated, then seemed to catch on. "If you mean my leader, Caesar, then yes."
He gestured toward the bed again, nudging his head in that direction.
"You need rest, Mr. Black. If I wanted to harm you… or hand you over to the British Aurors, I would not have bothered to clean up a grown man and dress him in clean clothes."
He then pointed toward the small dresser. "Or look at yourself in the mirror first..."
Stepping aside, he added, "My orders were not to treat you like some honoured guest. Only to treat your physical injuries. I can do that just fine without pretending to be polite."
The mirror. Yes, it had been a long time... he couldn't remember the last time he had seen his own reflection. After a moment's thought, he took a step forward, then another, until he stopped in front of the dresser.
He saw a man who looked like he hadn't had a proper meal in ages. The face staring back was pale and drawn, with sharp cheekbones and hollow eyes standing out against clean clothes and freshly washed skin. His shoulder-length curly hair and somewhat thick beard gave him a look that someone might mistake for a rabbi or a sheikh.
His frame was still skeletal, with barely any muscle or fat. Still, his noble Black family genes gave him a hint of handsome features even in that state, though he was nowhere near the man he used to be.
"I would get rid off off that stash and beard. You look nothing like the prince of a noble house."
Sirius couldn't help but chuckle, though there was no humour in it. He turned around slowly.
"I assure you, I'm no prince. The name Black isn't something I'm particularly proud of."
He walked over to the bed, sat down with a sigh, and held out his hand, palm open.
"That was quick," Ali said, raising an eyebrow. "So, one look in the mirror, and suddenly you accept your situation?"
"Do I have a choice?" Sirius shot back. "Like you said, why would a grown man go through the trouble of cleaning and patching up another grown man just to hand him over?"
Ali tossed the bottle, and Sirius barely managed to catch it.
"Just to clarify, I used a cleansing charm and only magic to clean you up and replace your clothes. Anyway, my leader should be here this afternoon. Until then, we wait."
Sirius let out a small chuckle, probably the first real one he had in years.
His eyes then settled on the small bottle in his hand. He had to admit, if these people wanted to kill him or hand him over to the Ministry, they wouldn't need to go through all this trouble. So with that thought, he uncorked the vial and drank it down in one gulp.
---
The clock on the wall kept ticking, its hands circling steadily, and before long, three hours had passed. The two men now sat in the middle of the room, where the bed had vanished—most likely transfigured—and a table with a chessboard had taken its place. They faced each other in silence, eyes on the pieces, until the quiet was broken by the sound of the door opening.
Both men turned their heads at the same time and saw Maverick step into the room. He closed the door behind him and walked over, a mildly amused expression on his face as he took in the sight before him.
"Am I interrupting something?" he asked, conjuring a chair and settling into it before either of them could respond. Ali moved slightly as if to stand, but Maverick waved a hand, signaling him to stay seated.
"Sirius Black," Maverick then addressed the fugitive, who looked like he had far too many things to say. "I imagine you have quite a few questions."
"You think?" he asked rhetorically.
"Good," Maverick said, then added in the same breath, "Keep them to yourself…"
Maverick glanced at him briefly, ignoring the visible irritation on his face while noting the change. The neatly trimmed beard and cleaner appearance... in other words, he no longer looked like a beggar.
Then he turned to Ali.
"Has he been taking the potions?"
Ali nodded. "One Rejuvenation Potion every six hours, and a Calming Draught every twelve."
Maverick gave a short hum then turned to Sirius again. "I'll get straight to the point then. Two nights ago, after you passed out, I went to the Weasleys, found Peter Pettigrew, and captured him. He's locked up now in a secure cage that I personally enchanted, and he won't be seeing the light of day until I hand him over to the Aurors."
The moment the rat's name was mentioned, Sirius's face visibly twisted into fury. But just as he was about to launch into a rant, Maverick snapped his fingers, and his mouth clamped shut.
"Listen while I speak, Mr. Black," Maverick leaned forward, narrowing his eyes. "The rat is caged and will remain so until I say otherwise... which will be in a couple of months when I hand him over to the Aurors. However," he paused and leaned back again, "I can let you vent... allow you to remove the rest of the rat's toes if you must... all that, of course, if you're willing to cooperate."
He snapped his fingers again, and Sirius found he could speak. His chest rose and fell as he worked to calm himself.
"Why not just kill him? What's the point of keeping that traitorous garbage alive?"
Maverick shook his head. The resentment coming off Sirius at every mention of Pettigrew was just overwhelming.
"Peter Pettigrew is useful to me alive... That is all you need to know."
Sirius clicked his tongue. He had heard those exact words more than once now. "Then why are you helping me?"
Maverick smiled, finally getting to the point. "Two reasons."
He raised two fingers.
"First, your godson, Harry Potter, is my student. Not just any student, but someone I mentor personally."
"If you go and kill Pettigrew like a moron, you lose your only chance to clear your name. That means Potter grows up without any magical relatives. And worse, because you never cleared your name, he'll grow up resenting you."
Maverick held his gaze. "Now, you might be thinking... why does that matter to me?"
He answered his own question. "It doesn't. Not really. But since Harry Potter is my student, if he ever finds out the truth about you, the first person he'll come to is me. He'll ask why I didn't help, even though I knew everything."
"In other words, I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing it for myself... and for him."
Sirius listened in silence. His expression changed slightly as the reasoning began to sink in, though the killing intent for Pettigrew still lingered in his eyes. But at the same time, deep down, he truly wanted to be there for little Harry. And for that, he knew he would have to swallow his anger. At least for now.
"And the second reason?"
"The second reason," Maverick's smile returned, "is because you—or rather, a place only you know—has something I want."
Sirius couldn't help but curl a disdainful smile. Of course, he thought. Maybe it was the dog's brain in him that jumped to conclusions, but he immediately assumed that Maverick's real aim had something to do with the Black family inheritance.
"And what, pray tell, does your Majesty want from my house? The gold? Our dusty old library?"
Maverick's natural expression also faded. He caught a glimpse of the man's surface thoughts—ridiculous—and his brows drew together in a frown.
"Careful, Black," he said coldly. "I've shown a lot of patience towards your continuous disrespect..."
His magic rippled through the room, making the lights flicker and the temperature drop sharply. Sirius's smirk vanished as he felt the raw power settle over him like a dagger pressed to his throat, and he realized he had overstepped... again.
Then... that feeling vanished just as quickly as it had come.
Maverick now looked at him, not like someone he wanted to help, but like a man dealing with a tool he had to tolerate. His eyes turned indifferent as he said, "What I need is at your old family home. Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place..."
Sirius took a breath and looked at him, trying to keep calm. "I know the place. When do you want to go?"
He had more questions—like what could possibly interest an Archmage in that crumbling old house—but he kept quiet and swallowed them all. He had already messed things up once and didn't want to make it any worse. He knew himself well enough to recognize how often he shot his bloody mouth off exactly when he should have stayed quiet.
"Tonight," Maverick said as he stood up. He glanced at Ali, who had been sitting there quietly, just observing, and gave him a nod. Then, without another word, he turned and left the room.
Once the door shut behind him, Sirius let out a long breath.
"You should listen to his advice, Mr. Black. He's showing you a great deal of patience."
Sirius gave a wry smile and waved a hand.
"I'll... try to behave."
Ali gave no further comment, got to his feet, and walked toward the door as well. He did feel sympathy for the man and could understand that his head might not be in the right place just yet. That was the only reason he didn't reprimand him for disrespecting Maverick, but he also made a mental note that this would be the last time. Anyone disrespecting Maverick would have to face his claws.
"I'll be back in an hour," he said, then went out to pick up something to eat for the two of them.
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