Disclaimer: I've got this wall in China I'd like to sell you...

Timeline: Post Order of the Phoenix, no particular time in Highlander.

AN: ...yeah. *facepalms*

The Black Dog and the Realm of Death

Methos was awoken from his sleep at 3 am by disembodied voices mumbling.

While Methos was definitely not a morning person, several millennia's worth of survival instincts are not put aside lightly. Thus the event of a lean man wearing only his boxers and carrying around an Ivanhoe sword searching his apartment occurred. The fact that Methos couldn't find where the damned annoying, whispering voices were coming from was starting to alarm him and make him resigned at the same time.

He was obviously going insane. Again.

That tended to occur periodically.

About to give it up as a bad job all around and go back to sleep, voices or no, Methos was stopped by a sort of subdued silvery light that had appeared on his ceiling and was spinning gently. The whispering got louder and seemed to be coming from the faint light that, in daylight, probably would have gone unnoticed. Methos tightened his grip on his sword warily.

And then a man fell out of the light and lay prone on his floor.

The light and whispers promptly vanished, leaving Methos staring at the unconscious figure on his floor wearing a very out of fashion clothing statement.

While the sunlight hitting his face woke Sirius Black up, the realization that he was firmly tied to a chair jolted him into full awareness.

"Well, it's about bloody time." A snarky, irritated voice came from his right. Sirius turned his head to look at a lean, dark-haired man wearing muggle clothes sitting on another chair. While absently noting that it was really unfair that the man wasn't tied up like Sirius was, most of his attention was caught by the large, naked blade of a sword that was propped up against the man's shoulder. "Care to explain how you managed to fall through my ceiling at an ungodly time this morning?"

"What?" To say Sirius Black was confused would be an understatement.

The man leaned forward and stared at Sirius intensely. "My ceiling, you, rendezvous with my floor, 3 am. Ringing any bells?"

There was something seriously unsettling about the man that was getting to Sirius.

Well, aside from the fact that he was tied to a chair and the guy had a sword.

"Er, no." Sirius tried vainly to figure out how he got there, mumbling out loud. "Last I remember is…" The Department of Mysteries! Oh Merlin, was Harry all right? What happened to Bellatrix? His eyes widened. "I fell through the Veil."

The man raised an eyebrow. "Sorry?"

Sirius stared at him, slightly lost. "I don't understand. I fell through the Veil! I should be dead!"

"Amazing, how many times I've heard new… associates… say that to me, though you're decidedly not an… associate, so you haven't died yet," commented the man, who seemed a bit bemused.

Sirius decided to ignore that bit of nonsense in favor of figuring out his own dilemma. "No, no, this doesn't make sense. The Veil is a gateway, near as anyone's figured, to the Realm of Death. So how did I get here?"

The man stilled completely, becoming a virtual statue. Something inside Sirius' hindbrain started sending warning signals. The filtered sunlight through the window was casting strange shadows on the man's face, his eyes slowly shifting between a mix of green and gold, sword glittering and face so intensely still with an unknown emotion all combined to give Sirius' survival instincts a kick to the behind. This stranger was not quite right.

"Why," said the strange being slowly, "would you go to the Realm of Death?"

"It wasn't on purpose," Sirius grumbled. Thinking about Bellatrix made him worry even more about everyone in that fight. "I sorta… got shoved through, you could say."

The man stared at him some more, inscrutable. Sirius started to fidget.

"Well," he said finally. "You'll be pleased to know that the Veil you speak of seems to be in fine working order. I, however, am not pleased about you dropping in on me, literally, at an inhumane time this morning. I quite enjoy sleeping, you know."

It was Sirius' turn to raise an eyebrow. "You're telling me this is the Realm of Death?"

After glancing around his apartment, the man shrugged. "In a manner of speaking."

Sirius sighed. "Right, well, any chance you'd send me back from where I came, seeing as how you're uh, Death?"

Changing eyes looked on with no expression as one shoulder shrugged. "Where'd you come from?"

"London, England. Planet Earth, if that helps." Sirius was not quite sure whether or not the man… being… was really the embodiment of a concept, or just a loony.

He was leaning towards loony.

"London. Right. With the help of a few plane tickets, that won't be a problem. You're not on another planet… or dimension."

"I thought you said this was the Realm of Death?" Sirius retorted dryly, nevertheless perked up by the thought of being able to go home easily.

"Yes… it is also technically an apartment in Seacouver, North America."

Yep, loony.

"So, do I get any compensation for your intrusion into my home?"

Sirius suddenly felt tired and in need of strong spirits. "If you untie me and help me home, I'll buy you a drink."

The smile he got was the first real expression he'd seen from this guy.

After getting back to Grimmauld Place and making contact with the Order, Sirius was subjected to quite a few tests making sure he actually was Sirius. It was an irritating process and Sirius kept his explanation of events quite short because of it.

"I fell through the Veil and woke up in the Realm of Death. He seems a bit loony and fond of bondage, but we had a nice chat. Death and I then became drinking buddies, and as a favor he sent me back here. He said I could come back and visit anytime, so long as I buy the drinks."

The Order wasn't quite sure what to make of that.