For some reason I have a tendency to think in crossovers, and so my first tentative footsteps into this shiny new fandom are crossed over with another very familiar world (please be kind to the newbie!). In the HP world, spoilers up through Order of the Phoenix, or at least for one major event at the end of it (I also have a tendency to think in fixer-uppers, another failing of mine). In Doctor Who, spoilers through Doomsday.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Also, my deepest thanks to the works of Terry Pratchett, without which this story wouldn't have happened. If you come back to see the next few parts, you'll find out why...
Comments and critique appreciated, and thanks for reading!
London-through-the-Veil
When the veil spit him out (thankfully sparing him the epitaph 'Man who was killed by a curtain') Sirius Black regained consciousness in a park in London, blinking at the sudden sharp shock of sunlight. The sun, however, was quickly blotted out by the people standing over him…people with some rather nasty looking muggle weapons.
With a sigh he just raised his hands over his head and let them hustle him into their shady looking vehicle. In the sky, he saw zeppelins floating along.
They did the whole range of tests on him, physical and mental, cataloguing his reactions and lack of responses to their questions. It wasn't so much his escaped convict state that was keeping his mouth shut, but rather the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that something very dear to him was missing. He stretched every part of his mind trying to get just the briefest brushes of it, but to no avail.
What had convinced him that he was no longer in the London he knew was the lack of magic. Even in the muggle world magic was everywhere, and a trained wizard, especially one as sensitive as he was—you couldn't be an animagus without having a good grasp of how magic felt on your skin—could detect it easily. But in this London, London-through-the-veil, nothing. He suspected he could still do magic, but it'd be a lot harder than it had ever been in his life. Maybe even harder than it was to do magic in Azkaban. It made Sirius feel even more lost, and that wasn't something he liked to admit at all. So he kept his mouth shut, offering up no information to the good folk at the Torchwood Institute.
They gave him a comfortable room to stay in; it was still a bit cell-like, but it had a comfortable bed and a decent sized window that looked on the outside world. As he lay there the first few nights, he could overhear them talking about him. Apparently, he was a man who didn't exist. No name could be found, no match for his fingerprints or DNA in any of their computer systems.
Beyond the veil, indeed. Whole new world, really.
About a week after his arrival in London-through-the-veil, he was escorted into a room so cold and sterile it could only be concocted by a muggle mind. Wizards had a tendency to think in clutter, and this room was devoid of anything save for a polished mirror on the wall and a gleaming metal table and chairs in the center of the room. Sirius sat in there, feeling just a bit out of place. At least he had gotten some new clothes out of the deal though. It wasn't like he could just pop down to the local Gladrags or M&S back in Grimmauld Place…
The door to the room opened, and a woman with a professional air walked in. Well, he said woman, but really she was barely more than a girl. Couldn't be much older than Harry. She had the same look in her eyes as Harry did too—the look of someone who had seen far too much at such a young age. The smile on her face was wide and bright, though; something Harry didn't do nearly enough. She sat down at the table across from him, tucked some bleached blonde hair behind an ear, and flipped open a file folder.
"So," she said. "You've got no name, no records anywhere, and when it comes down to it your genetics are a bit unusual as well. Care to elaborate a bit?"
Sirius just shrugged, feeling quite absurd. "Wish I could tell you more, although I'm not sure what you want to hear." He had to resist the urge to laugh, but even so had trouble keeping the smirk off his lips.
The girl leaned back in her chair, still smiling. "I'm glad you're amused at least. Most of the beings who end up in here aren't in as good a mood as you are."
"Beings?" The word slipped past his lips before he could hold it back, and decided to follow through on the thought. "Why beings instead of people?"
She tapped a pen against her teeth, the pink tip of her tongue just poking through. "This is Torchwood. Like some of my co-workers have been known to say: 'If it's alien, it's ours.'" That phrase sent Sirius's eyebrows skyrocketing towards his hairline.
"Aliens? Oh boy." Definitely fallen straight down the rabbit hole, only he suspected that this wasn't Wonderland.
"I'm guessing it's not quite like that where you're from?" she prodded gently. He thought it odd that she was so comfortable with the idea of aliens, that something from another planet could be a part of everyday life.
"I'm from London; it's not every day that you think of aliens in the Ministry of Ma…Finance."
"No, just Downing Street."
"Hmm?"
"Never mind. So, do you have a name? Just to put us on even ground my name's Rose, Rose Tyler." She fiddled with her folder, doodling some twisty design in the border of it.
"If I don't exist, how can I have a name?" 'Really got to stop with the snarky questions, Sirius,' he thought, but times like this holding his tongue wasn't foremost on his mind.
Rose just looked at him, her warm brown eyes boring deep into his. Then, she got up, walked to the keypad by the door and punched in a code. A soft click sounded, and the tiny red light on the side of the video camera perched in high corner went off. Sirius didn't sense anything, just watched as she leaned against the door and crossed her arms over her chest. "See, I think you have a name, and you just don't want to tell me. If you are who I think you are I don't blame you, but I can assure you that I am looking out for your best interests."
Sirius twisted in his chair to face her, one arm draped over the cold metal back. "Then what's my name?" Now this ought to be good…
The pen drifted to her mouth again, gliding the plastic cap against her lower lip. "1993: a man accused of setting off a bomb in broad daylight, middle of the street and killing thirteen people escapes from jail. Bloke had an unusual name. Sirius Black, kind of hard to forget a calling card like that. The news stations report about three years later that Sirius Black had died under mysterious circumstances, and that the danger was gone. Funnily enough, it looked like someone else had committed the crime he had spent all those years locked up for." Rose chewed briefly on the pen cap. "Even with a haircut and a good scrub, it's kind of hard to forget a face that gave you nightmares when you were seven."
His mouth gaped a few times, like a drugged up goldfish desperate for some food. But then one thought rose to mind, cracking the surface and making itself known and important. "It's a fair cop," he said, looking steadily at Rose. "But…if you know who I am, that means that you're not from this London either."
Rose just smiled, this time a far more enigmatic sort of smile. "I'm a lot more well-travelled than people think."
One thing Sirius had in abundance was time. He had gotten some freedom at Torchwood, with access to the gyms and cafeterias, but even chatting with the workers there still didn't make up for what was missing. So at night he went online, scouring the internet for any traces of the people he knew in the other London.
He discovered that Petunia Evans had been married for over thirty years to Vernon Dursley and residing in Surrey with one grown son, but no sign of her sister Lily. There was an older sister named Daisy Evans, however. James and Harry didn't exist either; the only Harry Potter he had managed to discover was an insurance underwriter in Connecticut. Remus's muggle mother was there, but no sign of her husband or magical children. Hermione Granger had died on Halloween shortly after her eleventh birthday, victim of a drunk driver. The only existence of Albus Dumbledore was a minor character in a series of children's novels. Lots of people with the last name Black to be found in the world, but none who were related to him.
Everything he had known in his previous life didn't exist anymore. It was funny, part of him had always wanted a second chance, wanted to do things over without the stigma of a stay in Azkaban hanging over his head. Now that he'd gotten it, all he wanted to do was go home.
To be continued in part two, Fallen Angels. Thanks for reading!