Fic: Call Me Conrad (10/16)
Title: Call Me Conrad (part 10 of 16)
Fandoms: Buffy/Hollyoaks/Harry Potter
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Giles has documents. Buffy has coffee. Gringotts has a headache.
Xander set the phone down in the middle of the table. "OK, Giles,
you're on speaker."
"Ah, thank you, Xander," the phone said in a tinny rendition of
Giles's voice. "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen."
A tired chorus of greetings ran round the Ashworths' kitchen table. No
one seemed to be particularly awake after last night's excitement, not
even Willow on the wrong side of a cup of coffee. Amy was still
recovering her strength, of course, which was why they were at the
Ashworths' in the first place. Conrad was absent, refusing to leave
Amy's side. Of the druids, only Josh and Xander were present; Andrew
had been commandeered by Kennedy to brief the mini-Slayers, Ste had
volunteered himself to babysit for Amy, and the others hadn't really
wanted or needed to join in. All three of the wizards were there at
least, and Xander hoped that Ron and Harry had more information now
that they had talked to the rescuees. And apparently Giles had
something to say himself. "So what's the big news, boss man?" Xander
asked.
"Ah yes. We've uncovered some very interesting documents in the
Council's archives," Giles said. "There appear to be a number of
quite detailed treaties between the old Council and the leadership of
the wand-using community regarding supernatural menaces, jurisdictions
and so on. Obviously they haven't been invoked since the wizards went
into their self-imposed seclusion, but... yes, yes, Buffy, I do have a
point. Suffice it to say that the Council is empowered to interfere
in wizardrical affairs, and vice-versa, but only if strict criteria
are met. Hence, unfortunately, this phone call; as Chairman of the
Council, I am required to satisfy myself personally that the
conditions have been met."
"Doesn't that put you in a sticky position over last night's raid?"
Josh asked.
"We can fudge the issue to a certain extent," Giles admitted. "What
Xander and Andrew do as druids isn't necessarily the Council's
business, and of course young Amy is quite entitled to help her
boyfriend. We might have some trouble explaining away Willow and
Kennedy's presence, but we should have something legally plausible
sorted out before anyone thinks to protest. However if we are going
to commit serious resources we need to have all our i's dotted and our
t's crossed."
"And are you going to commit serious resources?" Harry asked
cynically. Xander held back his automatic reply; they needed to hear
this from Giles himself.
"Of course we are, young man," Giles said promptly. "I'd just rather
not start another war in the process."
"So what do you need to make it official?" Xander asked while the
wizards digested that.
Fifteen minutes of heated discussion concluded that Voldemort was
still at least technically human rather than demonic, wasn't employing
demonic creatures and couldn't be proved to be behind the random
attacks across the country. "He's still going after the Elder Wand,"
Ron tried dubiously.
"Sadly it's not the Council's job to keep madmen away from dangerous
weapons," Willow said. She pouted, clearly unhappy with that idea.
"Besides," Harry interrupted, "he's found it. I felt his excitement
last night. He finally figured out that Dumbledore had been using it
for years, and grabbed it out of his tomb."
There was a brief silence. "Well," Giles said eventually, "that is
decidedly inconvenient. We can continue investigating the attacks, of
course, but since we don't find out about them until after your police
- sorry, Aurors - have been crawling over them for hours
that isn't very likely to bear much fruit. Beyond that we are stuck
with more nebulous terms that are considerably harder to prove.
Unless you happen to know that this Dark Lord has literally sold his
soul to some creature for additional power?"
Xander didn't think anything of the way Ron snorted at the
question. Not until Hermione glanced at him nervously and Harry nudged
him hard, causing Ron to look guilty. Interesting. "Guys, is there
something you'd like to share with the class? Has Mouldywarts sold
his soul?"
"He hasn't sold it," Harry said shortly.
"Harry," Ron began, but Harry cut him off.
"Dumbledore wanted it kept secret," he said, "and he was right. This
stuff is best forgotten."
"Sure," Xander snorted, "that always works. No one else could
possibly discover it all on their own." He shook his head in
exasperation. "You can't put the genie back in the bottle, guys. Well
you can, but there's lots of blood and screaming, and in a couple of
centuries some other sucker will open it and you've got the same
problem all over again."
"Thank you, Xander," Giles said drily. "Should I presume we are
talking something along the lines of the Russian stories of wizards
who hid their souls in an egg or a stone, or something like that, so
they couldn't be killed?"
"I need to read those stories," Josh murmured. Which was true,
actually, and Xander realised he'd better do something about that once
life wasn't so crazy. Otherwise Josh would go hunting for
supernatural sources on his own, which couldn't end well.
"Oh, like Koschei the Undying," Willow put in. "The trouble with that
is that either you carry your soul object around with you, which kind
of defeats the point, or you hide it. If you do that, somebody always
finds it and pfft! You're dead and there's nothing you can do about
it."
"I'm guessing from all the grim looks, it's not so easy," Xander said.
"There's more than one of them," Ron said, stubbornly ignoring Harry's
attempts to stop him, "and they're nearly indestructible."
More than one? "Come again?" Xander asked.
"They need to know," Hermione told Harry reluctantly. "They've
already got the basic idea."
Harry slumped in his seat. "They're called horcruxes. You perform a
ritual in which you kill someone, tear off part of your soul and put
it in an object. Then you can't die, not really, not while the
horcrux still exists."
"Tear off?" Giles mused. There was a sound of shuffling papers. "Here
we are, 'Consorting with the powers of the lower
planes... worshipping...' Ah, here we are. 'Or other activities
injurious to the soul.'"
"Ripping part of your soul off sounds pretty injurious to me," Willow
said, looking revolted by the whole idea.
"Probably more literal than was intended, but for once the florid
language works for us," Giles remarked. "And the human sacrifice
takes care of the more metaphorical meaning, excellent."
"Could you sound a little less enthusiastic?" Xander asked. Human
sacrifices were still a sore point with the druids.
"Sorry, Xander, that was thoughtless of me."
"Before we get all excited," Willow put in, "do you guys have any
proof that the big bad has made one of these horcruxes?"
Harry gave a short, bitter laugh. "He made six of them," he
said. Xander shuddered. Ripping one piece off your soul sounded bad
enough. Doing it six times... How much soul did this guy have left?
"We've destroyed two of them," Ron added. "Well, Dumbledore did for
one, but we can still show them to you."
"Three," Harry corrected. "Riddle's Diary was one. I destroyed that
years ago."
"And we think we know where another one is," Hermione added. "Helga
Hufflepuff's Cup."
Willow frowned. "Crazy woman said something about a cup when she was
freaking out about your sword."
"Bellatrix Lestrange," Harry agreed. "Unfortunately from what she
said it's in her bank vault. Unless you fancy trying to break into
Gringotts, we can't do anything about it."
"Gringotts?" Giles asked.
"The Wizarding bank," Hermione replied. "It's been run by the goblins
for centuries."
"Goblins, you say. Buffy, could you pass me that folder... Thank you.
There was something about cursed items... No, here it is, a contract
between Gringotts and the Council." Giles was quiet for a moment.
"It appears that the bank has the right to call upon the Watchers to
make investigations in the mundane world," he said eventually. "In
return the Council can demand that the bank yield up cursed objects
provided the Council can demonstrate... hmm..." There were more
paper-shuffling noises. "Ah, this commentary makes things a little
clearer. Apparently it doesn't mean 'cursed' in the conventional
sense. The word translates more closely as 'irrevocably perverted
from its creator's design.'"
"Making it one of these horcrux things should count," Josh said with a
grimace. "What about the other two?"
Hermione straightened up; Xander sensed a lecture in his near
future. "We're fairly certain that the fifth horcrux is in Rowena
Ravenclaw's Diadem. We don't know where it is, but it seems like our
best chance of finding it will be at Hogwarts School."
"OK, so you guys go to school, hopefully find out what you need to
find out, then go all 'Hulk smash' on the diadem," Xander
summarised. "Aaand once again I'm getting those looks."
"The school is under the control of the Death Eaters now," Harry told
him. "Some of the staff are friendly, but all of the new teachers
would just drag us straight to You-Know-Who."
"I never trusted Snape," Ron muttered.
"There are secret passages from the school to Hogsmeade, the nearby
village," Hermione said, "but the Death Eaters are bound to know where
most of them are. Sneaking in isn't going to be easy."
"And the last one?" Josh prompted.
Hermione hesitated. "We don't know," she admitted. "He wanted to use
Gryffindor's Sword, but he couldn't get his hands on it. We have no
idea what he used instead."
"Great," Xander said despondently. Then a thought occurred to him and
he brightened. "Our books aren't going to be much help with that."
"I'm sure you'll find plenty of research to do, Xander," Giles said
with more of that British dryness. "I'll have the relevant documents
drawn up, and with luck Buffy and I will deal with the Cup this
afternoon. I'll pass on your news about the rescued goblin, if that's
all right with you?"
"That would be great, Mr Giles," Harry said. "Be careful with the
goblins, though, they're not exactly trustworthy."
"I gathered as much from the annotations on the contract."
Xander smiled as he picked up the phone and said the final
farewells. It felt just like the old days, with Giles organising them
and pulling unexpected knowledge out of thin air. Xander felt hugely
reassured. With all of them working on the problem, they were bound to
succeed.
Meanwhile, he really ought to check how his Slayer was getting
on. That it would get him out of the inevitable grilling Willow and
Josh were going to start about horcruxes was pure coincidence.
******
"Wow, I feel positively under-dressed."
Buffy stared at the scene that the shifting wall revealed in
disbelief. She had seen the weird and wonderful in a variety of
demonic forms, but she had never seen anything to match the fashion
disasters walking around in Diagon Alley. "Are they colourblind or
something?"
"Please control your urge to offer them advice," Giles said
primly. "We are trying not to draw premature attention to ourselves."
"Fat chance of that," Buffy murmured as they stepped out into the
street. The two of them were the only sanely dressed people in the
entire place, even if Giles had insisted on wearing a suit. They were
bound to be noticed.
They did attract stares, though not as many as Buffy expected. There
was probably some kind of reverse Sunnydale effect going on, she
decided. The fashion-challenged here were paying no more attention to
her stylish Dolce & Gabana outfit than the average Sunnydaler had to
slightly weird people hanging around in the shadows. She felt
obscurely disappointed, as if the assembled witches and wizards should
have somehow acknowledged how well-dressed she was.
The moment they stepped inside the marble-and-brass Bank -
hello, tacky! - that all changed. The creepy little goblins
didn't exactly all turn and stare at her, but they did keep careful
and not very subtle track of where she was and what she did. That was
much more satisfactory. Buffy plastered on her best fake-innocent
expression just to unnerve them some more.
Giles marched them up to a tall writing desk, presumably set up so the
goblin behind it could stare down at Buffy-sized people. In his very
best formal English voice, Giles explained that he required to see
someone on a contractual matter and handed over papers that the legal
team had had way too much fun preparing. Buffy smiled for added
emphasis. The goblin sneered at Giles, cast an apprehensive look at
Buffy, and made a great show of studying the papers. For about five
seconds. Then his eyes bulged and he looked back at Giles with
something much more satisfyingly like fear. Buffy would have snapped
a picture if Giles hadn't been so insistent on not showing modern
technology to the wizards.
"Please wait here," the goblin said with an impressive amount of
sneering for someone so obviously scared. He was back less than a
minute after climbing down from his pedestal and scurrying off, all
smiles and obsequious grovelling this time. What an honour it was to
receive the respected chairman, the branch manager would be available
momentarily, all that sort of stuff. Buffy found it all quite amusing
until the little toady suggested that 'the chairman's assistant' could
sit in the waiting area.
"Now, now, Buffy," Giles said after she objected. "I'm afraid you
would find the negotiations terribly dull. I will need your help to
deal with the, er, core of the problem, but until then you should
relax. Have a cup of tea."
Buffy made a face. "Coffee," she said firmly. "And maybe some of
those little biscuits?"
Giles rolled his eyes fondly before allowing himself to be lead off,
leaving Buffy to find her own way to the waiting area. As she sat
herself down next to a Morticia Addams lookalike, a silver coffee
service and fragile-looking china cups appeared on the table beside
her. There were no biscuits.
Buffy poured herself a cup of coffee, then looked at it dubiously. It
smelled OK, but she wasn't entirely convinced about coffee that just
got magicked into existence. Making really good coffee was an art,
she had discovered, and those goblins hadn't impressed her as the sort
of people who cared much about making an effort for other people. See
for example the lack of biscotti. Steeling herself, she took a sip.
"That's... actually not bad," she said in surprise.
The woman sitting next to her gave her the smallest of smiles. "Spoken
like a true connoisseur," she said.
"Rome spoiled me," Buffy admitted.
"You should try Milan, dear, they take far greater care with the
grinding."
"Oh, I know, I found this little place... I'm sorry, would you like a
cup?" That at least earned her a full smile.
Once they were adequately caffeinated, Morticia - whose name was
actually Narcissa, though Buffy fully expected to forget that within
minutes - turned out to be surprisingly easy to talk with. Once
Buffy got past the British stuffiness, something she now had years of
practice at, it turned out that the two of them had very similar
tastes. "I wish - I mean it's a shame I don't have the figure
to carry that off," Buffy said, casting envious eyes at Narcissa's
stylish gown.
Narcissa nodded in acceptance of the compliment. "But you wear what
you wear with elegance and grace," she observed. "Attitude is
everything, my dear."
Buffy thought of Dawn. "Oh God, yes. Somehow my sister makes
everything look like T-shirts and jeans." Which might not be entirely
true, but it was close enough for a big sister to say so.
"I know what you mean," Narcissa said with a shudder. "I had thought
my husband made of sterner stuff, but with the stress of recent
unpleasantness he has been coming down to breakfast unshaven."
"The horror!" Buffy agreed. "Do you have children?"
She was only making conversation, so she didn't really expect the
troubled look that covered Narcissa's face. "Draco... has been having
a difficult time," Narcissa said carefully.
That was a familiar name, Buffy thought, even if she couldn't place it
immediately. "Don't tell me he's been coming down for breakfast
without shaving too," she said, playing for time.
Narcissa hesitated. "He had been missing for several months," she
eventually admitted. "I only recently discovered he was still alive."
Bingo, Buffy thought. She looked carefully at Narcissa Malfoy,
Conrad's mother, and decided to take the risky approach. "I
understand he was in a seriously bad place," she said sympathetically,
"but he's recovered remarkably well. A week ago he wouldn't have
dared to stand up to you."
Narcissa's composure shattered. "What do you know?" she
demanded. "Tell me! Tell me, or-"
"He's fine," Buffy interrupted before Narcissa could start on the
embarrassing threats. "His girlfriend's pretty much recovered from
that nasty poison your sister was throwing about. The perks of
knowing some very creative people, I guess." She paused, giving
Narcissa as reassuring a smile as she could. "And no, I'm not going
to tell you where he is. That would kind of defeat the point of him
hiding away."
"Hiding won't help," Narcissa snapped. "Now that the Dark Lord knows
Draco has thrown his lot in with Potter, he will find him eventually."
"He hasn't done that great at finding Harry so far," Buffy pointed
out. Still, she made a mental note to ask Willow about warding
spells. "Look, your son has three different groups looking out for
him. Granted one bunch is new, and... I was going to call Harry
young, but I'd already stopped my first apocalypse by his age."
"You have no conception of what you are dealing with," Narcissa
insisted.
"Oh believe me, we do," Buffy sighed. "My friends and I, we've taken
down a god. It wasn't easy or pretty, but we did it. I can believe
this dark lord of yours is powerful, but we really have faced worse."
That at least seemed to get through. "He's safe?" Narcissa finally
asked. 'He' obviously being her son of the varying name, which so
wasn't a thing to start worrying his mother with right now.
"I'll just say yes and leave it at that," Buffy told her. "The fewer
people who know the details, the safer he is. Is that your sister
heading towards us?"
Narcissa visibly pulled herself together without looking over. "Do
not breathe a word of this conversation to her," she murmured before
standing to greet the frankly scary-looking witch stalking across the
floor towards them. "Bella, darling, I trust your business has
concluded satisfactorily?"
"As well as could be expected," Bellatrix replied shortly. She gave
Buffy one dismissive glance before sailing off, dragging her sister
along in her wake. Buffy was glad she hadn't even needed to smile and
nod to the woman. Bellatrix seemed to be as bat-shit crazy as her
name was weird, and Buffy really hadn't wanted to end up in a fight
with her in a public place. Getting away after winning might have
been tricky.
Not many minutes later, before Buffy got bored enough to start poking
Things Man Was Not Meant To Break, another goblin flunky stormed up
and informed her that the branch manager required her presence.
Now. Rude much, she thought, but being warned that the goblins would
try to make her lose her temper, she just smiled and took her time
following him. And if her smile had more teeth than normal, well that
was purest accident.
The branch manager's office, when she finally got there, was kind of
cosy. Goblins definitely didn't seem to go in for the "Bigger is
Better" theory of decorating; with the manager, his flunky, Giles and
herself all in the office, there wasn't much room to
manoeuvre. Fortunately it didn't look like she would need to do
anything drastic, at least not in a hurry, since although Giles was
looking all serious Mr Chairman, his body language was very much
relaxed and unthreatened. The manager goblin, on the other hand, was
pretty much vibrating with fury as he stared at the golden cup on the
table. Buffy couldn't blame him; the thing was giving her the wiggins
too.
"This is an abomination!" the manager raged.
Giles sat back with his cup of tea. "Mr Longclaw would like to have
the cup destroyed, Buffy," he said. "The method we discussed earlier
should work."
Buffy nodded. The wizard kids had said these horcrux things were
nearly indestructible, but they had destructed one by hitting it with
a magic sword. The Scythe should be up to the job. She put the
goblet down on the floor - no sense damaging the table -
and waited until Giles had scooted out of the way before reaching out
and grasping thin air.
She was a little surprised to get the Scythe on her first try. The
little pocket of space that Willow had created as a kind of sheath was
tricky to reach into, and Buffy didn't always grasp it right first
time. Still, there was nothing to beat it when it came to wandering
around armed without looking like it. Walking around in the alley
with the Scythe out in the open would have caused comment, quite apart
from not going with her outfit.
Buffy raised the Scythe and was poised to strike when she noticed
something move in the gleaming reflections of the cup. Quickly she
whirled, ready to lash out at... the completely empty space behind
her? Buffy swept gently across with the flat of the blade, but she
didn't touch anything, or hear any footsteps getting out of the way
either. There really was nothing there. "Huh," she said. "I could
have sworn..." She turned back and looked carefully into the cup. It
was hard to be sure what with all the distortion, but the only
reflection she could see was her own. Except that she didn't have
glowing red eyes.
"Slayer." The word slid into her brain like an oil
slick. "The one that came back broken. You pretend to be so high
and mighty, but you lead those girls to their deaths. And still you
call more and more to fight and die. You're no better
than-"
The voice was cut off in a scream and an explosion of darkness. When
the smoke cleared, Buffy could see that the tip of the Scythe had gone
clean through the cup and buried itself in the stone floor. She was
too angry to care.
"I had the First Evil trying to out-psyche me," she snarled at the now
dead metal. "Compared to that, Tommy boy, you were strictly second
rate." She pulled the Scythe free and let it go back into its pocket
dimension. Only then did she notice the frozen looks of awe and fear
on the goblins' faces. "Um, sorry about the rug," she offered.
Giles broke the moment, noisily setting his teacup on its saucer
before placing them on the desk. "Thank you for you co-operation in
this matter," he said to the goblins as if this was nothing unusual.
"It was our duty," Longclaw growled, though rather more deferentially
than before. "What was done to Goldweaver's masterwork was
inexcusable vandalism."
Giles gave Buffy a warning glance, enough to stop her saying anything
sarcastic about the slimy horcrux stuff being bad news
anywhere. "Regrettably it is not the only item to have been abused,"
he sighted. "Tell me, what do you know of the diadem made for Rowena
Ravenclaw?"
"Kraklaw's Lost Crown?" the goblin gasped. "You have news of it?"
"Only that our sources believe Riddle has, ah, mistreated it. I take
it that you do not know its location?"
Longclaw looked disgusted. "Wizards have kept it from its rightful
owners for centuries. How reliable are your sources?"
"Their deductions seem sound," Giles replied smoothly. He looked like
he was enjoying himself playing the diplomat, Buffy thought. He
didn't get so many concussions this way either.
The bank manager sat in thought for a moment before apparently coming
to a decision. "Gringotts wishes to invoke its rights under
contract," he said. "The Council is to locate Kraklaw's Crown. If it
is accursed as you say, it should be destroyed and proof given to the
bank. Otherwise the crown must be returned to its rightful owners
under Goblin Law."
"Uh, while that gets a big yay from me," Buffy said, "can we actually
do that?"
Giles looked dubious. "I'm afraid our authority-"
"The Council is obliged to act for the bank in the human world,"
Longclaw snapped. "That is the agreement."
"The human world," Giles repeated, thunderstruck. He reached into his
briefcase, pulled out a sheaf of papers and studied them intently for
a moment. "Yes, I suppose that is a viable translation," he murmured,
"and legally speaking..."
"So can we do that?" Buffy asked when it became clear Giles was
disappearing into a world of his own.
"What? Oh, sorry. Yes, we would definitely have the authority as the
bank's agents, Buffy. Unfortunately I don't think we can fudge the
issue of informing the Ministry of Magic of our involvement any more."
"And that's bad because?"
"If you recall, the current Minister is one of Riddle's men. I hardly
think that informing him of our intention to destroy part of his
master's soul will make our job any easier."
"So we don't tell the big cheese," Buffy suggested. "Can't we find
some junior paper-pusher we can intimidate into forgetting to file a
report for a month or two?"
"They would still have to be an official part of the Office of the
Minister," Giles countered. Buffy scowled. It wasn't like that had a
directory to tell them who worked where in the Ministry, and actually
wandering in wasn't going to be a good idea with Mouldywart's minions
all over the place.
"One moment," Longclaw said. His assistant leaned in to whisper
something in his ear. Longclaw smiled toothily and nodded. "We are
aware of a suitable bureaucrat," he said. "In the interest of
expediting Gringott's business, he is being called in for an
accounting."
"Wow," Buffy said. "I guess you really know your Ministry people. How
soon will he get here?"
Longclaw smirked. "Swiftly," he said, "if he values his vault."
Sure enough, five minutes later there was a small commotion outside
the office door. Buffy put down her replacement cup of coffee (still
no biscotti) as a flustered young man was ushered in. "There must be
some mistake," he began immediately. "I barely even..." He trailed
off as he noticed Buffy and Giles sitting there. The poor kid looked
terrified.
"We apologise for the ruse," Giles said in his most teeth-achingly
polite voice. "Would you be so kind as to confirm your name and
position in the Ministry?"
"P-Percival Weasley, sir. I'm the Assistant to the Junior
Undersecretary of the Minister of Magic, I'm nobody important."
Another familiar name, Buffy thought. Two in one day, what were the
odds?
"Excellent," Giles said. Buffy gave him a stern look; he was enjoying
himself way too much, and that had been perilously close to a Mr Burns
impression. "Now, Mr Weasley, we have an announcement that needs to
be made to the Ministry. In the current circumstances, however, it
would be most unfortunate if this announcement came to the attention
of the Minister too swiftly. Do you understand?"
Panicked Percy gulped audibly and nodded. Giles's smile reached
positively shark-like proportions.
The way the kid reacted as Giles did the formal speechifying was
encouraging, Buffy thought. He straightened up when it became obvious
that Giles was talking about He Who Magicked His Own Name (Seriously,
Vain Much?), and Buffy got the distinct impression that this Weasley
wasn't a fan of Tommy the Unmentionable either. Once Giles was
finished, Percy asked to see the documents and waved his wand about,
presumably checking that everything was genuine. Then he sat and
thought for a minute or two.
"Thank you for your information, Mr Chairman," he said. "The Ministry
deeply appreciates the Council's interest in this matter. I will of
course have to locate the Ministry's copy of the agreement to be
certain that all the niceties have been observed, and it would be
highly unprofessional of me to present all this to the Minister
without that confirmation. I'm afraid it may be quite some time
before he can be informed."
"I'm glad we understand each other," Giles replied.
"Is there anything else I can assist you with?" Percy asked.
"Can you get us into the school?" Buffy asked. "Like, as inspectors
or something?" She couldn't help smirking at the idea of doing an
inspection on Snyder.
"That might not be a wise idea," Percy said carefully. "Some of the
staff have been hired for their, uh, political sympathies rather than
their teaching abilities."
"I think we might be better off employing stealth rather than
subterfuge on this occasion, Buffy," Giles said drily. Buffy coloured
slightly; the kids had mentioned their school being full of Death
Munchers. Giles turned back to Percy. "I don't suppose you know of a
secret entrance the Hogwarts staff are not guarding?"
Percy smiled. "As a matter of fact, I do."
Fandoms: Buffy/Hollyoaks/Harry Potter
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Giles has documents. Buffy has coffee. Gringotts has a headache.
Xander set the phone down in the middle of the table. "OK, Giles,
you're on speaker."
"Ah, thank you, Xander," the phone said in a tinny rendition of
Giles's voice. "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen."
A tired chorus of greetings ran round the Ashworths' kitchen table. No
one seemed to be particularly awake after last night's excitement, not
even Willow on the wrong side of a cup of coffee. Amy was still
recovering her strength, of course, which was why they were at the
Ashworths' in the first place. Conrad was absent, refusing to leave
Amy's side. Of the druids, only Josh and Xander were present; Andrew
had been commandeered by Kennedy to brief the mini-Slayers, Ste had
volunteered himself to babysit for Amy, and the others hadn't really
wanted or needed to join in. All three of the wizards were there at
least, and Xander hoped that Ron and Harry had more information now
that they had talked to the rescuees. And apparently Giles had
something to say himself. "So what's the big news, boss man?" Xander
asked.
"Ah yes. We've uncovered some very interesting documents in the
Council's archives," Giles said. "There appear to be a number of
quite detailed treaties between the old Council and the leadership of
the wand-using community regarding supernatural menaces, jurisdictions
and so on. Obviously they haven't been invoked since the wizards went
into their self-imposed seclusion, but... yes, yes, Buffy, I do have a
point. Suffice it to say that the Council is empowered to interfere
in wizardrical affairs, and vice-versa, but only if strict criteria
are met. Hence, unfortunately, this phone call; as Chairman of the
Council, I am required to satisfy myself personally that the
conditions have been met."
"Doesn't that put you in a sticky position over last night's raid?"
Josh asked.
"We can fudge the issue to a certain extent," Giles admitted. "What
Xander and Andrew do as druids isn't necessarily the Council's
business, and of course young Amy is quite entitled to help her
boyfriend. We might have some trouble explaining away Willow and
Kennedy's presence, but we should have something legally plausible
sorted out before anyone thinks to protest. However if we are going
to commit serious resources we need to have all our i's dotted and our
t's crossed."
"And are you going to commit serious resources?" Harry asked
cynically. Xander held back his automatic reply; they needed to hear
this from Giles himself.
"Of course we are, young man," Giles said promptly. "I'd just rather
not start another war in the process."
"So what do you need to make it official?" Xander asked while the
wizards digested that.
Fifteen minutes of heated discussion concluded that Voldemort was
still at least technically human rather than demonic, wasn't employing
demonic creatures and couldn't be proved to be behind the random
attacks across the country. "He's still going after the Elder Wand,"
Ron tried dubiously.
"Sadly it's not the Council's job to keep madmen away from dangerous
weapons," Willow said. She pouted, clearly unhappy with that idea.
"Besides," Harry interrupted, "he's found it. I felt his excitement
last night. He finally figured out that Dumbledore had been using it
for years, and grabbed it out of his tomb."
There was a brief silence. "Well," Giles said eventually, "that is
decidedly inconvenient. We can continue investigating the attacks, of
course, but since we don't find out about them until after your police
- sorry, Aurors - have been crawling over them for hours
that isn't very likely to bear much fruit. Beyond that we are stuck
with more nebulous terms that are considerably harder to prove.
Unless you happen to know that this Dark Lord has literally sold his
soul to some creature for additional power?"
Xander didn't think anything of the way Ron snorted at the
question. Not until Hermione glanced at him nervously and Harry nudged
him hard, causing Ron to look guilty. Interesting. "Guys, is there
something you'd like to share with the class? Has Mouldywarts sold
his soul?"
"He hasn't sold it," Harry said shortly.
"Harry," Ron began, but Harry cut him off.
"Dumbledore wanted it kept secret," he said, "and he was right. This
stuff is best forgotten."
"Sure," Xander snorted, "that always works. No one else could
possibly discover it all on their own." He shook his head in
exasperation. "You can't put the genie back in the bottle, guys. Well
you can, but there's lots of blood and screaming, and in a couple of
centuries some other sucker will open it and you've got the same
problem all over again."
"Thank you, Xander," Giles said drily. "Should I presume we are
talking something along the lines of the Russian stories of wizards
who hid their souls in an egg or a stone, or something like that, so
they couldn't be killed?"
"I need to read those stories," Josh murmured. Which was true,
actually, and Xander realised he'd better do something about that once
life wasn't so crazy. Otherwise Josh would go hunting for
supernatural sources on his own, which couldn't end well.
"Oh, like Koschei the Undying," Willow put in. "The trouble with that
is that either you carry your soul object around with you, which kind
of defeats the point, or you hide it. If you do that, somebody always
finds it and pfft! You're dead and there's nothing you can do about
it."
"I'm guessing from all the grim looks, it's not so easy," Xander said.
"There's more than one of them," Ron said, stubbornly ignoring Harry's
attempts to stop him, "and they're nearly indestructible."
More than one? "Come again?" Xander asked.
"They need to know," Hermione told Harry reluctantly. "They've
already got the basic idea."
Harry slumped in his seat. "They're called horcruxes. You perform a
ritual in which you kill someone, tear off part of your soul and put
it in an object. Then you can't die, not really, not while the
horcrux still exists."
"Tear off?" Giles mused. There was a sound of shuffling papers. "Here
we are, 'Consorting with the powers of the lower
planes... worshipping...' Ah, here we are. 'Or other activities
injurious to the soul.'"
"Ripping part of your soul off sounds pretty injurious to me," Willow
said, looking revolted by the whole idea.
"Probably more literal than was intended, but for once the florid
language works for us," Giles remarked. "And the human sacrifice
takes care of the more metaphorical meaning, excellent."
"Could you sound a little less enthusiastic?" Xander asked. Human
sacrifices were still a sore point with the druids.
"Sorry, Xander, that was thoughtless of me."
"Before we get all excited," Willow put in, "do you guys have any
proof that the big bad has made one of these horcruxes?"
Harry gave a short, bitter laugh. "He made six of them," he
said. Xander shuddered. Ripping one piece off your soul sounded bad
enough. Doing it six times... How much soul did this guy have left?
"We've destroyed two of them," Ron added. "Well, Dumbledore did for
one, but we can still show them to you."
"Three," Harry corrected. "Riddle's Diary was one. I destroyed that
years ago."
"And we think we know where another one is," Hermione added. "Helga
Hufflepuff's Cup."
Willow frowned. "Crazy woman said something about a cup when she was
freaking out about your sword."
"Bellatrix Lestrange," Harry agreed. "Unfortunately from what she
said it's in her bank vault. Unless you fancy trying to break into
Gringotts, we can't do anything about it."
"Gringotts?" Giles asked.
"The Wizarding bank," Hermione replied. "It's been run by the goblins
for centuries."
"Goblins, you say. Buffy, could you pass me that folder... Thank you.
There was something about cursed items... No, here it is, a contract
between Gringotts and the Council." Giles was quiet for a moment.
"It appears that the bank has the right to call upon the Watchers to
make investigations in the mundane world," he said eventually. "In
return the Council can demand that the bank yield up cursed objects
provided the Council can demonstrate... hmm..." There were more
paper-shuffling noises. "Ah, this commentary makes things a little
clearer. Apparently it doesn't mean 'cursed' in the conventional
sense. The word translates more closely as 'irrevocably perverted
from its creator's design.'"
"Making it one of these horcrux things should count," Josh said with a
grimace. "What about the other two?"
Hermione straightened up; Xander sensed a lecture in his near
future. "We're fairly certain that the fifth horcrux is in Rowena
Ravenclaw's Diadem. We don't know where it is, but it seems like our
best chance of finding it will be at Hogwarts School."
"OK, so you guys go to school, hopefully find out what you need to
find out, then go all 'Hulk smash' on the diadem," Xander
summarised. "Aaand once again I'm getting those looks."
"The school is under the control of the Death Eaters now," Harry told
him. "Some of the staff are friendly, but all of the new teachers
would just drag us straight to You-Know-Who."
"I never trusted Snape," Ron muttered.
"There are secret passages from the school to Hogsmeade, the nearby
village," Hermione said, "but the Death Eaters are bound to know where
most of them are. Sneaking in isn't going to be easy."
"And the last one?" Josh prompted.
Hermione hesitated. "We don't know," she admitted. "He wanted to use
Gryffindor's Sword, but he couldn't get his hands on it. We have no
idea what he used instead."
"Great," Xander said despondently. Then a thought occurred to him and
he brightened. "Our books aren't going to be much help with that."
"I'm sure you'll find plenty of research to do, Xander," Giles said
with more of that British dryness. "I'll have the relevant documents
drawn up, and with luck Buffy and I will deal with the Cup this
afternoon. I'll pass on your news about the rescued goblin, if that's
all right with you?"
"That would be great, Mr Giles," Harry said. "Be careful with the
goblins, though, they're not exactly trustworthy."
"I gathered as much from the annotations on the contract."
Xander smiled as he picked up the phone and said the final
farewells. It felt just like the old days, with Giles organising them
and pulling unexpected knowledge out of thin air. Xander felt hugely
reassured. With all of them working on the problem, they were bound to
succeed.
Meanwhile, he really ought to check how his Slayer was getting
on. That it would get him out of the inevitable grilling Willow and
Josh were going to start about horcruxes was pure coincidence.
******
"Wow, I feel positively under-dressed."
Buffy stared at the scene that the shifting wall revealed in
disbelief. She had seen the weird and wonderful in a variety of
demonic forms, but she had never seen anything to match the fashion
disasters walking around in Diagon Alley. "Are they colourblind or
something?"
"Please control your urge to offer them advice," Giles said
primly. "We are trying not to draw premature attention to ourselves."
"Fat chance of that," Buffy murmured as they stepped out into the
street. The two of them were the only sanely dressed people in the
entire place, even if Giles had insisted on wearing a suit. They were
bound to be noticed.
They did attract stares, though not as many as Buffy expected. There
was probably some kind of reverse Sunnydale effect going on, she
decided. The fashion-challenged here were paying no more attention to
her stylish Dolce & Gabana outfit than the average Sunnydaler had to
slightly weird people hanging around in the shadows. She felt
obscurely disappointed, as if the assembled witches and wizards should
have somehow acknowledged how well-dressed she was.
The moment they stepped inside the marble-and-brass Bank -
hello, tacky! - that all changed. The creepy little goblins
didn't exactly all turn and stare at her, but they did keep careful
and not very subtle track of where she was and what she did. That was
much more satisfactory. Buffy plastered on her best fake-innocent
expression just to unnerve them some more.
Giles marched them up to a tall writing desk, presumably set up so the
goblin behind it could stare down at Buffy-sized people. In his very
best formal English voice, Giles explained that he required to see
someone on a contractual matter and handed over papers that the legal
team had had way too much fun preparing. Buffy smiled for added
emphasis. The goblin sneered at Giles, cast an apprehensive look at
Buffy, and made a great show of studying the papers. For about five
seconds. Then his eyes bulged and he looked back at Giles with
something much more satisfyingly like fear. Buffy would have snapped
a picture if Giles hadn't been so insistent on not showing modern
technology to the wizards.
"Please wait here," the goblin said with an impressive amount of
sneering for someone so obviously scared. He was back less than a
minute after climbing down from his pedestal and scurrying off, all
smiles and obsequious grovelling this time. What an honour it was to
receive the respected chairman, the branch manager would be available
momentarily, all that sort of stuff. Buffy found it all quite amusing
until the little toady suggested that 'the chairman's assistant' could
sit in the waiting area.
"Now, now, Buffy," Giles said after she objected. "I'm afraid you
would find the negotiations terribly dull. I will need your help to
deal with the, er, core of the problem, but until then you should
relax. Have a cup of tea."
Buffy made a face. "Coffee," she said firmly. "And maybe some of
those little biscuits?"
Giles rolled his eyes fondly before allowing himself to be lead off,
leaving Buffy to find her own way to the waiting area. As she sat
herself down next to a Morticia Addams lookalike, a silver coffee
service and fragile-looking china cups appeared on the table beside
her. There were no biscuits.
Buffy poured herself a cup of coffee, then looked at it dubiously. It
smelled OK, but she wasn't entirely convinced about coffee that just
got magicked into existence. Making really good coffee was an art,
she had discovered, and those goblins hadn't impressed her as the sort
of people who cared much about making an effort for other people. See
for example the lack of biscotti. Steeling herself, she took a sip.
"That's... actually not bad," she said in surprise.
The woman sitting next to her gave her the smallest of smiles. "Spoken
like a true connoisseur," she said.
"Rome spoiled me," Buffy admitted.
"You should try Milan, dear, they take far greater care with the
grinding."
"Oh, I know, I found this little place... I'm sorry, would you like a
cup?" That at least earned her a full smile.
Once they were adequately caffeinated, Morticia - whose name was
actually Narcissa, though Buffy fully expected to forget that within
minutes - turned out to be surprisingly easy to talk with. Once
Buffy got past the British stuffiness, something she now had years of
practice at, it turned out that the two of them had very similar
tastes. "I wish - I mean it's a shame I don't have the figure
to carry that off," Buffy said, casting envious eyes at Narcissa's
stylish gown.
Narcissa nodded in acceptance of the compliment. "But you wear what
you wear with elegance and grace," she observed. "Attitude is
everything, my dear."
Buffy thought of Dawn. "Oh God, yes. Somehow my sister makes
everything look like T-shirts and jeans." Which might not be entirely
true, but it was close enough for a big sister to say so.
"I know what you mean," Narcissa said with a shudder. "I had thought
my husband made of sterner stuff, but with the stress of recent
unpleasantness he has been coming down to breakfast unshaven."
"The horror!" Buffy agreed. "Do you have children?"
She was only making conversation, so she didn't really expect the
troubled look that covered Narcissa's face. "Draco... has been having
a difficult time," Narcissa said carefully.
That was a familiar name, Buffy thought, even if she couldn't place it
immediately. "Don't tell me he's been coming down for breakfast
without shaving too," she said, playing for time.
Narcissa hesitated. "He had been missing for several months," she
eventually admitted. "I only recently discovered he was still alive."
Bingo, Buffy thought. She looked carefully at Narcissa Malfoy,
Conrad's mother, and decided to take the risky approach. "I
understand he was in a seriously bad place," she said sympathetically,
"but he's recovered remarkably well. A week ago he wouldn't have
dared to stand up to you."
Narcissa's composure shattered. "What do you know?" she
demanded. "Tell me! Tell me, or-"
"He's fine," Buffy interrupted before Narcissa could start on the
embarrassing threats. "His girlfriend's pretty much recovered from
that nasty poison your sister was throwing about. The perks of
knowing some very creative people, I guess." She paused, giving
Narcissa as reassuring a smile as she could. "And no, I'm not going
to tell you where he is. That would kind of defeat the point of him
hiding away."
"Hiding won't help," Narcissa snapped. "Now that the Dark Lord knows
Draco has thrown his lot in with Potter, he will find him eventually."
"He hasn't done that great at finding Harry so far," Buffy pointed
out. Still, she made a mental note to ask Willow about warding
spells. "Look, your son has three different groups looking out for
him. Granted one bunch is new, and... I was going to call Harry
young, but I'd already stopped my first apocalypse by his age."
"You have no conception of what you are dealing with," Narcissa
insisted.
"Oh believe me, we do," Buffy sighed. "My friends and I, we've taken
down a god. It wasn't easy or pretty, but we did it. I can believe
this dark lord of yours is powerful, but we really have faced worse."
That at least seemed to get through. "He's safe?" Narcissa finally
asked. 'He' obviously being her son of the varying name, which so
wasn't a thing to start worrying his mother with right now.
"I'll just say yes and leave it at that," Buffy told her. "The fewer
people who know the details, the safer he is. Is that your sister
heading towards us?"
Narcissa visibly pulled herself together without looking over. "Do
not breathe a word of this conversation to her," she murmured before
standing to greet the frankly scary-looking witch stalking across the
floor towards them. "Bella, darling, I trust your business has
concluded satisfactorily?"
"As well as could be expected," Bellatrix replied shortly. She gave
Buffy one dismissive glance before sailing off, dragging her sister
along in her wake. Buffy was glad she hadn't even needed to smile and
nod to the woman. Bellatrix seemed to be as bat-shit crazy as her
name was weird, and Buffy really hadn't wanted to end up in a fight
with her in a public place. Getting away after winning might have
been tricky.
Not many minutes later, before Buffy got bored enough to start poking
Things Man Was Not Meant To Break, another goblin flunky stormed up
and informed her that the branch manager required her presence.
Now. Rude much, she thought, but being warned that the goblins would
try to make her lose her temper, she just smiled and took her time
following him. And if her smile had more teeth than normal, well that
was purest accident.
The branch manager's office, when she finally got there, was kind of
cosy. Goblins definitely didn't seem to go in for the "Bigger is
Better" theory of decorating; with the manager, his flunky, Giles and
herself all in the office, there wasn't much room to
manoeuvre. Fortunately it didn't look like she would need to do
anything drastic, at least not in a hurry, since although Giles was
looking all serious Mr Chairman, his body language was very much
relaxed and unthreatened. The manager goblin, on the other hand, was
pretty much vibrating with fury as he stared at the golden cup on the
table. Buffy couldn't blame him; the thing was giving her the wiggins
too.
"This is an abomination!" the manager raged.
Giles sat back with his cup of tea. "Mr Longclaw would like to have
the cup destroyed, Buffy," he said. "The method we discussed earlier
should work."
Buffy nodded. The wizard kids had said these horcrux things were
nearly indestructible, but they had destructed one by hitting it with
a magic sword. The Scythe should be up to the job. She put the
goblet down on the floor - no sense damaging the table -
and waited until Giles had scooted out of the way before reaching out
and grasping thin air.
She was a little surprised to get the Scythe on her first try. The
little pocket of space that Willow had created as a kind of sheath was
tricky to reach into, and Buffy didn't always grasp it right first
time. Still, there was nothing to beat it when it came to wandering
around armed without looking like it. Walking around in the alley
with the Scythe out in the open would have caused comment, quite apart
from not going with her outfit.
Buffy raised the Scythe and was poised to strike when she noticed
something move in the gleaming reflections of the cup. Quickly she
whirled, ready to lash out at... the completely empty space behind
her? Buffy swept gently across with the flat of the blade, but she
didn't touch anything, or hear any footsteps getting out of the way
either. There really was nothing there. "Huh," she said. "I could
have sworn..." She turned back and looked carefully into the cup. It
was hard to be sure what with all the distortion, but the only
reflection she could see was her own. Except that she didn't have
glowing red eyes.
"Slayer." The word slid into her brain like an oil
slick. "The one that came back broken. You pretend to be so high
and mighty, but you lead those girls to their deaths. And still you
call more and more to fight and die. You're no better
than-"
The voice was cut off in a scream and an explosion of darkness. When
the smoke cleared, Buffy could see that the tip of the Scythe had gone
clean through the cup and buried itself in the stone floor. She was
too angry to care.
"I had the First Evil trying to out-psyche me," she snarled at the now
dead metal. "Compared to that, Tommy boy, you were strictly second
rate." She pulled the Scythe free and let it go back into its pocket
dimension. Only then did she notice the frozen looks of awe and fear
on the goblins' faces. "Um, sorry about the rug," she offered.
Giles broke the moment, noisily setting his teacup on its saucer
before placing them on the desk. "Thank you for you co-operation in
this matter," he said to the goblins as if this was nothing unusual.
"It was our duty," Longclaw growled, though rather more deferentially
than before. "What was done to Goldweaver's masterwork was
inexcusable vandalism."
Giles gave Buffy a warning glance, enough to stop her saying anything
sarcastic about the slimy horcrux stuff being bad news
anywhere. "Regrettably it is not the only item to have been abused,"
he sighted. "Tell me, what do you know of the diadem made for Rowena
Ravenclaw?"
"Kraklaw's Lost Crown?" the goblin gasped. "You have news of it?"
"Only that our sources believe Riddle has, ah, mistreated it. I take
it that you do not know its location?"
Longclaw looked disgusted. "Wizards have kept it from its rightful
owners for centuries. How reliable are your sources?"
"Their deductions seem sound," Giles replied smoothly. He looked like
he was enjoying himself playing the diplomat, Buffy thought. He
didn't get so many concussions this way either.
The bank manager sat in thought for a moment before apparently coming
to a decision. "Gringotts wishes to invoke its rights under
contract," he said. "The Council is to locate Kraklaw's Crown. If it
is accursed as you say, it should be destroyed and proof given to the
bank. Otherwise the crown must be returned to its rightful owners
under Goblin Law."
"Uh, while that gets a big yay from me," Buffy said, "can we actually
do that?"
Giles looked dubious. "I'm afraid our authority-"
"The Council is obliged to act for the bank in the human world,"
Longclaw snapped. "That is the agreement."
"The human world," Giles repeated, thunderstruck. He reached into his
briefcase, pulled out a sheaf of papers and studied them intently for
a moment. "Yes, I suppose that is a viable translation," he murmured,
"and legally speaking..."
"So can we do that?" Buffy asked when it became clear Giles was
disappearing into a world of his own.
"What? Oh, sorry. Yes, we would definitely have the authority as the
bank's agents, Buffy. Unfortunately I don't think we can fudge the
issue of informing the Ministry of Magic of our involvement any more."
"And that's bad because?"
"If you recall, the current Minister is one of Riddle's men. I hardly
think that informing him of our intention to destroy part of his
master's soul will make our job any easier."
"So we don't tell the big cheese," Buffy suggested. "Can't we find
some junior paper-pusher we can intimidate into forgetting to file a
report for a month or two?"
"They would still have to be an official part of the Office of the
Minister," Giles countered. Buffy scowled. It wasn't like that had a
directory to tell them who worked where in the Ministry, and actually
wandering in wasn't going to be a good idea with Mouldywart's minions
all over the place.
"One moment," Longclaw said. His assistant leaned in to whisper
something in his ear. Longclaw smiled toothily and nodded. "We are
aware of a suitable bureaucrat," he said. "In the interest of
expediting Gringott's business, he is being called in for an
accounting."
"Wow," Buffy said. "I guess you really know your Ministry people. How
soon will he get here?"
Longclaw smirked. "Swiftly," he said, "if he values his vault."
Sure enough, five minutes later there was a small commotion outside
the office door. Buffy put down her replacement cup of coffee (still
no biscotti) as a flustered young man was ushered in. "There must be
some mistake," he began immediately. "I barely even..." He trailed
off as he noticed Buffy and Giles sitting there. The poor kid looked
terrified.
"We apologise for the ruse," Giles said in his most teeth-achingly
polite voice. "Would you be so kind as to confirm your name and
position in the Ministry?"
"P-Percival Weasley, sir. I'm the Assistant to the Junior
Undersecretary of the Minister of Magic, I'm nobody important."
Another familiar name, Buffy thought. Two in one day, what were the
odds?
"Excellent," Giles said. Buffy gave him a stern look; he was enjoying
himself way too much, and that had been perilously close to a Mr Burns
impression. "Now, Mr Weasley, we have an announcement that needs to
be made to the Ministry. In the current circumstances, however, it
would be most unfortunate if this announcement came to the attention
of the Minister too swiftly. Do you understand?"
Panicked Percy gulped audibly and nodded. Giles's smile reached
positively shark-like proportions.
The way the kid reacted as Giles did the formal speechifying was
encouraging, Buffy thought. He straightened up when it became obvious
that Giles was talking about He Who Magicked His Own Name (Seriously,
Vain Much?), and Buffy got the distinct impression that this Weasley
wasn't a fan of Tommy the Unmentionable either. Once Giles was
finished, Percy asked to see the documents and waved his wand about,
presumably checking that everything was genuine. Then he sat and
thought for a minute or two.
"Thank you for your information, Mr Chairman," he said. "The Ministry
deeply appreciates the Council's interest in this matter. I will of
course have to locate the Ministry's copy of the agreement to be
certain that all the niceties have been observed, and it would be
highly unprofessional of me to present all this to the Minister
without that confirmation. I'm afraid it may be quite some time
before he can be informed."
"I'm glad we understand each other," Giles replied.
"Is there anything else I can assist you with?" Percy asked.
"Can you get us into the school?" Buffy asked. "Like, as inspectors
or something?" She couldn't help smirking at the idea of doing an
inspection on Snyder.
"That might not be a wise idea," Percy said carefully. "Some of the
staff have been hired for their, uh, political sympathies rather than
their teaching abilities."
"I think we might be better off employing stealth rather than
subterfuge on this occasion, Buffy," Giles said drily. Buffy coloured
slightly; the kids had mentioned their school being full of Death
Munchers. Giles turned back to Percy. "I don't suppose you know of a
secret entrance the Hogwarts staff are not guarding?"
Percy smiled. "As a matter of fact, I do."