Buffy Crossover Fic: An American Slayer in Northern England Part Three
Disclaimer etc. in part One
Notes: So here's at least one of the scenes many of you have been waiting for. Also, there's the answer to a question a lot of you asked. I could have come up with more 'alone' examples but, quite frankly, if I were to start listing everything it would turn into a summary of Buffy episodes. And since we're, most of us, fans enough to know what happened I'm not going to waste everyone's time by rehashing in detail the whole first two seasons. Yes, I borrowed from the '92 movie as well. It was just too good to pass up. Also, so I totally forgot that the muggle shotgun line was borrowed from somewhere else. I don't remember the author but I figured I had better reassure anyone who reads it and recognises it from that other story (that I honestly remember neither title nor author of) that I know it's from elsewhere. So there's that disclaimer. As to the theory about Dumbledore, that's my personal theory about how he seems to know absolutely everything that goes on at Hogwarts.
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The months settled into routine. Classes went on with the students baffled about why Buffy couldn't seem to cope with her house leader, but was so friendly with Snape and Buffy went out hunting every night, came back and had nightmares of Angel being tortured. Hermione took to waiting for Buffy to come back into the girls' dormitory through a window she shouldn't have been able to get in through without a broomstick. Finally one afternoon she caught the blonde between classes, meals and everything else and dragged her into an empty classroom. "Where are you going every night?"
"What?" Buffy asked.
Hermione frowned. "You know very well what I'm talking about, now start explaining why I shouldn't simply hand you over to Professor McGonagall for breaking the rules." She stood, arms folded, waiting for Buffy's response. Before the Slayer could even try to explain, Harry and Ginny Weasley came through the door into the classroom, groping each other. Hermione cleared her throat three times before the pair against the wall even noticed her. "Would you two mind doing that somewhere else?"
"How about you two find somewhere else to do what you're doing?" Harry replied, "This was Ginny's and my spot first." The three girls just stared at him, rolled their eyes and waited. "What?" he finally asked. Then he frowned himself and said, "What *are* the two of you doing in here anyway?"
A sigh escaped from Hermione's lips. "I was trying to find out why and how Buffy is climbing out of the Gryffindor tower in the middle of the night." She glared at the couple and was again interrupted by Ron bursting through the door.
"Harry! Ginny! I know you're . . ." he trailed off as he saw the group now gathered in the classroom. "What's going on?"
Turning away, Buffy headed for the door and freedom. "Well, since I'm not really sure anymore I'll just catch you guys later-"
"Not so fast," Hermione said and grabbed Buffy's arm. "You wake up crying from nightmares every night and lie about it constantly, you're always out and I think you've been going into the forbidden forest every night and you are going to tell me why or so help me-"
"I'm hunting demons."
A silence filled the room with that remark. Finally Ron came up with something to say in response. "You're what?"
Buffy looked at each of them, her normally lighthearted demeanour gone and said, "I'll tell you everything, but only if you promise not to tell anyone." She fixed her gaze on the four facing her. "That means absolutely no one. Not Dumbledore, not Hagrid, not even Aragog even though he and I have an agreement."
"You have an agreement with Aragog?" Harry asked incredulously. "He's a big spider! What possible agreement could you have with him?"
Calmly she replied, "He and his buddies don't snack on anyone while I'm around or attack me, and I let them live." Her voice was absolutely deadly, and even Ron seemed to understand that she wasn't merely threatening, she was speaking fact. She was *letting* the giant spiders live. Which suggested she could stop letting at any time. The notion floored the group. Another lengthy quiet spell later and Buffy asked, "Do I have your word you won't tell anyone?"
"Will you kill us if we do?" Harry asked quietly.
She sighed. "No. I don't kill people. But you would be making my life unnecessarily hard if you try explaining it to anyone. You also run the risk of letting Voldemort," Ron, Ginny and Hermione all cringed and Buffy rolled her eyes turning to them. "Oh please. You people are like, phobic or something! 'He-who-must-not-be-named' ooooooo," she said and waved her hands in a parody of spookiness. "It's a name. A stupid name at that. Get. Over. It. It's not going to make him appear out of thin air." Now exasperated she tilted her head, "Where was I?"
"Letting Voldemort something," Harry replied easily, sparking another round of cringing from his friends and girlfriend. "She's right you know," he added absentmindedly when Ron shook his fist.
"Thanks," Buffy replied. "If you tell people Voldemort," She turned to the others, "Stop it," she turned back to facing the bunch as a whole, "Might find out about resources other than the ones in the wizarding world and then we're really in for it." She watched as that sank into their heads and waited.
Finally Hermione spoke. "How about if we reserve the right to tell someone should it become important to do so, such as if someone were in danger from us not telling another person."
"Cool," Buffy tilted her head in agreement.
A practically vibrating Ron blurted, "So what's this about demon hunting?"
Buffy gestured at the desks. "Why don't you guys sit down. This could take a while and I certainly don't want to stand the whole time." She sat down and waited for the others to do so as well. Once they were all settled she began her explanation. "Okay, millions of years ago, there were like, demons everywhere. Earth was their home and humans were pretty much just the prime snack food. Well eventually something sucked most of the demons out of this world and into an alternate universe. You could call them God, the Powers that Be, whatever. The point is, whatever it was, was powerful enough to get rid of the demons and stuff.
"Unfortunately, some of those demons wound up stuck here, and another one of them managed to create the first demon vampire before it got sucked away." At that point Hermione started to speak, but Buffy shushed her. "Just a sec Hermione. Can you let me finish explaining before you ask?" The other girl nodded and Buffy thought for a moment before picking up the thread of her explanation. "So anyways, these demons were still stronger than most humans and normal ones didn't have any effective way to defend themselves. So the Powers decided that they would pick a girl to be the Slayer. This girl would be given super-strength, reflexes, speed, an increased healing rate and all kinds of stuff so that she could fight the demons on even turf."
Eyebrow raised in skepticism, Ginny said, "And you think you're this Slayer girl."
Smiling, Buffy took out a stake. "Hermione, would you confirm that there are no spells of any kind on this thing?" She tossed it to the witch who took out her wand and waved over the stake several times muttering.
Finally she looked up and asked, "I assume you're trying to prove something here?"
"Yes," the Slayer replied. "Could you transfigure that into a steel bar? Something really thick and strong." She waited while Hermione finished the transformation and then took it back. "Okay, now check me over. Do any test you want to be sure I'm not hiding anything magical on me, that I'm not doing a spell or drunk a potion."
Again, the other witch started waving and muttering, until finally Ron couldn't stand it any more. "Is there some reason you're doing all this?" he demanded impatiently.
Harry, Hermione and Ginny all rolled their eyes at the question. "Ron, she just said that the Slayer person has all these superpowers. She wants to show us that she's actually got them instead of having drunk a potion or something to make her superhuman," Ginny told her brother with a superior smirk. "Honestly. What would you have said if she'd just, I don't know, bent that bar in two . . . like . . . that." She trailed off as Buffy indeed took the steel and easily bent it until the two ends met.
"You had to have done a strength spell!" Ron shouted.
Harry blinked at his friend. "Uh Ron? The whole point of that bit where she was asking Hermione to check everything was to prove that she hadn't." He wrapped an arm around Ginny. "Your sister just explained that."
Eyes narrowing Ron glared at his friend. "And when did you and Ginny become so chummy anyway?" he demanded suspiciously. "If I didn't know better I'd think . . . You *are* dating!" he shouted, then lunged at Harry. "You gerroff my sister you!"
Hermione gaped at him "Ron honestly!" She lunged at him in turn trying, and failing, to restrain him. Ginny's efforts at holding Ron off Harry were hampered by her efforts to protect her boyfriend as well as hold him off of her brother. The whole mess came to an abrupt halt as the two combatants found themselves forcibly pulled apart, their feet dangling in midair as Buffy held them off the floor. Ginny and Hermione exchanged looks while Ron made a curious squeaking sound.
"Okay, that's enough," Buffy said calmly. "Ron, Harry is your friend right?"
The two stared at her for a moment, dumbfounded, until Buffy shook the redhead slightly. "Yeah," Ron squeaked again.
"And you like Harry right?"
An affirmative squeak emerged.
"And you trust Harry with your life right?"
Another 'yes' squeak.
"So exactly why is it that you object to him dating your sister?"
Ron's mouth opened and shut but no sound emerged. Finally Harry spoke. "Umm. Could you put us down?"
Buffy shrugged and let the pair down. Then she turned back to Ron. "You still haven't answered my question."
"I . . . well . . . just . . . I don't like it!" he said emphatically. The others just looked at him until he wilted. "Alright. Fine. But if you hurt her Harry-" Ron started.
Harry interrupted. "I know Ron," he told the other boy, "You'll call your mother and there'll be seven wizards with muggle shotguns after me."
"Now that we've sorted that out," Hermione's voice oozed annoyance, "Might we get back to the real issue?" she glared around impartially, "That Buffy is some sort of bizarre dragonslayer?"
A small cough emerged from the blonde's throat. "Vampire Slayer."
"Right, vampire slayer," Hermione accepted the correction. "What exactly does that mean?"
Buffy sighed. "Man I wish Giles was here. He's way better at this than me." She shook her head as she spoke and flopped into a chair.
"What does your high school librarian have to do with anything?" Harry asked curiously. It was an odd choice.
"He's my Watcher," Buffy replied. That got her several blank stares and the other four opened their mouths, no doubt to ask her what a watcher was. "Okay." She held up her hands to ask for silence. "How about you give me a minute to explain this stuff and you guys hold your questions again until I'm done?" she asked again. They nodded in response and Buffy explained it all. She told them about how there was a second world of the arcane unknown to the wizarding world, about how the demonic vampires she killed nightly and watchers came about and about her calling since she'd become the Slayer.
By the time she'd finished her audience was stunned and silent. Ron spoke first. "You died?" he asked.
She shrugged. "Well, since another slayer was called after the whole 'prophecy foretelling my death' thing I would have to say . . . yep."
"So even though the prophecy came true it didn't turn out the way it sounded like it was supposed to," Harry said musingly. "Do you suppose . . . " He trailed off and looked at his friends for support. Hermione seemed the only one who had caught on to his idea and she smiled.
But before she could reply Buffy, ignorant of parts of the subtext, responded. "Well the Master said that prophecies are tricky things." She tilted her head at him. "I think there's sort of a . . . mouldability to the things. Y'know, foreknowledge of the future can change the future and all that stuff." Suddenly Buffy's eyes narrowed. "There's more here isn't there?" she asked.
"What do you mean?" Ron asked her looking confused.
"I mean," she said laying great stress on the words, "That there's a prophecy about Harry, isn't there?" The others exchanged looks. "Oh please. It's completely obvious from the way Harry and Hermione were acting that something's up."
The others stared at each other in a silent conference. Finally those looks settled on Harry clearly leaving the decision of whether or not to tell Buffy about the prophecy up to him. He glanced around at his two best friends and his girlfriend one last time before gazing at the Slayer again. She simply stood there, waiting for him to tell her or not. He had come to trust her over the past month, the story she had told was convincing and he desperately wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe that there was someone else out there who had a ridiculously difficult destiny thrust upon them by uncaring fates. Someone who understood what it was like to do so many terrifying and impossible things with barely a word of thanks from anyone and to do it all without ever having a chance at a peaceful, happy and productive life.
He made his choice when he looked into her eyes. There he saw a girl forced to go out every night and kill creatures that were once human, once her friends. Forced to fight and struggle with no hope of rest or an end and to do so while the world around her went on unaware of her sacrifices and punished her for her violations of rules that should never have applied to her. He saw someone like him, who found herself facing things down alone because she was the only one who could. Lothos, Luke, the Master and so many other demons and monsters that, although she had help, she had to face them alone. He knew how that felt. After the trials to get to the Philosophers' Stone he was left to face Quirrel alone, after all his friends' help he had to face the basilisk alone and he had never felt more alone than facing off with Voldemort after Cedric was murdered by death eaters.
The same guilt he felt for Sirius and Cedric's deaths was reflected in Buffy's face for all the deaths she couldn't stop. Mostly though, it was that knowledge that there was no one else to do what they did and that no one could ever truly understand what it was like to face down something far more powerful than themselves and know that there was no one coming to the rescue. Harry could see himself in her. It decided him.
"Months before I was born, Trelawney had a real vision. She told Dumbledore a prophecy that turned out to be about me." Harry paused, his mind flying back to his fifth year when he was finally told about it. "She said that either I had to kill Voldemort, or he had to kill me, but one of us had to die at the hand of the other." He nearly smiled in relief as he saw Buffy begin to contemplate his story. There was none of the pity he saw from his friends, just a simple understanding of how he felt. Terrified of dying, terrified of failure, determined to stop this evil at any cost all mixed in with a desire to be left out of it and not have to hurt anyone.
"Do you have a copy of the prophecy?" she asked finally. "I can't make any guarantees, but maybe if you look at the wording you'll get some hints about other ways it could go."
Hermione's response was prompt. Her eyes slitted half-closed in concentration she began to recite from memory. "The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches . . . born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies . . . and the Dark Lord will mark him his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not . . . and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives . . . the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies . . ." Her eyes opened fully again and she noticed the slack-jawed stares of the others. "What?"
"You said that by memory," Ginny said. "How did you memorise that?"
Hermione just shrugged and turned to Buffy who said, "Whoa. I mean that was almost completely comprehensible. No speaking in tongues, no 'five hundred years after the fourth invasion of the city of whatever the origins of the situation at hand will cause a mystical upheaval one thousand years from then.'" At the funny looks she got from the others she said, "Giles usually has to spend like, days doing calculations in the library to figure out how to match the Aztec Calendar to the Julian, and how that matches to the Gregorian and then back again before he can even start to figure out what the hell happened when. Like I said, this is almost straightforward."
Finally exploding Ron snapped, "So can you help Harry or not!?"
"It's not that simple Ron," Buffy said gently. "I will do what I can to help Harry, but the fact is, no one ever really knows exactly what a prophecy means until after it's already gone down." She laid a hand on the redhead's shoulder. "I know it's hard, but all anyone can do is take things one day at a time and be ready for the worst while hoping for the best."
"So nothing then."
Sighing, she fixed her gaze on him. Ron blinked as he saw the pain and grief that she normally kept well-hidden. With a start he realised that he had come to be used to that expression on Harry's face. It was so much like the way Harry got every time Voldemort came up in conversation, or death eaters, or any number of other topics, that Ron blinked expecting her eyes to suddenly turn green and her hair black. Then she spoke and he felt even worse than when she was just looking at him. "I will do everything in my power to protect Harry. It's my duty as the Slayer, as his friend and as a human being. I can help you search for alternate meanings to the prophecy and help you try to make them come true. I can't ultimately guarantee anything about anything but the stuff that I personally control. And that means basically me." Ron let his eyes fall away and he mumbled an apology. She squeezed his shoulder briefly before letting her hand fall away. "It's okay," she said. "And I'll do everything I can to make sure Harry comes through," she promised.
After a moment of quiet, Ginny spoke up. "So . . . um . . . From that prophecy, is there a chance it could mean something else?"
"Sure," Buffy's mood snapped to a fully businesslike exterior startling the others. "For starters, that whole death thing could turn out to be a metaphorical death. Y'know, kind of a 'live life to the fullest' thing." She frowned. "I've had it pointed out to me repeatedly by many people that living and survival are very different things."
The startlement on Hermione's face had faded almost immediately as Buffy became businesslike and her mind began to examine the various angles and meanings to the prophecy. "What about the part where he has 'a power the Dark Lord knows not'?" Hermione inquired. Her face had a concentrated look on it as her mind sorted through repercussions. "Do we have any clue what this power is?"
"Love or friendship I think," Harry said. When the others just looked at him he expanded. "Dumbledore mentioned something like that when we went to . . . " he paused and cleared his throat, "Save Sirius."
"But what exactly does that mean?" Buffy said when the respectful quiet stretched too long. "Does it mean that your love of someone or something will be enough to beat Voldemort? I mean, there's the whole pragmatic thing that people would be following you into a fight because they cared about you and your cause so they wouldn't take off if things started to go the bad guy's way. I mean, just because he's got an idea doesn't mean he knows everything." Harry, Ron and Ginny looked completely stunned at the notion of Dumbledore not knowing everything. The discussion continued until they were forced to head for their next class.
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Miles away Voldemort's followers finally tired of the sport Angel provided them and hauled the nearly catatonic vampire into the nearby woods. One of the masked figures hurled the killing curse at him. Angel slumped to the ground and the death eaters left him for dead, laughing as they walked off. Minutes before dawn he roused from his stupor and staggered toward a nearby cave to hide from the sun. He spent the day there, shivering in confusion and fear as his tormented mind struggled to make sense of where and what he was.
When the sun set he knew only one thing. Somewhere to the northeast of where he was something called him. The feral vampire sniffed the air and set off at a lope toward that call. Something in his dimmed memories told him that feeling meant safety, home and his mate.
Buffy woke up with her usual gasp of shock, this time purely from habit. Her dreams had been confused and filled with images of darkness, but there was no pain in these. There was only a constant pull toward something. She quietly dressed and went to the window, pausing as she stared into the night. Buffy hoped that the dream meant Angel was safe and well, but ultimately she was still unsettled by the images. The soft sound of Hermione and Ginny coming to stand behind her pulled Buffy from her thoughts. "Are you going out hunting?" Ginny asked in a whisper.
Turning back to the girls Buffy smiled a little. "Yeah. I really need to get out there tonight." She glanced out at the darkness of the forest. "Things have been getting a little hairy out there-"
"You can't sleep, can you?" Hermione interrupted.
A shoulder hitched up in a minimal shrug. "That too," Buffy replied. "I'll be back in a while." Before the other two could protest she slipped out the window and dropped to the roof below and took off at a run. The other two exchanged glances and watched as the Slayer took a ten metre drop as though it was nothing then ran further to do the same thing again. She vanished from sight only to reappear at a distance, vanishing into the darkness of the forest.
"Should we go after her?" Ginny asked.
Hermione looked at her for a moment, then replied. "I don't think so. For one thing, she's been doing it for months and she's still fine." The frizzy- haired witch glanced back into the dormitory room. "For another, we don't know what we're getting into at all and I'd prefer to have some more answers before we go traipsing after her." Ginny frowned slightly, but she nodded and the pair went back to bed.
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The next evening Harry and Ron were both sincerely disgusted with their respective girlfriends over their decision not to alert them and follow Buffy into the forest. "I can't believe you didn't tell us! I can't believe you didn't follow her! I can't believe-" Ron ranted.
"I can't believe you actually believe we could have caught up with her in the forest," Hermione replied tartly.
Frowning Harry said, "That's not the point. She could get hurt, badly, and since she won't tell anyone about it we'd be the only ones who were able to help her." He spoke sternly to the girls who looked over his shoulder with pointed expressions. "What?"
"*She's* right here Potter," Buffy said with an amused smile. "Am I to assume that you're worried I'm going to get killed going up against something in that forest?"
"Yes," replied Ron belligerently.
The Slayer sighed. "Guys. Unlike you people, I'm already fully trained to do this and I'm the best there is at what I do." She pinned the boys with a look when they seemed about to protest. Hermione and Ginny simply shrugged. "This isn't like when Harry's had to go up against Voldemort, stop it you three," she directed to the wincing others. "I was given special abilities and I've been training for this sort of thing for a couple years now. That's why I get the fancy title and stuff."
Ginny responded. "We were wondering what really happens when you're out hunting."
The tactful response incited Harry. "We want to help," he told her definitely. "We-" At Hermione's stern look he sighed and corrected himself. "I was worried about you."
"You want to go on patrol with me," Buffy said flatly.
Ron glanced at Hermione for help but she simply shrugged, forcing him to speak for himself. "It's just that you're . . . er . . ." He trailed off, uncertain of how to avoid dealing with monsters again but unwilling to leave Buffy without backup.
Looking around Harry realised he was going to have to take matters into his own hands. "You need someone to watch your back." He gazed at her sternly. It was a look honed by years of battles against Voldemort and was both a goad onward and a reprimand. Ron, Hermione and Ginny all reacted in spite of the fact that the look wasn't aimed at them by straightening up and firming their stances. Buffy was another matter. She levelled her I-am-the- Slayer-don't-even-think-about-messing-with-me glare right back at Harry. He didn't waver under the assault but stiffened and met her stare for stare.
The others watched in silence. Finally, Buffy's eyes narrowed and her head tilted in acquiescence. "I'll set up an anti-magic spell on the flashlights I brought and you guys can come. But," and she fixed them with the death glare she used to terrify vampires causing them all to wilt slightly, "You will do what I tell you, no arguing. Got it?"
"Yes," said Ginny and Hermione. Ron looked like a stunned bunny and Harry just nodded in satisfaction. A thought occurred to Ginny suddenly. "Why aren't we simply going to use our wands?" she asked.
A soft chuckle erupted from Buffy's throat. "How do you think Dumbledore knows everything that goes on in this school?" she replied.
"He keeps track of all the spells cast on school grounds," Hermione said slowly. "That would explain it. He doesn't even have to know exactly what spells were used, just some of the general characteristics and the rest he can determine through deduction." Her eyes were wide as she looked over at the powerful wizard on the dais.
Which was when Ron brought up an important point. "How are we going to get out if we need to use Harry's cloak to get out?" He turned to Buffy. "After all, not everyone can hop off of castle towers and not be killed." That silenced the whole group for a while and they ate as they contemplated the dilemma Ron had brought to their attention.
Ginny came up with the solution their way to potions class. "We need a ladder or some rope. Maybe Buffy could talk to that acromantula and get some webbing tonight. Then tomorrow we'll go out together."
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They cheerfully walked into DADA the next afternoon. It was their last class that day and then they would be free to make plans for their jaunt into the forest. Their latest professor smiled at them, then announced a surprise practical quiz. Within moments the classroom was full of pixies, boggarts and dozens of other creatures that doubly confused the class because the boggarts kept shapeshifting. The professor stood to the side, warding off whatever came her way and keeping the students from being injured.
However, so many years under constant threat had taught the Hogwarts students how to survive in worse situations than that. Within minutes the classroom was down to a single boggart. That was when the class took a sudden turn. Buffy turned around to see a bloody and battered Angel stagger over to her, flames bursting along his pale skin where the sun touched it and the scent of charred flesh filled the air. "It's your fault," he gasped to her raising an accusing hand to point at her. Buffy's mind went into a tailspin and she couldn't even bring to mind the words of a single spell.
He was suddenly consumed by the fire causing Buffy to release a scream of agony and reach for him. Even as he turned to ash before her another form took his place. Willow, sweet innocent Willow bruised and battered as Angel was, her head hanging at an unnatural angle, stood before Buffy her face ashen. As she took a step toward her friend the redhead's eyes snapped open and it became clear she was a zombie. Two words emerged from her crushed throat. "Your fault," she ground out.
Shifting again the boggart took on the form of a vampire. He was wearing a tweed jacket and he smiled cheerfully at Buffy. "My dear girl. If you had been there to protect me I would never have known this glory." He lunged at her and the two began to fight. Buffy was crying as she fought her watcher to a standstill. As she brought the stake down he grinned at her with a mouth full of fangs and whispered, "It's all your fault," then vanished as Hermione, Ginny and Harry grabbed Buffy and dragged her away.
"Ron! Get the boggart!" Harry shouted.
Ron stared at him. "Why me?" he demanded.
Hermione and Ginny were cuddling Buffy as they hurried her out the door, but Ginny took a moment to say, "Because Hermy and I are helping Buffy and the class doesn't need a dementor running around in here after that and that's what we'll get if Harry tries." She shot a glare at her brother as they hustled Buffy out the classroom door.
Blinking, the last of the group realised that Ginny was right and started to force the giant spider to go away. "Riddikulus!" he shouted and watched in satisfaction as the boggart disappeared with a pop. Then he ran off to join his friends, leaving the poor professor to clean up the chaos left behind. He arrived in the Gryffindor common room in time to see Buffy pull herself back under control. Plopping down next to the girls and shooting a glance over at Harry who was looking grim and pale by the fireplace, he asked, "Buffy? You alright?"
A hiccup emerged from her throat, then Buffy took a deep breath and replied, "I'm okay now guys. Thanks." She looked a little shaky, but since she seemed to have recovered they took her at her word.
"Who were they?" Harry asked. Hermione and Ginny both glared at him and he tried to tone down the question. "I mean-"
"Giles, Willow, Angel," she replied softly. Her eyes were unfocussed, staring into space. "So many people have died because of me. Because I brought all that slayer stuff with me or because I failed." Tears began to appear in her eyes. "I'm so terrified sometimes that I'll go back and they'll all be dead because I wasn't there to protect them. And Angel . . ." Silence permeated the room. She'd told them about him. About how much they loved each other, about her nightmares that he was being tortured and how she had no way of knowing where he was because he'd left Sunnydale so many months before to move the Judge's arm to a safe location.
"He's fine," Ginny said to her. She dropped to her knees in front of the distraught Slayer and forced Buffy to focus. "He is fine, and you will see him soon. Don't start looking for trouble. Remember how we told you what happened to Harry in his Fifth year?" They all winced at the reminder of Sirius' death, but the words helped to ease some of the tension and Buffy managed a weak smile.
"Thanks," she told them. "Look. Why don't we go to dinner and tonight we'll take a look around to see what's in the forest. Okay?" Buffy looked around at the group she was privately calling the Harryettes and grinned at their enthusiasm when there was a series of eager nods. After everyone was settled for the night Buffy, Hermione and Ginny crept up to the boys' area and met Ron and Harry and the group proceeded to make their way to the forest.
Or, at least, begin to make their way to the forest. "Ow! Harry! You just stepped on my hand!"
"Well if you weren't so slow Ron-"
"Slow! You're the one who can't seem to realise we could fall to our deaths at any minute!"
"Shut up both of you. I'm not particularly interested in hearing about our imminent deaths."
"Imminent? That's it, I'm climbing back up-"
"No you're not because you'd have to climb over me and I don't want you climbing over me."
Buffy spoke up from her position at the bottom of the rope ladder. "If you guys just climbed down instead of arguing the whole way we could probably all be on the roof by now."
"She's got a point."
"Be quiet Ginny."
"Besides, we still have to get down to ground level."
"Thanks a bunch Herm. I really needed to be reminded of that."
"Well, if I ever need to write a comedy sketch I've got all the dialogue right here," Buffy said.
Muttering grumbles drifted down to her from those on the ladder until, one by one, they finally joined her on the roof. "Now what?" Ron asked.
"We still have to get down to ground level before we go into the forest," replied the Slayer as she led the way to the next climb. A series of groans followed her, then the teenagers followed their groans. Finally they were on the ground and four waited while Ron happily knelt and kissed the ground next to the castle wall. "You finished makin' out with the grass Ron?" Buffy asked with a grin.
He hastily straightened up and Buffy handed around the flashlights, stakes, holy water and crosses. Then she held out a sword. "Here Harry. You've used a sword before so I think this'll be more comfortable for you." He took it and gave a couple quick swings before letting his arm fall to his side. "Ron, Ginny, Hermione, I don't trust you guys with the pointy sharp weapons since none of you have any experience with them." She reached into a gap in the wall and pulled out three quarterstaves. "Here. The worst you guys'll be able to do is give someone some broken bones with these, but you'll have weapons."
Buffy showed Ron and Ginny how to work the flashlights, "Torches," Harry put in, then they followed the Slayer into the woods. For the first fifteen minutes nothing happened and finally Harry asked hesitantly, "Um . . . is it just a slow night or is it like this a lot?"
Grinning, Buffy turned around. "Willow had a perfect quote to describe patrolling, 'Total boredom punctuated by moments of utter terror,'" she said. "That's what happens. You see," she explained, "I can't do anything but either look for vampires and demons, or wait for them to do something within earshot. If they're not around, nothing happens."
"Then why do you go out every night?" Ginny asked.
"Because the one night I don't go out could be the one night the vamps totally massacre the town or something." A shrug followed as Buffy easily avoided a series of roots that tripped the others. "The problem is that the demons don't usually give me their social calendars to let me know what to work around."
Hermione spoke up. "Why don't you have a torch?"
Another grin. "Does it look like I need one? I have to chase vampires down, sometimes with no preparation at all and I have to fight them in the dark. If I couldn't handle myself in the dark I'd be a pretty lousy slayer." Buffy demonstrated this night vision by catching Ginny's careless swing of her quarterstaff before it knocked Harry out.
Several minutes went by until Ron snarled in annoyance, "Why do we need these stupid staffs anyways?"
It was one of those moments that give a person the perfect opportunity to demonstrate the usefulness of something. In this case, the quarterstaves. A vampire, wielding a staff himself, vaulted down out of the trees and Buffy snatched Ron's staff up and blocked the oncoming blow from hitting Hermione. She slipped beneath the vampire's guard with a roundhouse kick, and just barely stopped his retaliatory blow with her staff. They traded blows for another couple minutes, the staves whirling through the air with deadly accuracy and speed, slayer and vampire each just barely blocking the other's strikes.
In one smooth motion Buffy dropped into a crouch and swung the staff around, knocking the vampire's feet out from under him. Before he could recover she'd dropped the staff and pulled out a stake as she dove across the clearing to plunge it through his heart. She spun around and hurled the stake through the air between Ron and Ginny to land in the chest of another vampire that had been sneaking up on the group. The audience of four stared in shock as the two vampires exploded into ashes before their eyes. With a slightly eerie simultaneity they all turned to look at Buffy still crouched on the ground. "What?" she asked nonchalantly. "Oh yeah, thanks for this," she said and tossed the staff back to Ron as she stood.
"Wow," said Ginny.
"Seconded," Hermione added. "Could you possibly . . ." she looked slightly uncertain.
Harry picked up her thought. "Could you teach us how to do that?" he asked.
"Sure," Buffy replied. "At least I can try. I mean, there are some things I do that I can only do 'cause I'm the Slayer you know." The others nodded and pelted her with questions for the rest of the patrol. They made their way back inside and went to bed.
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He growled, low and completely feral, as he pounced on the terrified deer. Drawing its blood out in great gulps he felt some more of his strength return and he turned again towards the feeling that beckoned. He had not seen any of the robed men that had caused him pain since leaving the wood where they had dumped him, but he could still sometimes scent them nearby. When he did he hid from them. It rankled, hiding from those creatures, but a small remnant of his former self knew that to face them was to invite more torment. Worse, they would keep him from the thing that called to him. And he knew he had to reach it.
Although he still flinched from contact with the sun, he had learned that he had no reason to fear it. Still, he traveled only by night and kept to the shadows during the day as he slept, dreaming of a tiny blonde female that was both his hunter and his prey and who was his mate. He woke up every evening with the only word he knew on his lips. "Buffy."
"Angel."
"Buffy wake up. You're going to be late for breakfast," Hermione said as she shook her friend awake.
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Notes: So here's at least one of the scenes many of you have been waiting for. Also, there's the answer to a question a lot of you asked. I could have come up with more 'alone' examples but, quite frankly, if I were to start listing everything it would turn into a summary of Buffy episodes. And since we're, most of us, fans enough to know what happened I'm not going to waste everyone's time by rehashing in detail the whole first two seasons. Yes, I borrowed from the '92 movie as well. It was just too good to pass up. Also, so I totally forgot that the muggle shotgun line was borrowed from somewhere else. I don't remember the author but I figured I had better reassure anyone who reads it and recognises it from that other story (that I honestly remember neither title nor author of) that I know it's from elsewhere. So there's that disclaimer. As to the theory about Dumbledore, that's my personal theory about how he seems to know absolutely everything that goes on at Hogwarts.
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The months settled into routine. Classes went on with the students baffled about why Buffy couldn't seem to cope with her house leader, but was so friendly with Snape and Buffy went out hunting every night, came back and had nightmares of Angel being tortured. Hermione took to waiting for Buffy to come back into the girls' dormitory through a window she shouldn't have been able to get in through without a broomstick. Finally one afternoon she caught the blonde between classes, meals and everything else and dragged her into an empty classroom. "Where are you going every night?"
"What?" Buffy asked.
Hermione frowned. "You know very well what I'm talking about, now start explaining why I shouldn't simply hand you over to Professor McGonagall for breaking the rules." She stood, arms folded, waiting for Buffy's response. Before the Slayer could even try to explain, Harry and Ginny Weasley came through the door into the classroom, groping each other. Hermione cleared her throat three times before the pair against the wall even noticed her. "Would you two mind doing that somewhere else?"
"How about you two find somewhere else to do what you're doing?" Harry replied, "This was Ginny's and my spot first." The three girls just stared at him, rolled their eyes and waited. "What?" he finally asked. Then he frowned himself and said, "What *are* the two of you doing in here anyway?"
A sigh escaped from Hermione's lips. "I was trying to find out why and how Buffy is climbing out of the Gryffindor tower in the middle of the night." She glared at the couple and was again interrupted by Ron bursting through the door.
"Harry! Ginny! I know you're . . ." he trailed off as he saw the group now gathered in the classroom. "What's going on?"
Turning away, Buffy headed for the door and freedom. "Well, since I'm not really sure anymore I'll just catch you guys later-"
"Not so fast," Hermione said and grabbed Buffy's arm. "You wake up crying from nightmares every night and lie about it constantly, you're always out and I think you've been going into the forbidden forest every night and you are going to tell me why or so help me-"
"I'm hunting demons."
A silence filled the room with that remark. Finally Ron came up with something to say in response. "You're what?"
Buffy looked at each of them, her normally lighthearted demeanour gone and said, "I'll tell you everything, but only if you promise not to tell anyone." She fixed her gaze on the four facing her. "That means absolutely no one. Not Dumbledore, not Hagrid, not even Aragog even though he and I have an agreement."
"You have an agreement with Aragog?" Harry asked incredulously. "He's a big spider! What possible agreement could you have with him?"
Calmly she replied, "He and his buddies don't snack on anyone while I'm around or attack me, and I let them live." Her voice was absolutely deadly, and even Ron seemed to understand that she wasn't merely threatening, she was speaking fact. She was *letting* the giant spiders live. Which suggested she could stop letting at any time. The notion floored the group. Another lengthy quiet spell later and Buffy asked, "Do I have your word you won't tell anyone?"
"Will you kill us if we do?" Harry asked quietly.
She sighed. "No. I don't kill people. But you would be making my life unnecessarily hard if you try explaining it to anyone. You also run the risk of letting Voldemort," Ron, Ginny and Hermione all cringed and Buffy rolled her eyes turning to them. "Oh please. You people are like, phobic or something! 'He-who-must-not-be-named' ooooooo," she said and waved her hands in a parody of spookiness. "It's a name. A stupid name at that. Get. Over. It. It's not going to make him appear out of thin air." Now exasperated she tilted her head, "Where was I?"
"Letting Voldemort something," Harry replied easily, sparking another round of cringing from his friends and girlfriend. "She's right you know," he added absentmindedly when Ron shook his fist.
"Thanks," Buffy replied. "If you tell people Voldemort," She turned to the others, "Stop it," she turned back to facing the bunch as a whole, "Might find out about resources other than the ones in the wizarding world and then we're really in for it." She watched as that sank into their heads and waited.
Finally Hermione spoke. "How about if we reserve the right to tell someone should it become important to do so, such as if someone were in danger from us not telling another person."
"Cool," Buffy tilted her head in agreement.
A practically vibrating Ron blurted, "So what's this about demon hunting?"
Buffy gestured at the desks. "Why don't you guys sit down. This could take a while and I certainly don't want to stand the whole time." She sat down and waited for the others to do so as well. Once they were all settled she began her explanation. "Okay, millions of years ago, there were like, demons everywhere. Earth was their home and humans were pretty much just the prime snack food. Well eventually something sucked most of the demons out of this world and into an alternate universe. You could call them God, the Powers that Be, whatever. The point is, whatever it was, was powerful enough to get rid of the demons and stuff.
"Unfortunately, some of those demons wound up stuck here, and another one of them managed to create the first demon vampire before it got sucked away." At that point Hermione started to speak, but Buffy shushed her. "Just a sec Hermione. Can you let me finish explaining before you ask?" The other girl nodded and Buffy thought for a moment before picking up the thread of her explanation. "So anyways, these demons were still stronger than most humans and normal ones didn't have any effective way to defend themselves. So the Powers decided that they would pick a girl to be the Slayer. This girl would be given super-strength, reflexes, speed, an increased healing rate and all kinds of stuff so that she could fight the demons on even turf."
Eyebrow raised in skepticism, Ginny said, "And you think you're this Slayer girl."
Smiling, Buffy took out a stake. "Hermione, would you confirm that there are no spells of any kind on this thing?" She tossed it to the witch who took out her wand and waved over the stake several times muttering.
Finally she looked up and asked, "I assume you're trying to prove something here?"
"Yes," the Slayer replied. "Could you transfigure that into a steel bar? Something really thick and strong." She waited while Hermione finished the transformation and then took it back. "Okay, now check me over. Do any test you want to be sure I'm not hiding anything magical on me, that I'm not doing a spell or drunk a potion."
Again, the other witch started waving and muttering, until finally Ron couldn't stand it any more. "Is there some reason you're doing all this?" he demanded impatiently.
Harry, Hermione and Ginny all rolled their eyes at the question. "Ron, she just said that the Slayer person has all these superpowers. She wants to show us that she's actually got them instead of having drunk a potion or something to make her superhuman," Ginny told her brother with a superior smirk. "Honestly. What would you have said if she'd just, I don't know, bent that bar in two . . . like . . . that." She trailed off as Buffy indeed took the steel and easily bent it until the two ends met.
"You had to have done a strength spell!" Ron shouted.
Harry blinked at his friend. "Uh Ron? The whole point of that bit where she was asking Hermione to check everything was to prove that she hadn't." He wrapped an arm around Ginny. "Your sister just explained that."
Eyes narrowing Ron glared at his friend. "And when did you and Ginny become so chummy anyway?" he demanded suspiciously. "If I didn't know better I'd think . . . You *are* dating!" he shouted, then lunged at Harry. "You gerroff my sister you!"
Hermione gaped at him "Ron honestly!" She lunged at him in turn trying, and failing, to restrain him. Ginny's efforts at holding Ron off Harry were hampered by her efforts to protect her boyfriend as well as hold him off of her brother. The whole mess came to an abrupt halt as the two combatants found themselves forcibly pulled apart, their feet dangling in midair as Buffy held them off the floor. Ginny and Hermione exchanged looks while Ron made a curious squeaking sound.
"Okay, that's enough," Buffy said calmly. "Ron, Harry is your friend right?"
The two stared at her for a moment, dumbfounded, until Buffy shook the redhead slightly. "Yeah," Ron squeaked again.
"And you like Harry right?"
An affirmative squeak emerged.
"And you trust Harry with your life right?"
Another 'yes' squeak.
"So exactly why is it that you object to him dating your sister?"
Ron's mouth opened and shut but no sound emerged. Finally Harry spoke. "Umm. Could you put us down?"
Buffy shrugged and let the pair down. Then she turned back to Ron. "You still haven't answered my question."
"I . . . well . . . just . . . I don't like it!" he said emphatically. The others just looked at him until he wilted. "Alright. Fine. But if you hurt her Harry-" Ron started.
Harry interrupted. "I know Ron," he told the other boy, "You'll call your mother and there'll be seven wizards with muggle shotguns after me."
"Now that we've sorted that out," Hermione's voice oozed annoyance, "Might we get back to the real issue?" she glared around impartially, "That Buffy is some sort of bizarre dragonslayer?"
A small cough emerged from the blonde's throat. "Vampire Slayer."
"Right, vampire slayer," Hermione accepted the correction. "What exactly does that mean?"
Buffy sighed. "Man I wish Giles was here. He's way better at this than me." She shook her head as she spoke and flopped into a chair.
"What does your high school librarian have to do with anything?" Harry asked curiously. It was an odd choice.
"He's my Watcher," Buffy replied. That got her several blank stares and the other four opened their mouths, no doubt to ask her what a watcher was. "Okay." She held up her hands to ask for silence. "How about you give me a minute to explain this stuff and you guys hold your questions again until I'm done?" she asked again. They nodded in response and Buffy explained it all. She told them about how there was a second world of the arcane unknown to the wizarding world, about how the demonic vampires she killed nightly and watchers came about and about her calling since she'd become the Slayer.
By the time she'd finished her audience was stunned and silent. Ron spoke first. "You died?" he asked.
She shrugged. "Well, since another slayer was called after the whole 'prophecy foretelling my death' thing I would have to say . . . yep."
"So even though the prophecy came true it didn't turn out the way it sounded like it was supposed to," Harry said musingly. "Do you suppose . . . " He trailed off and looked at his friends for support. Hermione seemed the only one who had caught on to his idea and she smiled.
But before she could reply Buffy, ignorant of parts of the subtext, responded. "Well the Master said that prophecies are tricky things." She tilted her head at him. "I think there's sort of a . . . mouldability to the things. Y'know, foreknowledge of the future can change the future and all that stuff." Suddenly Buffy's eyes narrowed. "There's more here isn't there?" she asked.
"What do you mean?" Ron asked her looking confused.
"I mean," she said laying great stress on the words, "That there's a prophecy about Harry, isn't there?" The others exchanged looks. "Oh please. It's completely obvious from the way Harry and Hermione were acting that something's up."
The others stared at each other in a silent conference. Finally those looks settled on Harry clearly leaving the decision of whether or not to tell Buffy about the prophecy up to him. He glanced around at his two best friends and his girlfriend one last time before gazing at the Slayer again. She simply stood there, waiting for him to tell her or not. He had come to trust her over the past month, the story she had told was convincing and he desperately wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe that there was someone else out there who had a ridiculously difficult destiny thrust upon them by uncaring fates. Someone who understood what it was like to do so many terrifying and impossible things with barely a word of thanks from anyone and to do it all without ever having a chance at a peaceful, happy and productive life.
He made his choice when he looked into her eyes. There he saw a girl forced to go out every night and kill creatures that were once human, once her friends. Forced to fight and struggle with no hope of rest or an end and to do so while the world around her went on unaware of her sacrifices and punished her for her violations of rules that should never have applied to her. He saw someone like him, who found herself facing things down alone because she was the only one who could. Lothos, Luke, the Master and so many other demons and monsters that, although she had help, she had to face them alone. He knew how that felt. After the trials to get to the Philosophers' Stone he was left to face Quirrel alone, after all his friends' help he had to face the basilisk alone and he had never felt more alone than facing off with Voldemort after Cedric was murdered by death eaters.
The same guilt he felt for Sirius and Cedric's deaths was reflected in Buffy's face for all the deaths she couldn't stop. Mostly though, it was that knowledge that there was no one else to do what they did and that no one could ever truly understand what it was like to face down something far more powerful than themselves and know that there was no one coming to the rescue. Harry could see himself in her. It decided him.
"Months before I was born, Trelawney had a real vision. She told Dumbledore a prophecy that turned out to be about me." Harry paused, his mind flying back to his fifth year when he was finally told about it. "She said that either I had to kill Voldemort, or he had to kill me, but one of us had to die at the hand of the other." He nearly smiled in relief as he saw Buffy begin to contemplate his story. There was none of the pity he saw from his friends, just a simple understanding of how he felt. Terrified of dying, terrified of failure, determined to stop this evil at any cost all mixed in with a desire to be left out of it and not have to hurt anyone.
"Do you have a copy of the prophecy?" she asked finally. "I can't make any guarantees, but maybe if you look at the wording you'll get some hints about other ways it could go."
Hermione's response was prompt. Her eyes slitted half-closed in concentration she began to recite from memory. "The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches . . . born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies . . . and the Dark Lord will mark him his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not . . . and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives . . . the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies . . ." Her eyes opened fully again and she noticed the slack-jawed stares of the others. "What?"
"You said that by memory," Ginny said. "How did you memorise that?"
Hermione just shrugged and turned to Buffy who said, "Whoa. I mean that was almost completely comprehensible. No speaking in tongues, no 'five hundred years after the fourth invasion of the city of whatever the origins of the situation at hand will cause a mystical upheaval one thousand years from then.'" At the funny looks she got from the others she said, "Giles usually has to spend like, days doing calculations in the library to figure out how to match the Aztec Calendar to the Julian, and how that matches to the Gregorian and then back again before he can even start to figure out what the hell happened when. Like I said, this is almost straightforward."
Finally exploding Ron snapped, "So can you help Harry or not!?"
"It's not that simple Ron," Buffy said gently. "I will do what I can to help Harry, but the fact is, no one ever really knows exactly what a prophecy means until after it's already gone down." She laid a hand on the redhead's shoulder. "I know it's hard, but all anyone can do is take things one day at a time and be ready for the worst while hoping for the best."
"So nothing then."
Sighing, she fixed her gaze on him. Ron blinked as he saw the pain and grief that she normally kept well-hidden. With a start he realised that he had come to be used to that expression on Harry's face. It was so much like the way Harry got every time Voldemort came up in conversation, or death eaters, or any number of other topics, that Ron blinked expecting her eyes to suddenly turn green and her hair black. Then she spoke and he felt even worse than when she was just looking at him. "I will do everything in my power to protect Harry. It's my duty as the Slayer, as his friend and as a human being. I can help you search for alternate meanings to the prophecy and help you try to make them come true. I can't ultimately guarantee anything about anything but the stuff that I personally control. And that means basically me." Ron let his eyes fall away and he mumbled an apology. She squeezed his shoulder briefly before letting her hand fall away. "It's okay," she said. "And I'll do everything I can to make sure Harry comes through," she promised.
After a moment of quiet, Ginny spoke up. "So . . . um . . . From that prophecy, is there a chance it could mean something else?"
"Sure," Buffy's mood snapped to a fully businesslike exterior startling the others. "For starters, that whole death thing could turn out to be a metaphorical death. Y'know, kind of a 'live life to the fullest' thing." She frowned. "I've had it pointed out to me repeatedly by many people that living and survival are very different things."
The startlement on Hermione's face had faded almost immediately as Buffy became businesslike and her mind began to examine the various angles and meanings to the prophecy. "What about the part where he has 'a power the Dark Lord knows not'?" Hermione inquired. Her face had a concentrated look on it as her mind sorted through repercussions. "Do we have any clue what this power is?"
"Love or friendship I think," Harry said. When the others just looked at him he expanded. "Dumbledore mentioned something like that when we went to . . . " he paused and cleared his throat, "Save Sirius."
"But what exactly does that mean?" Buffy said when the respectful quiet stretched too long. "Does it mean that your love of someone or something will be enough to beat Voldemort? I mean, there's the whole pragmatic thing that people would be following you into a fight because they cared about you and your cause so they wouldn't take off if things started to go the bad guy's way. I mean, just because he's got an idea doesn't mean he knows everything." Harry, Ron and Ginny looked completely stunned at the notion of Dumbledore not knowing everything. The discussion continued until they were forced to head for their next class.
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Miles away Voldemort's followers finally tired of the sport Angel provided them and hauled the nearly catatonic vampire into the nearby woods. One of the masked figures hurled the killing curse at him. Angel slumped to the ground and the death eaters left him for dead, laughing as they walked off. Minutes before dawn he roused from his stupor and staggered toward a nearby cave to hide from the sun. He spent the day there, shivering in confusion and fear as his tormented mind struggled to make sense of where and what he was.
When the sun set he knew only one thing. Somewhere to the northeast of where he was something called him. The feral vampire sniffed the air and set off at a lope toward that call. Something in his dimmed memories told him that feeling meant safety, home and his mate.
Buffy woke up with her usual gasp of shock, this time purely from habit. Her dreams had been confused and filled with images of darkness, but there was no pain in these. There was only a constant pull toward something. She quietly dressed and went to the window, pausing as she stared into the night. Buffy hoped that the dream meant Angel was safe and well, but ultimately she was still unsettled by the images. The soft sound of Hermione and Ginny coming to stand behind her pulled Buffy from her thoughts. "Are you going out hunting?" Ginny asked in a whisper.
Turning back to the girls Buffy smiled a little. "Yeah. I really need to get out there tonight." She glanced out at the darkness of the forest. "Things have been getting a little hairy out there-"
"You can't sleep, can you?" Hermione interrupted.
A shoulder hitched up in a minimal shrug. "That too," Buffy replied. "I'll be back in a while." Before the other two could protest she slipped out the window and dropped to the roof below and took off at a run. The other two exchanged glances and watched as the Slayer took a ten metre drop as though it was nothing then ran further to do the same thing again. She vanished from sight only to reappear at a distance, vanishing into the darkness of the forest.
"Should we go after her?" Ginny asked.
Hermione looked at her for a moment, then replied. "I don't think so. For one thing, she's been doing it for months and she's still fine." The frizzy- haired witch glanced back into the dormitory room. "For another, we don't know what we're getting into at all and I'd prefer to have some more answers before we go traipsing after her." Ginny frowned slightly, but she nodded and the pair went back to bed.
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The next evening Harry and Ron were both sincerely disgusted with their respective girlfriends over their decision not to alert them and follow Buffy into the forest. "I can't believe you didn't tell us! I can't believe you didn't follow her! I can't believe-" Ron ranted.
"I can't believe you actually believe we could have caught up with her in the forest," Hermione replied tartly.
Frowning Harry said, "That's not the point. She could get hurt, badly, and since she won't tell anyone about it we'd be the only ones who were able to help her." He spoke sternly to the girls who looked over his shoulder with pointed expressions. "What?"
"*She's* right here Potter," Buffy said with an amused smile. "Am I to assume that you're worried I'm going to get killed going up against something in that forest?"
"Yes," replied Ron belligerently.
The Slayer sighed. "Guys. Unlike you people, I'm already fully trained to do this and I'm the best there is at what I do." She pinned the boys with a look when they seemed about to protest. Hermione and Ginny simply shrugged. "This isn't like when Harry's had to go up against Voldemort, stop it you three," she directed to the wincing others. "I was given special abilities and I've been training for this sort of thing for a couple years now. That's why I get the fancy title and stuff."
Ginny responded. "We were wondering what really happens when you're out hunting."
The tactful response incited Harry. "We want to help," he told her definitely. "We-" At Hermione's stern look he sighed and corrected himself. "I was worried about you."
"You want to go on patrol with me," Buffy said flatly.
Ron glanced at Hermione for help but she simply shrugged, forcing him to speak for himself. "It's just that you're . . . er . . ." He trailed off, uncertain of how to avoid dealing with monsters again but unwilling to leave Buffy without backup.
Looking around Harry realised he was going to have to take matters into his own hands. "You need someone to watch your back." He gazed at her sternly. It was a look honed by years of battles against Voldemort and was both a goad onward and a reprimand. Ron, Hermione and Ginny all reacted in spite of the fact that the look wasn't aimed at them by straightening up and firming their stances. Buffy was another matter. She levelled her I-am-the- Slayer-don't-even-think-about-messing-with-me glare right back at Harry. He didn't waver under the assault but stiffened and met her stare for stare.
The others watched in silence. Finally, Buffy's eyes narrowed and her head tilted in acquiescence. "I'll set up an anti-magic spell on the flashlights I brought and you guys can come. But," and she fixed them with the death glare she used to terrify vampires causing them all to wilt slightly, "You will do what I tell you, no arguing. Got it?"
"Yes," said Ginny and Hermione. Ron looked like a stunned bunny and Harry just nodded in satisfaction. A thought occurred to Ginny suddenly. "Why aren't we simply going to use our wands?" she asked.
A soft chuckle erupted from Buffy's throat. "How do you think Dumbledore knows everything that goes on in this school?" she replied.
"He keeps track of all the spells cast on school grounds," Hermione said slowly. "That would explain it. He doesn't even have to know exactly what spells were used, just some of the general characteristics and the rest he can determine through deduction." Her eyes were wide as she looked over at the powerful wizard on the dais.
Which was when Ron brought up an important point. "How are we going to get out if we need to use Harry's cloak to get out?" He turned to Buffy. "After all, not everyone can hop off of castle towers and not be killed." That silenced the whole group for a while and they ate as they contemplated the dilemma Ron had brought to their attention.
Ginny came up with the solution their way to potions class. "We need a ladder or some rope. Maybe Buffy could talk to that acromantula and get some webbing tonight. Then tomorrow we'll go out together."
**************
They cheerfully walked into DADA the next afternoon. It was their last class that day and then they would be free to make plans for their jaunt into the forest. Their latest professor smiled at them, then announced a surprise practical quiz. Within moments the classroom was full of pixies, boggarts and dozens of other creatures that doubly confused the class because the boggarts kept shapeshifting. The professor stood to the side, warding off whatever came her way and keeping the students from being injured.
However, so many years under constant threat had taught the Hogwarts students how to survive in worse situations than that. Within minutes the classroom was down to a single boggart. That was when the class took a sudden turn. Buffy turned around to see a bloody and battered Angel stagger over to her, flames bursting along his pale skin where the sun touched it and the scent of charred flesh filled the air. "It's your fault," he gasped to her raising an accusing hand to point at her. Buffy's mind went into a tailspin and she couldn't even bring to mind the words of a single spell.
He was suddenly consumed by the fire causing Buffy to release a scream of agony and reach for him. Even as he turned to ash before her another form took his place. Willow, sweet innocent Willow bruised and battered as Angel was, her head hanging at an unnatural angle, stood before Buffy her face ashen. As she took a step toward her friend the redhead's eyes snapped open and it became clear she was a zombie. Two words emerged from her crushed throat. "Your fault," she ground out.
Shifting again the boggart took on the form of a vampire. He was wearing a tweed jacket and he smiled cheerfully at Buffy. "My dear girl. If you had been there to protect me I would never have known this glory." He lunged at her and the two began to fight. Buffy was crying as she fought her watcher to a standstill. As she brought the stake down he grinned at her with a mouth full of fangs and whispered, "It's all your fault," then vanished as Hermione, Ginny and Harry grabbed Buffy and dragged her away.
"Ron! Get the boggart!" Harry shouted.
Ron stared at him. "Why me?" he demanded.
Hermione and Ginny were cuddling Buffy as they hurried her out the door, but Ginny took a moment to say, "Because Hermy and I are helping Buffy and the class doesn't need a dementor running around in here after that and that's what we'll get if Harry tries." She shot a glare at her brother as they hustled Buffy out the classroom door.
Blinking, the last of the group realised that Ginny was right and started to force the giant spider to go away. "Riddikulus!" he shouted and watched in satisfaction as the boggart disappeared with a pop. Then he ran off to join his friends, leaving the poor professor to clean up the chaos left behind. He arrived in the Gryffindor common room in time to see Buffy pull herself back under control. Plopping down next to the girls and shooting a glance over at Harry who was looking grim and pale by the fireplace, he asked, "Buffy? You alright?"
A hiccup emerged from her throat, then Buffy took a deep breath and replied, "I'm okay now guys. Thanks." She looked a little shaky, but since she seemed to have recovered they took her at her word.
"Who were they?" Harry asked. Hermione and Ginny both glared at him and he tried to tone down the question. "I mean-"
"Giles, Willow, Angel," she replied softly. Her eyes were unfocussed, staring into space. "So many people have died because of me. Because I brought all that slayer stuff with me or because I failed." Tears began to appear in her eyes. "I'm so terrified sometimes that I'll go back and they'll all be dead because I wasn't there to protect them. And Angel . . ." Silence permeated the room. She'd told them about him. About how much they loved each other, about her nightmares that he was being tortured and how she had no way of knowing where he was because he'd left Sunnydale so many months before to move the Judge's arm to a safe location.
"He's fine," Ginny said to her. She dropped to her knees in front of the distraught Slayer and forced Buffy to focus. "He is fine, and you will see him soon. Don't start looking for trouble. Remember how we told you what happened to Harry in his Fifth year?" They all winced at the reminder of Sirius' death, but the words helped to ease some of the tension and Buffy managed a weak smile.
"Thanks," she told them. "Look. Why don't we go to dinner and tonight we'll take a look around to see what's in the forest. Okay?" Buffy looked around at the group she was privately calling the Harryettes and grinned at their enthusiasm when there was a series of eager nods. After everyone was settled for the night Buffy, Hermione and Ginny crept up to the boys' area and met Ron and Harry and the group proceeded to make their way to the forest.
Or, at least, begin to make their way to the forest. "Ow! Harry! You just stepped on my hand!"
"Well if you weren't so slow Ron-"
"Slow! You're the one who can't seem to realise we could fall to our deaths at any minute!"
"Shut up both of you. I'm not particularly interested in hearing about our imminent deaths."
"Imminent? That's it, I'm climbing back up-"
"No you're not because you'd have to climb over me and I don't want you climbing over me."
Buffy spoke up from her position at the bottom of the rope ladder. "If you guys just climbed down instead of arguing the whole way we could probably all be on the roof by now."
"She's got a point."
"Be quiet Ginny."
"Besides, we still have to get down to ground level."
"Thanks a bunch Herm. I really needed to be reminded of that."
"Well, if I ever need to write a comedy sketch I've got all the dialogue right here," Buffy said.
Muttering grumbles drifted down to her from those on the ladder until, one by one, they finally joined her on the roof. "Now what?" Ron asked.
"We still have to get down to ground level before we go into the forest," replied the Slayer as she led the way to the next climb. A series of groans followed her, then the teenagers followed their groans. Finally they were on the ground and four waited while Ron happily knelt and kissed the ground next to the castle wall. "You finished makin' out with the grass Ron?" Buffy asked with a grin.
He hastily straightened up and Buffy handed around the flashlights, stakes, holy water and crosses. Then she held out a sword. "Here Harry. You've used a sword before so I think this'll be more comfortable for you." He took it and gave a couple quick swings before letting his arm fall to his side. "Ron, Ginny, Hermione, I don't trust you guys with the pointy sharp weapons since none of you have any experience with them." She reached into a gap in the wall and pulled out three quarterstaves. "Here. The worst you guys'll be able to do is give someone some broken bones with these, but you'll have weapons."
Buffy showed Ron and Ginny how to work the flashlights, "Torches," Harry put in, then they followed the Slayer into the woods. For the first fifteen minutes nothing happened and finally Harry asked hesitantly, "Um . . . is it just a slow night or is it like this a lot?"
Grinning, Buffy turned around. "Willow had a perfect quote to describe patrolling, 'Total boredom punctuated by moments of utter terror,'" she said. "That's what happens. You see," she explained, "I can't do anything but either look for vampires and demons, or wait for them to do something within earshot. If they're not around, nothing happens."
"Then why do you go out every night?" Ginny asked.
"Because the one night I don't go out could be the one night the vamps totally massacre the town or something." A shrug followed as Buffy easily avoided a series of roots that tripped the others. "The problem is that the demons don't usually give me their social calendars to let me know what to work around."
Hermione spoke up. "Why don't you have a torch?"
Another grin. "Does it look like I need one? I have to chase vampires down, sometimes with no preparation at all and I have to fight them in the dark. If I couldn't handle myself in the dark I'd be a pretty lousy slayer." Buffy demonstrated this night vision by catching Ginny's careless swing of her quarterstaff before it knocked Harry out.
Several minutes went by until Ron snarled in annoyance, "Why do we need these stupid staffs anyways?"
It was one of those moments that give a person the perfect opportunity to demonstrate the usefulness of something. In this case, the quarterstaves. A vampire, wielding a staff himself, vaulted down out of the trees and Buffy snatched Ron's staff up and blocked the oncoming blow from hitting Hermione. She slipped beneath the vampire's guard with a roundhouse kick, and just barely stopped his retaliatory blow with her staff. They traded blows for another couple minutes, the staves whirling through the air with deadly accuracy and speed, slayer and vampire each just barely blocking the other's strikes.
In one smooth motion Buffy dropped into a crouch and swung the staff around, knocking the vampire's feet out from under him. Before he could recover she'd dropped the staff and pulled out a stake as she dove across the clearing to plunge it through his heart. She spun around and hurled the stake through the air between Ron and Ginny to land in the chest of another vampire that had been sneaking up on the group. The audience of four stared in shock as the two vampires exploded into ashes before their eyes. With a slightly eerie simultaneity they all turned to look at Buffy still crouched on the ground. "What?" she asked nonchalantly. "Oh yeah, thanks for this," she said and tossed the staff back to Ron as she stood.
"Wow," said Ginny.
"Seconded," Hermione added. "Could you possibly . . ." she looked slightly uncertain.
Harry picked up her thought. "Could you teach us how to do that?" he asked.
"Sure," Buffy replied. "At least I can try. I mean, there are some things I do that I can only do 'cause I'm the Slayer you know." The others nodded and pelted her with questions for the rest of the patrol. They made their way back inside and went to bed.
********************************
He growled, low and completely feral, as he pounced on the terrified deer. Drawing its blood out in great gulps he felt some more of his strength return and he turned again towards the feeling that beckoned. He had not seen any of the robed men that had caused him pain since leaving the wood where they had dumped him, but he could still sometimes scent them nearby. When he did he hid from them. It rankled, hiding from those creatures, but a small remnant of his former self knew that to face them was to invite more torment. Worse, they would keep him from the thing that called to him. And he knew he had to reach it.
Although he still flinched from contact with the sun, he had learned that he had no reason to fear it. Still, he traveled only by night and kept to the shadows during the day as he slept, dreaming of a tiny blonde female that was both his hunter and his prey and who was his mate. He woke up every evening with the only word he knew on his lips. "Buffy."
"Angel."
"Buffy wake up. You're going to be late for breakfast," Hermione said as she shook her friend awake.
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