Buffy Crossover Fic: An American Slayer in Northern England Part Nine The End!
Disclaimer etc. in Part One
Notes:
No. There will be no sequel. Yes, I left you all hanging, but I have no desire to try to rewrite the last four seasons of Buffy factoring in her friendship with Harry Potter and the gang. I’ve told the story I set out to tell five long years ago and that’s good enough for me. Yes, the ending is a little abrupt, but I’ve reached the point where, if I don’t end it now, it may never be finished. I mean, some people have started and finished university in the time I’ve been writing this monster.
Still, I hope you enjoy the end, and I hope you all enjoyed the ride.
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Several unremarkable weeks passed, during which nothing happened. All the students went to classes, did their homework and generally acted like students at boarding school. Buffy continued with training Harry in using his new soul-sensing powers in their spare time and Harry continued to email Issithiass.
Naturally, it was all too good to last.
Even less surprising was that it was all Malfoy the Younger’s fault. He’d been spending those peaceful weeks sneaking around and trying to gather more information on Summers and her connection to those powerful dark creatures he’d seen her fighting. He hadn’t had a lot of luck with it, in no small part because Summers and Angel both had preternatural senses that usually let on when they were being followed in such close quarters as Hogwarts.
His persistence had paid off in following Potter’s friends about, however. He’d gleaned that those creatures claimed to be vampires as well as the creatures he knew as such, and that Angel was one of them, but some sort of spell had been cast on him which had altered his very nature. More, it appeared that Summers was some sort of creature hunter herself. Something known as a Slayer. Draco had had very little luck in divining how many of Summers’ singular talents were purely her own, how many were due to whatever ritual she had so clearly involved herself in to gain those talents, and how many of those talents were merely a matter of hard work or inheritance.
The information he had gathered had been sent to the Dark Lord who, even now, was trolling the underbellies of various cities to contact these unusual ‘vampires’. In fact, all that time which passed had allowed the Dark Lord time to gather his forces to strike at Hogwarts and force an end to the ridiculous mudblood infestation. Soon it would be time.
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Buffy had been slightly surprised when Harry told her he was going to have to skip their frequent training sessions because Dumbledore had demanded his presence. She shrugged it off, knowing that it was probably something Harry had been asked not to reveal by the Headmaster, and instead spent more time patrolling in the forest with Angel.
It was after midnight and Buffy had finished her sweeps. She was just about ready to pack it in for the evening when Angel tapped her on the shoulder, inclining his head to indicate direction. Buffy paused, concentrating, and heard the sound of soft voices nearby. Moments later, she and Angel were in the trees, creeping along to get close enough to hear.
“What do you suppose he wants?” said one male voice.
“I have no idea,” replied another one, this one with a slightly higher-pitched tone. “We were told to find the castle and get a look at its defences. I don’t know any more than you do.”
Voice One slowly arrived under Buffy’s tree. “What castle? We’ve been wandering for hours and I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen any evidence of anything castle-like.”
“Well the fyarl seemed certain,” said Number Two.
“It’s a fyarl demon,” replied One. “For all we know it told Julius about a pile of rocks that looked like a pretty house to it.”
Buffy glanced at Angel and they held position, hoping for more information. A moment later, One and Two came into view. They were vampires, both of them with the look of thugs kept around for cannon fodder and to keep the numbers up. Basically, not too smart and not that pretty either. They trundled on, still moving in the general direction of the Hogwarts grounds.
Two heaved a sigh, and said, “And what’s with Julius and that snake demon guy anyhow?”
One shrugged. “I dunno,” he replied. “He is kowtowing to that guy. What’s his name?”
“Something about voles,” said Two.
At that, Buffy and Angel both tensed, the exchange between them silent as they decided which vampire to kill and which to get information out of. They could wait and hope they heard more, but the longer they waited, the more likely the vampires would find their way to the grounds. Then they were out of the trees and One was staked in an instant. Angel had Two pinned, and snarled at him, “What are you doing here?”
Two stared at him, and said, “Man, that fyarl didn’t say anything about this being anyone else’s territory. Maybe we can work somethin’ out?” Buffy, just out of sight, raised her eyebrow at Angel in inquiry. His eyes narrowed, then he nodded a little. While it was aimed at Buffy, agreeing with her plan to trick the information out of the demon, Two took it as agreement to his proposal.
“First,” Angel informed him. “You tell me what the hell you’re doing here, then I’ll decide whether there’s anything to work out.”
“I can live with that,” replied the vampire. “See, my boss, Julius, joined up with this guy, some sorta demon, but I don’t know what kind.” He’d relaxed a little as he spoke, seemingly confident in his ability to talk Angel out of killing him. “He’s some sort of warlock-type and he wanted some help in taking out this weird castle full of demons like him. Or something like that, I wasn’t too clear on the details.”
“And he thinks there’s a castle somewhere around here?” Angel asked.
Two shrugged. “They sent a fyarl out to check before. Something about it not setting off the wards like other things would. But hey, if you haven’t seen anything . . .” he trailed off.
Angel snorted. “Whatever this demon is looking for, it’s not here. I’ve been here a pretty long while and I don’t recall seeing any castle filled with magic-wielding demons.”
“See, that’s the thing,” Two groused, having seemingly found a sympathetic audience. “You ask a fyarl to do recon, you never know what it’s actually found ‘cause the things’re so dumb they’ll call a pile of rocks a castle. I mean, the directions were so bad they had to send out half a dozen search parties to see if they could find the stupid ‘castle’.” Here he made air quotes.
“There are six groups of you wandering around here looking for a castle?” Angel asked, eyes suddenly wide.
“Yeah-“ Two was cut off by Angel slamming the stake home. As the vampire turned to dust, a shocked expression on his face, the Slayer and her boyfriend hurried off into the brush, trying to track down the other searchers. As they found the other pairs of vampires, the two heard bits of Voldemort’s plans. Since the demons didn’t set off the Hogwarts wards, he was going to use them to sneak up on the castle and as a means of getting his Death Eaters in the door, so to speak. They were also supposed to provide a means of leading the Death Eaters in on foot, through the forest, rather than by wizarding means, which the castle was well-defended against.
They caught the sixth pair right on Hogwarts grounds, but weren’t able to kill them both before one activated a portkey and vanished.
Despite all their efforts, not only had Voldemort gotten the information he needed, they still didn’t know when the attack would happen, and without knowing exact which kinds of demons had been recruited by the wizard, there was no way of setting up proper defences.
“Bet he attacks next Tuesday,” Buffy muttered as they hurried up to Dumbledore’s office.
Harry stepped out of the alcove he’d been hidden in moments before in case the approaching footsteps turned out to be Snape. “Bet who attacks next Tuesday?”
“Voldemort,” Buffy replied. “He’s recruited vampires like Angel and some other demons to get past the wards.”
Buffy saw Harry’s lips tighten and his face settle into something resembling her “The Apocalypse just started” face. Still, all he said as he fell in with them was, “But why Tuesday? I’d lean more towards smack in the middle of exams. He does tend to try to drive Hermione batty that way.”
Buffy smiled a little at that. “Everything happens on Tuesday.” She paused. “At least with me. Angel claims it’s always Wednesdays for him.”
They reached Dumbledore’s office and Buffy whipped out a familiar-looking potion and some witch hazel.
“Creature Confections,” Harry said hurriedly, and the gargoyle swung aside to let them in. Buffy pouted, but put away the potion.
“What is with you and wanting to melt things with that potion of yours?” Angel asked.
“What?” Buffy looked affronted. “It’s faster, isn’t it?”
Harry and Angel exchanged looks. “I guess Dumbledore should be grateful Harry knows the password right now,” Angel said to her.
When they reached the door, Harry was about to reach up and knock, when he changed his mind and stood back. “Harry?” Buffy asked.
He didn’t answer, just waited with a smile, until Dumbledore’s voice came through the door. “Do come in, Harry.”
“Someday I’ll figure out what your spying mechanism is, Professor,” Harry told him with a shake of his head as the three walked into the office.
The headmaster didn’t respond to that, and turned to ask Buffy and Angel, “So, what brings you both to my office this evening?”
“Voldie’s teamed up with a bunch of demon vamps and they’re coming to party,” Buffy told him. “They’ve been scouting for a while now,” she added.
Dumbledore’s appearance of casual unconcern and his gentle smile disappeared, and his look sharpened. “How have they gotten past the wards?” he asked.
Angel shrugged, exchanging looks with Buffy and Harry. “My best guess? Your wards don’t know what we are, and they don’t recognise us when we pass through. You didn’t know I was in the woods until Hagrid found me, after all.”
“We don’t know a lot,” Buffy said. “The vamps we caught didn’t know a lot, so all we can tell you is that it’s probably soon, and there’s going to be a bunch of demons, vamps and wizards.”
“Then we must prepare,” the headmaster told them. With a spryness that belied his age, Dumbledore stood, and strode to a bellpull on the far side of the office. He tugged it once, sharply, then turned back to Buffy and Angel. “What would you suggest for the defence of the school?”
They settled in to begin planning out defences, joined shortly thereafter by the four house heads.
It was lucky Buffy and Angel had caught the vampire when they did. Two days later, after the school’s teachers had finished the initial arrangement of defences, Voldemort’s army attacked. Buffy had started off fighting with Harry and his friends, but rapidly found herself isolated from them and defending packs of confused child and teenaged witches and wizards who didn’t have the same ability to defend themselves as Harry and his friends did.
She was in a losing fight with a crowd of demons, only half of which she recognised the species, when Angel came up out of nowhere and dealt with five of them in seconds. “Where have you been?” he demanded as he ducked and weaved.
Buffy glared. “Where have I been?” she replied. “You were five minutes late for meeting me today. You knew where I’d be. Where were you?”
“So I got caught up talking to Seamus,” Angel replied. “Up,” he said as he swung his broadsword around in an easy motion to cut the legs out from under the demon behind his girlfriend. Buffy didn’t even think as she launched herself into the air, choosing to use her legs to advantage and simultaneously sent to demons heads snapping around. From the way the one in front dropped, it looked like breaking its neck would kill it.
It slowly stood, shaking its head, which snapped the vertebrae back into place. So, maybe not.
While Buffy was watching, a chaos demon slammed into her from behind, sending her flying. The knives she’d been using in lieu of her usual stakes also went flying. She still came up fighting, using the spikes on one demon to sheer off the sword-like appendages of another, which she used to take off the head of the chaos demon. In the momentary pause created by her triple-play attack, she whipped out her erinaceous potion, flinging it over three demons she didn’t recognise, including the one with the no-longer-broken-neck, followed by her powdered witch hazel. All three let out screams that turned into bubbling gurgles as they melted away.
The first years Buffy had been protecting promptly turned green, but they let Buffy and Angel shepherd them up the hill back toward Hogwarts. As the kids made it into the castle, Buffy paused to snag a sword off of one of the suits of armour in the hall before turning and heading back out into the fray.
All around were the sounds of fighting, wizard-style. A rapid fire of spells, both with, and without, incantations and the odd sounds that accompanied sudden transfigurations, criss-crossed the field. Even as Buffy settled into the intense physical fighting she was most comfortable with, she caught sight of Neville Longbottom slamming out spell after spell, including one that had a death eater singing “I’m a Little Teapot.”
Angel heard it too and shook his head in dismay, even as Buffy shot Neville a weird look. “It’s too bad Xander isn’t here,” she told Angel.
“Why’s that?” her boyfriend asked as he ducked away from a cruciatus curse.
“This looks like something out of Star Wars, that’s why,” Buffy said. “All the light beams and stuff.”
Right then, they heard Ron’s voice, “Ginny!” It was terrified, anguished and desperate. As one, Buffy and Angel turned to see Ginny, hands empty, on her knees in front of - “Malfoy! Get away from her!” Ron shouted at the pale, tall, blond death eater who had her at his mercy.
Knowing they were going to be too late, Buffy and Angel started slamming their way forward.
Ginny suddenly dropped sideways, her leg moving up in a move Buffy herself had taught the redhead. Ginny had tremendous flexibility and her legs were almost at 180 degree angle as her foot slammed up, into Lucius Malfoy’s chin, causing a cracking sound that was audible in one of those sudden lulls that can possess a battlefield. His head at an unhealthy angle, Malfoy dropped like a rock. Ginny rolled away, scooping up her wand as she went.
Grinning, Angel turned to Buffy, “I think that falls under pretty damn cool, don’t you?” he inquired conversationally.
She grinned back. “Oh yeah.”
“You think that’s funny . . . Slayer?” Draco snarled. He looked furious. He also looked just a little silly in his costume, clearly meant to imitate the death eater uniform. Unfortunately, his transfiguration skills weren’t quite up to the task, and the black robes looked a little too like hastily modified school robes, and the silver mask looked like a hastily spray-painted Halloween mask.
“You think that’s a good outfit . . . wannabe?” Buffy responded. She easily settled into a defensive stance.
His nostrils flaring at being mocked, Draco launched his first attack. “Crucio!” he shouted.
Buffy leaned easily out of the way and asked, “That all you got?”
With that, Draco began a barrage of spells, enough to keep Buffy dodging. Each easy swerve out of the way seemed only to make him angrier. Suddenly, from off to the side, they heard Hermione’s voice snap out, “Honestly Buffy, must you toy with him?” Then Hermione irritably stormed past, saying, “Stupefy!” The red beam slammed into Draco with the force of a freight train and sent him flying. They managed to get a few more up to the safety of the castle, with a bound Draco sent in as a prisoner.
However, in spite of their successes, the defenders were still slowly giving ground. There just weren’t enough fighters on their side, while the attacking army of demons and death eaters were nothing but. Buffy was forced to use her magic to defend herself and Angel from the oncoming witches and wizards, which cut into her effectiveness against the demons. Most of the defenders didn’t have a clue how to deal with the demons, and the demons were effectively immune to things like fire spells. It had to be a natural fire or natural sunlight to kill the ones vulnerable to such things.
All around was the sound of screaming and dying teenagers and teachers. People who had never agreed to be in this war and had just been dragged into it. Buffy set her teeth and kept fighting. Dragging those to injured to continue back to the castle over and over again. She’d been separated from Angel and was fighting back to back with Dean Thomas. He was doing an admirable job of holding off the magic-wielders, but he wasn’t the kind of person who was born to fight.
Buffy felt him go down behind her, but there were just too many demons in front for her to check on him.
That was when a fresh round of screaming started.
It was a chorus of screams. Adult screams. Death eater screams. Everyone seemed to stop as every death eater on the field suddenly clutched at his or her arm, right where the dark mark resided. They dropped to the ground, writhing in apparent agony, as the marks evaporated in a curl of tar-like black smoke. When the last of the smoke cleared, every death eater lay dead on the field.
On seeing that, every demon with the common sense that God gave gravel was fleeing the scene. It was one thing to be part of a vast army. It was quite another to be part of a less-than-vast army that was about to come face to face with the Slayer that killed The Master, stopped the rising of Acathla and the Judge, and her vampire boyfriend, the former Scourge of Europe.
Which only left the big, strong, but truly stupid demons on the field. Buffy started conjuring really big anvils and dropping them on those demons.
Angel’s first word on catching up to her was a very disapproving, “Buffy.”
“Angel!” She smiled, flicked her wand one last time, and then happily leaped into his arms to kiss him.
“We’re in the middle of a fight, you know,” Ron groused, even as he imitated Buffy’s example.
Buffy and Angel split apart and came at the demons in a more conventional style. That is, blades flashing in the firelight of the torches that lit up the area, the clove through the last of the demons like the wrath of God.
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“Wrath of God?” Ron asked as they sat in the Common Room of Gryffindor tower, each one letting everyone else know how their part of the fight had gone.
Hermione shot him an exasperated look. “If you can think of a better way to describe how they looked to Harry, I’d be delighted to hear it.”
“I’m still stuck on ‘clove’,” Buffy admitted.
Ron nodded agreeably. “That too,” he said.
Buffy turned to Harry. “So, now to the hero of the hour, how did you manage to get the vole of death guy?”
“Vole of death guy?” Ginny echoed from her spot snuggled next to Harry. He seemed upset by her near-brush with death and didn’t look like he was letting go any time soon. Ginny seemed extremely not-upset by this and looked like she wasn’t going to be moving any time soon.
“None of the demons knew his name. They thought he was making some sort of comment on the Black Plague,” Angel said with a shrug. “Vole de morte. Apparently their French only stretched so far.”
Hermione’s eyes boggled a little and she shook her head.
Harry decided to answer the question before Hermione’s head exploded. “It seems that the demonic powers I get from the fithian part of me goes beyond just being able to see souls. I can . . . sort of manipulate them. A little.” Hermione took a deep breath and opened her mouth. “I’ll tell you about it later Hermione, I promise,” Harry said. She settled back, temporarily appeased. “Voldemort had made these things, horcruxes they’re called, by ripping his soul apart and sticking the pieces into other things. It sort of kept his spirit bound to this plane of existence, so he’d be able to put himself together again any time someone killed him.” Harry took a deep breath and continued. “He’d gotten one of the bits attached to me when he tried to kill me as a baby. It’s why I had that connection to him.”
“Oh Harry,” Hermione said, moving closer and laying a hand on his arm.
Ron’s eyes were just wide, and he looked very pale, the freckles standing out on his skin.
“He was there, and it was like everything Buffy had told me about using those powers fell into place. I could feel the bit attached to me, and feel the connection between all the bits of his soul. I just . . . sort of . . . pulled them loose and let go.” He shook his head, his eyes distant. “I couldn’t have done it if he hadn’t done that to his soul, but since he had, it was possible. It was like all the bits had just been waiting for the chance to move on. So they did.”
There was a silence, and then Ginny turned to Harry and said, “You know what this means, right?”
“What?” Harry asked.
“Dumbledore was wrong about something. That power ‘the Dark Lord knows not’ was your demon powers.” She grinned. “We get to tell him he was wrong about something.”
Hermione rolled her eyes while the others snickered a little.
Buffy meanwhile pulled herself up and turned on her laptop. “Is there some reason you have to do that now?” Ron asked.
“Yes,” Buffy said. “I don’t think Giles will ever forgive me if I don’t tell him about all this.” she plonked down, signed in and looked at her email. A moment or two of clicking and she was reading something. Then she was bolting to her feet, cursing and heading for the exit.
“Buffy? What’s wrong?” Angel asked, echoed by the others as the followed her out the portrait hole.
Her breath hissed from between her teeth as she hurried down the hall. “I need Dumbledore to make me a portkey straight to Sunnydale. The mayor’s about to turn into a giant demon snake at the graduation ceremony, and Giles says Kendra’s in a coma at the hospital after trying to prevent one of the pre-rituals. I need to get back there now.”
“Oh my,” Hermione said, even as they all rushed to keep up.
Harry slowed for a moment, then sped up. “Lucky giant snakes are a specialty of mine, isn’t it?” he said with a small smile.
“Harry you don’t have to-“
He interrupted the blonde. “It’s fine. I’ve been told you have a saving people thing anyhow.” He grinned. “Besides, I have to follow you at least as far as Dumbledore’s office. Don’t think I don’t see you fingering that hedgehog potion.”
“Buffy,” Angel moaned in exasperation.
“What?” she asked. “It’s useful.”
And so the Slayer and her friends hurried off to another adventure.
The End
I’m done! Finished! Ha! Yes!
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No! No sequels! No! It’s over dammit!
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8
Back to archive page or head to the Other Fandoms archive
Notes:
No. There will be no sequel. Yes, I left you all hanging, but I have no desire to try to rewrite the last four seasons of Buffy factoring in her friendship with Harry Potter and the gang. I’ve told the story I set out to tell five long years ago and that’s good enough for me. Yes, the ending is a little abrupt, but I’ve reached the point where, if I don’t end it now, it may never be finished. I mean, some people have started and finished university in the time I’ve been writing this monster.
Still, I hope you enjoy the end, and I hope you all enjoyed the ride.
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Several unremarkable weeks passed, during which nothing happened. All the students went to classes, did their homework and generally acted like students at boarding school. Buffy continued with training Harry in using his new soul-sensing powers in their spare time and Harry continued to email Issithiass.
Naturally, it was all too good to last.
Even less surprising was that it was all Malfoy the Younger’s fault. He’d been spending those peaceful weeks sneaking around and trying to gather more information on Summers and her connection to those powerful dark creatures he’d seen her fighting. He hadn’t had a lot of luck with it, in no small part because Summers and Angel both had preternatural senses that usually let on when they were being followed in such close quarters as Hogwarts.
His persistence had paid off in following Potter’s friends about, however. He’d gleaned that those creatures claimed to be vampires as well as the creatures he knew as such, and that Angel was one of them, but some sort of spell had been cast on him which had altered his very nature. More, it appeared that Summers was some sort of creature hunter herself. Something known as a Slayer. Draco had had very little luck in divining how many of Summers’ singular talents were purely her own, how many were due to whatever ritual she had so clearly involved herself in to gain those talents, and how many of those talents were merely a matter of hard work or inheritance.
The information he had gathered had been sent to the Dark Lord who, even now, was trolling the underbellies of various cities to contact these unusual ‘vampires’. In fact, all that time which passed had allowed the Dark Lord time to gather his forces to strike at Hogwarts and force an end to the ridiculous mudblood infestation. Soon it would be time.
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Buffy had been slightly surprised when Harry told her he was going to have to skip their frequent training sessions because Dumbledore had demanded his presence. She shrugged it off, knowing that it was probably something Harry had been asked not to reveal by the Headmaster, and instead spent more time patrolling in the forest with Angel.
It was after midnight and Buffy had finished her sweeps. She was just about ready to pack it in for the evening when Angel tapped her on the shoulder, inclining his head to indicate direction. Buffy paused, concentrating, and heard the sound of soft voices nearby. Moments later, she and Angel were in the trees, creeping along to get close enough to hear.
“What do you suppose he wants?” said one male voice.
“I have no idea,” replied another one, this one with a slightly higher-pitched tone. “We were told to find the castle and get a look at its defences. I don’t know any more than you do.”
Voice One slowly arrived under Buffy’s tree. “What castle? We’ve been wandering for hours and I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen any evidence of anything castle-like.”
“Well the fyarl seemed certain,” said Number Two.
“It’s a fyarl demon,” replied One. “For all we know it told Julius about a pile of rocks that looked like a pretty house to it.”
Buffy glanced at Angel and they held position, hoping for more information. A moment later, One and Two came into view. They were vampires, both of them with the look of thugs kept around for cannon fodder and to keep the numbers up. Basically, not too smart and not that pretty either. They trundled on, still moving in the general direction of the Hogwarts grounds.
Two heaved a sigh, and said, “And what’s with Julius and that snake demon guy anyhow?”
One shrugged. “I dunno,” he replied. “He is kowtowing to that guy. What’s his name?”
“Something about voles,” said Two.
At that, Buffy and Angel both tensed, the exchange between them silent as they decided which vampire to kill and which to get information out of. They could wait and hope they heard more, but the longer they waited, the more likely the vampires would find their way to the grounds. Then they were out of the trees and One was staked in an instant. Angel had Two pinned, and snarled at him, “What are you doing here?”
Two stared at him, and said, “Man, that fyarl didn’t say anything about this being anyone else’s territory. Maybe we can work somethin’ out?” Buffy, just out of sight, raised her eyebrow at Angel in inquiry. His eyes narrowed, then he nodded a little. While it was aimed at Buffy, agreeing with her plan to trick the information out of the demon, Two took it as agreement to his proposal.
“First,” Angel informed him. “You tell me what the hell you’re doing here, then I’ll decide whether there’s anything to work out.”
“I can live with that,” replied the vampire. “See, my boss, Julius, joined up with this guy, some sorta demon, but I don’t know what kind.” He’d relaxed a little as he spoke, seemingly confident in his ability to talk Angel out of killing him. “He’s some sort of warlock-type and he wanted some help in taking out this weird castle full of demons like him. Or something like that, I wasn’t too clear on the details.”
“And he thinks there’s a castle somewhere around here?” Angel asked.
Two shrugged. “They sent a fyarl out to check before. Something about it not setting off the wards like other things would. But hey, if you haven’t seen anything . . .” he trailed off.
Angel snorted. “Whatever this demon is looking for, it’s not here. I’ve been here a pretty long while and I don’t recall seeing any castle filled with magic-wielding demons.”
“See, that’s the thing,” Two groused, having seemingly found a sympathetic audience. “You ask a fyarl to do recon, you never know what it’s actually found ‘cause the things’re so dumb they’ll call a pile of rocks a castle. I mean, the directions were so bad they had to send out half a dozen search parties to see if they could find the stupid ‘castle’.” Here he made air quotes.
“There are six groups of you wandering around here looking for a castle?” Angel asked, eyes suddenly wide.
“Yeah-“ Two was cut off by Angel slamming the stake home. As the vampire turned to dust, a shocked expression on his face, the Slayer and her boyfriend hurried off into the brush, trying to track down the other searchers. As they found the other pairs of vampires, the two heard bits of Voldemort’s plans. Since the demons didn’t set off the Hogwarts wards, he was going to use them to sneak up on the castle and as a means of getting his Death Eaters in the door, so to speak. They were also supposed to provide a means of leading the Death Eaters in on foot, through the forest, rather than by wizarding means, which the castle was well-defended against.
They caught the sixth pair right on Hogwarts grounds, but weren’t able to kill them both before one activated a portkey and vanished.
Despite all their efforts, not only had Voldemort gotten the information he needed, they still didn’t know when the attack would happen, and without knowing exact which kinds of demons had been recruited by the wizard, there was no way of setting up proper defences.
“Bet he attacks next Tuesday,” Buffy muttered as they hurried up to Dumbledore’s office.
Harry stepped out of the alcove he’d been hidden in moments before in case the approaching footsteps turned out to be Snape. “Bet who attacks next Tuesday?”
“Voldemort,” Buffy replied. “He’s recruited vampires like Angel and some other demons to get past the wards.”
Buffy saw Harry’s lips tighten and his face settle into something resembling her “The Apocalypse just started” face. Still, all he said as he fell in with them was, “But why Tuesday? I’d lean more towards smack in the middle of exams. He does tend to try to drive Hermione batty that way.”
Buffy smiled a little at that. “Everything happens on Tuesday.” She paused. “At least with me. Angel claims it’s always Wednesdays for him.”
They reached Dumbledore’s office and Buffy whipped out a familiar-looking potion and some witch hazel.
“Creature Confections,” Harry said hurriedly, and the gargoyle swung aside to let them in. Buffy pouted, but put away the potion.
“What is with you and wanting to melt things with that potion of yours?” Angel asked.
“What?” Buffy looked affronted. “It’s faster, isn’t it?”
Harry and Angel exchanged looks. “I guess Dumbledore should be grateful Harry knows the password right now,” Angel said to her.
When they reached the door, Harry was about to reach up and knock, when he changed his mind and stood back. “Harry?” Buffy asked.
He didn’t answer, just waited with a smile, until Dumbledore’s voice came through the door. “Do come in, Harry.”
“Someday I’ll figure out what your spying mechanism is, Professor,” Harry told him with a shake of his head as the three walked into the office.
The headmaster didn’t respond to that, and turned to ask Buffy and Angel, “So, what brings you both to my office this evening?”
“Voldie’s teamed up with a bunch of demon vamps and they’re coming to party,” Buffy told him. “They’ve been scouting for a while now,” she added.
Dumbledore’s appearance of casual unconcern and his gentle smile disappeared, and his look sharpened. “How have they gotten past the wards?” he asked.
Angel shrugged, exchanging looks with Buffy and Harry. “My best guess? Your wards don’t know what we are, and they don’t recognise us when we pass through. You didn’t know I was in the woods until Hagrid found me, after all.”
“We don’t know a lot,” Buffy said. “The vamps we caught didn’t know a lot, so all we can tell you is that it’s probably soon, and there’s going to be a bunch of demons, vamps and wizards.”
“Then we must prepare,” the headmaster told them. With a spryness that belied his age, Dumbledore stood, and strode to a bellpull on the far side of the office. He tugged it once, sharply, then turned back to Buffy and Angel. “What would you suggest for the defence of the school?”
They settled in to begin planning out defences, joined shortly thereafter by the four house heads.
It was lucky Buffy and Angel had caught the vampire when they did. Two days later, after the school’s teachers had finished the initial arrangement of defences, Voldemort’s army attacked. Buffy had started off fighting with Harry and his friends, but rapidly found herself isolated from them and defending packs of confused child and teenaged witches and wizards who didn’t have the same ability to defend themselves as Harry and his friends did.
She was in a losing fight with a crowd of demons, only half of which she recognised the species, when Angel came up out of nowhere and dealt with five of them in seconds. “Where have you been?” he demanded as he ducked and weaved.
Buffy glared. “Where have I been?” she replied. “You were five minutes late for meeting me today. You knew where I’d be. Where were you?”
“So I got caught up talking to Seamus,” Angel replied. “Up,” he said as he swung his broadsword around in an easy motion to cut the legs out from under the demon behind his girlfriend. Buffy didn’t even think as she launched herself into the air, choosing to use her legs to advantage and simultaneously sent to demons heads snapping around. From the way the one in front dropped, it looked like breaking its neck would kill it.
It slowly stood, shaking its head, which snapped the vertebrae back into place. So, maybe not.
While Buffy was watching, a chaos demon slammed into her from behind, sending her flying. The knives she’d been using in lieu of her usual stakes also went flying. She still came up fighting, using the spikes on one demon to sheer off the sword-like appendages of another, which she used to take off the head of the chaos demon. In the momentary pause created by her triple-play attack, she whipped out her erinaceous potion, flinging it over three demons she didn’t recognise, including the one with the no-longer-broken-neck, followed by her powdered witch hazel. All three let out screams that turned into bubbling gurgles as they melted away.
The first years Buffy had been protecting promptly turned green, but they let Buffy and Angel shepherd them up the hill back toward Hogwarts. As the kids made it into the castle, Buffy paused to snag a sword off of one of the suits of armour in the hall before turning and heading back out into the fray.
All around were the sounds of fighting, wizard-style. A rapid fire of spells, both with, and without, incantations and the odd sounds that accompanied sudden transfigurations, criss-crossed the field. Even as Buffy settled into the intense physical fighting she was most comfortable with, she caught sight of Neville Longbottom slamming out spell after spell, including one that had a death eater singing “I’m a Little Teapot.”
Angel heard it too and shook his head in dismay, even as Buffy shot Neville a weird look. “It’s too bad Xander isn’t here,” she told Angel.
“Why’s that?” her boyfriend asked as he ducked away from a cruciatus curse.
“This looks like something out of Star Wars, that’s why,” Buffy said. “All the light beams and stuff.”
Right then, they heard Ron’s voice, “Ginny!” It was terrified, anguished and desperate. As one, Buffy and Angel turned to see Ginny, hands empty, on her knees in front of - “Malfoy! Get away from her!” Ron shouted at the pale, tall, blond death eater who had her at his mercy.
Knowing they were going to be too late, Buffy and Angel started slamming their way forward.
Ginny suddenly dropped sideways, her leg moving up in a move Buffy herself had taught the redhead. Ginny had tremendous flexibility and her legs were almost at 180 degree angle as her foot slammed up, into Lucius Malfoy’s chin, causing a cracking sound that was audible in one of those sudden lulls that can possess a battlefield. His head at an unhealthy angle, Malfoy dropped like a rock. Ginny rolled away, scooping up her wand as she went.
Grinning, Angel turned to Buffy, “I think that falls under pretty damn cool, don’t you?” he inquired conversationally.
She grinned back. “Oh yeah.”
“You think that’s funny . . . Slayer?” Draco snarled. He looked furious. He also looked just a little silly in his costume, clearly meant to imitate the death eater uniform. Unfortunately, his transfiguration skills weren’t quite up to the task, and the black robes looked a little too like hastily modified school robes, and the silver mask looked like a hastily spray-painted Halloween mask.
“You think that’s a good outfit . . . wannabe?” Buffy responded. She easily settled into a defensive stance.
His nostrils flaring at being mocked, Draco launched his first attack. “Crucio!” he shouted.
Buffy leaned easily out of the way and asked, “That all you got?”
With that, Draco began a barrage of spells, enough to keep Buffy dodging. Each easy swerve out of the way seemed only to make him angrier. Suddenly, from off to the side, they heard Hermione’s voice snap out, “Honestly Buffy, must you toy with him?” Then Hermione irritably stormed past, saying, “Stupefy!” The red beam slammed into Draco with the force of a freight train and sent him flying. They managed to get a few more up to the safety of the castle, with a bound Draco sent in as a prisoner.
However, in spite of their successes, the defenders were still slowly giving ground. There just weren’t enough fighters on their side, while the attacking army of demons and death eaters were nothing but. Buffy was forced to use her magic to defend herself and Angel from the oncoming witches and wizards, which cut into her effectiveness against the demons. Most of the defenders didn’t have a clue how to deal with the demons, and the demons were effectively immune to things like fire spells. It had to be a natural fire or natural sunlight to kill the ones vulnerable to such things.
All around was the sound of screaming and dying teenagers and teachers. People who had never agreed to be in this war and had just been dragged into it. Buffy set her teeth and kept fighting. Dragging those to injured to continue back to the castle over and over again. She’d been separated from Angel and was fighting back to back with Dean Thomas. He was doing an admirable job of holding off the magic-wielders, but he wasn’t the kind of person who was born to fight.
Buffy felt him go down behind her, but there were just too many demons in front for her to check on him.
That was when a fresh round of screaming started.
It was a chorus of screams. Adult screams. Death eater screams. Everyone seemed to stop as every death eater on the field suddenly clutched at his or her arm, right where the dark mark resided. They dropped to the ground, writhing in apparent agony, as the marks evaporated in a curl of tar-like black smoke. When the last of the smoke cleared, every death eater lay dead on the field.
On seeing that, every demon with the common sense that God gave gravel was fleeing the scene. It was one thing to be part of a vast army. It was quite another to be part of a less-than-vast army that was about to come face to face with the Slayer that killed The Master, stopped the rising of Acathla and the Judge, and her vampire boyfriend, the former Scourge of Europe.
Which only left the big, strong, but truly stupid demons on the field. Buffy started conjuring really big anvils and dropping them on those demons.
Angel’s first word on catching up to her was a very disapproving, “Buffy.”
“Angel!” She smiled, flicked her wand one last time, and then happily leaped into his arms to kiss him.
“We’re in the middle of a fight, you know,” Ron groused, even as he imitated Buffy’s example.
Buffy and Angel split apart and came at the demons in a more conventional style. That is, blades flashing in the firelight of the torches that lit up the area, the clove through the last of the demons like the wrath of God.
*********************
“Wrath of God?” Ron asked as they sat in the Common Room of Gryffindor tower, each one letting everyone else know how their part of the fight had gone.
Hermione shot him an exasperated look. “If you can think of a better way to describe how they looked to Harry, I’d be delighted to hear it.”
“I’m still stuck on ‘clove’,” Buffy admitted.
Ron nodded agreeably. “That too,” he said.
Buffy turned to Harry. “So, now to the hero of the hour, how did you manage to get the vole of death guy?”
“Vole of death guy?” Ginny echoed from her spot snuggled next to Harry. He seemed upset by her near-brush with death and didn’t look like he was letting go any time soon. Ginny seemed extremely not-upset by this and looked like she wasn’t going to be moving any time soon.
“None of the demons knew his name. They thought he was making some sort of comment on the Black Plague,” Angel said with a shrug. “Vole de morte. Apparently their French only stretched so far.”
Hermione’s eyes boggled a little and she shook her head.
Harry decided to answer the question before Hermione’s head exploded. “It seems that the demonic powers I get from the fithian part of me goes beyond just being able to see souls. I can . . . sort of manipulate them. A little.” Hermione took a deep breath and opened her mouth. “I’ll tell you about it later Hermione, I promise,” Harry said. She settled back, temporarily appeased. “Voldemort had made these things, horcruxes they’re called, by ripping his soul apart and sticking the pieces into other things. It sort of kept his spirit bound to this plane of existence, so he’d be able to put himself together again any time someone killed him.” Harry took a deep breath and continued. “He’d gotten one of the bits attached to me when he tried to kill me as a baby. It’s why I had that connection to him.”
“Oh Harry,” Hermione said, moving closer and laying a hand on his arm.
Ron’s eyes were just wide, and he looked very pale, the freckles standing out on his skin.
“He was there, and it was like everything Buffy had told me about using those powers fell into place. I could feel the bit attached to me, and feel the connection between all the bits of his soul. I just . . . sort of . . . pulled them loose and let go.” He shook his head, his eyes distant. “I couldn’t have done it if he hadn’t done that to his soul, but since he had, it was possible. It was like all the bits had just been waiting for the chance to move on. So they did.”
There was a silence, and then Ginny turned to Harry and said, “You know what this means, right?”
“What?” Harry asked.
“Dumbledore was wrong about something. That power ‘the Dark Lord knows not’ was your demon powers.” She grinned. “We get to tell him he was wrong about something.”
Hermione rolled her eyes while the others snickered a little.
Buffy meanwhile pulled herself up and turned on her laptop. “Is there some reason you have to do that now?” Ron asked.
“Yes,” Buffy said. “I don’t think Giles will ever forgive me if I don’t tell him about all this.” she plonked down, signed in and looked at her email. A moment or two of clicking and she was reading something. Then she was bolting to her feet, cursing and heading for the exit.
“Buffy? What’s wrong?” Angel asked, echoed by the others as the followed her out the portrait hole.
Her breath hissed from between her teeth as she hurried down the hall. “I need Dumbledore to make me a portkey straight to Sunnydale. The mayor’s about to turn into a giant demon snake at the graduation ceremony, and Giles says Kendra’s in a coma at the hospital after trying to prevent one of the pre-rituals. I need to get back there now.”
“Oh my,” Hermione said, even as they all rushed to keep up.
Harry slowed for a moment, then sped up. “Lucky giant snakes are a specialty of mine, isn’t it?” he said with a small smile.
“Harry you don’t have to-“
He interrupted the blonde. “It’s fine. I’ve been told you have a saving people thing anyhow.” He grinned. “Besides, I have to follow you at least as far as Dumbledore’s office. Don’t think I don’t see you fingering that hedgehog potion.”
“Buffy,” Angel moaned in exasperation.
“What?” she asked. “It’s useful.”
And so the Slayer and her friends hurried off to another adventure.
The End
I’m done! Finished! Ha! Yes!
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No! No sequels! No! It’s over dammit!
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8
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