Author's Note: I am in a fit of updating. I am uploading a lot of things that have sat on my computer for years - some since high school, which has been more than a decade ago.
Chapter 1 – Death and Rebirth
Dawn screamed as her sister fell, rushing toward the ground, dying in her place. The portal closed and still she screamed.
"What were they thinking, giving it such a fragile form?"
"Still, it did work."
"Only by a miracle. Only by a fluke. And now the champion is gone. Who will guard the key now?"
"Is it not safe now? Glorificus is defeated."
"Fool! That hardly means that she is gone. She is merely banished. Nor is she the only one who would have a use for the key."
"Then we had best find the key a new champion."
Silence met the suggestion.
"We have our own champion, here in this world. We cannot return the key to its previous state, but surely we can shift guardianship of it."
A consensus reached, they began their work.
Harry started awake as someone crawled into bed beside him. It was Summer. She'd been crying.
"What's wrong?" he mumbled, trying not to sound as sleepy as he was.
"It's just nightmares," she whispered back. Summer had had lots of nightmares when she was younger, but none recently. But then, she was about to start Hogwarts, and change had a way of dragging up unpleasent dreams. "Can I sleep with you tonight?"
"Yeah, sure." Harry budged over, giving her a bit more space. Summer curled against his side like a kitten and was soon fast asleep. Harry lay awake longer, wondering why this felt so strange all of a sudden. It wasn't like they hadn't slept curled up together in that horrible little cupboard for so many years. He supposed he just wasn't used to it anymore.
Some of his earliest memories were of sitting in that cupboard with Summer. She'd grown up living in there, and probably would have continued it if he hadn't gotten his letter. Not that she'd ever known any different. He'd been a toddler when their parents had died, but Summer had only been a newborn.
He was greatful that Aunt Petunia wasn't quite so awful to her as she was to him. He thought it must be because she'd wanted a little girl more than she'd wanted nothing to do with her sister's children.
Petunia had always made sure that Summer looked presentable, and occasionally she even got new clothes. She nearly always had enough to eat – when she didn't it was usually because she'd been smuggling him part of her dinner while he was being punished for something or other.
Still, he hardly envied his sister. She'd had her own trials. Little Summer was treated like a doll one moment and a slug the next, shown off and then hidden away in disgust. And just last year Dudley had bullied her into coming to a party at one of his friend's house. They'd tried to make her play a kissing game because one of their cousin's bullying friends had taken a fancy to her. She'd hidden in the coat closet in the boy's front hall until Harry came to find her.
He'd always been able to tell when she was in trouble. Not just life-threatening stuff, but worry and fear, like she'd felt at the party. He'd followed it until he found the right house and rang the bell. When he was let inside he had simply opened the coat closet, helped Dawn out of it, and taken her back home.
They were close like that, he and Dawn...
Harry stopped, examining his train of thought. Why was he calling his sister Dawn?
He looked out the window and saw that the sun would be rising soon. Perhaps that was reason enough. His mind had wandered. That was all. Exhausted, Harry put his arm protectively around Summer and went back to sleep.
The monks ceased their labors.
"It is done. The key is safe."
"For now. The boy nearly remembered. It could cause problems."
"But for now, it is safe."
Buffy woke in darkness. She panicked, closed in with no space, no air! She pounded at the wood above her until it broke, dug her way upward by shifting the dirt above her into the coffin, and later into the path behind her. Buffy clawed her way upward, desperate to feel the sunlight on her face, to breath air that wasn't musty, closed in, filled with dirt.
She broke free. One hand reached the surface where no more earth was there to drown her. She pulled herself upward, breathed, choked mud out of her mouth and throat and lungs. It was like being born again. It hurt. Buffy cried.
She stopped after a time and looked around. Buffy was in a graveyard at night. She had just come from a grave. In a moment of panic, Buffy ran her muddy fingertips across her teeth, searching for the telltale points of a vampire's fangs. She examined what she was feeling, searching for anything that might be the bloodlust of a newly risen fledgling. She held her breath.
Eventually, she had to take another. Buffy cried again, this time in relief.
She stood and tried to brush the dirt off of the awful little black dress she'd been burried in. After a moment she gave it up as a lost cause. It was only one more, fairly minor, horrible thing that was added to the pile of terrible of being yanked out of heaven.
Buffy froze. She'd been dead. How long had she been dead? Had her death succeeded in driving away Glory? Was Dawn all right?
"It's probably a Tuesday," Buffy muttered, grimacing at more than the taste of mud in her mouth.
Right. First order of business – check on Dawnie. If she was okay, then Buffy could figure out what to do about being dragged back into Hell.