Sacrament for Another Half

Author/Authoress: Goddessa39

Disclaimer: I only own the fic; HP belongs to JK Rowling, and BTVS belongs to Joss Whedon of Mutant Enemy.

Cannon: Harry Potter: concentrates in marauder time...

Pairings: Buffy-Lily. Lily/James, Buffy/Angel.

Timeline: In the years of the Marauders AU; btvs seasons 1-5

Genre: Drama/Angst/fantasy

Summary: The memories haunt her still and she does what she needs to make sure that everyone at least remembers the ghosts that once existed in the halls. Now she is different but love is bringing some of herself back. But she makes sure that on the first day of the New Year lies a prank made by the ghosts of the year her world crashed down around her.

Notes/Changes: This is just a one-shot. There WILL NOT be a sequel or another chapter. This is a one piece fic of AU.

N/C: I've had to do a tad bit of time editing to fit the date, but ignore it mostly, kay? Kay.

N/C: Not Dawn, but Liam and Elisabeth.

They were walking quietly around the Great Hall; no one was there anymore because the lights were all off. It was a week before their second semester, and it was time to play their see-you-later-Hoggity-Hogwarts prank. There was a group of boys that were planning to steel their spot on the prank war list, but they were up to the challenge and would not allow them to take their place as the Ghosts, the pranksters-in-charge. It was them that handled the big things; the twin sisters.

Elizabeth Anne (Buffy to her friends) and Lily Marie Evans were twin sisters; which was older, they couldn't agree on. The only real way to tell them apart was the color of their hair. Lily had ruby red hair the color of lighted blood or fire, while Buffy had the blondest hair seen, like sunlight in a field of daisies. It was almost white with a golden hue that brought her skin out and showed her off just like the red in her sister brought out their lips.

They were rarely apart, but when they were, people knew to watch their back because they were up to something. The two of them always were. It drove their older sister Petunia nuts because they had magic to help them while she had to rely on her wits (what there was of them) and basic gravity. They loved her really. But there was a spot to her personality which sometimes drove them to prank her like crazy.

Walking through the oddly quiet trails of tables in the Great Hall, they tried not to listen to the silent sounds of steps their feet made. Both were light and petite, so they didn't have to worry about what weight they sounded off with, but a wrong move and Filch or one of the other castle staff might catch them.

They took small moves as they set up their charms on the seats and parts of the tables before they were done. It was their luck that the footsteps of the teachers who were looking for the students waited until they were done. They grouped their stuff together and stood in the middle of the hall. With their eyes closed, they pulled each other close and slowed their breaths. With a whispered few words, the saying "If I can't see them, they can't see me" was correct. If they opened their eyes, whoever they saw would be able to see them. They were in effect invisible until someone who wasn't a portrait saw them and the spell was muted.

They awaited the next day; breakfast would be one to remember.

And indeed, it was a memorable event. Professor Flitwick was still trying to find what little charms they had used to get the chairs to bounce back and how the limbs of everyone in the Great Hall at breakfast stand up and dance various disco music dances with other people at their table while the professors and staff tangoed. The music had been loud and every bird that had come bearing morning mail had twirled and hooted or whistled with the songs; the packages and letters had all eventually found one another, but all were too energized to pay much attention.

Classes had been a bust.

There had been talk throughout the school as to who it had been, and no one had been able to figure it out. The four boys that were attempting to be the pranksters of their generation had been pleased with an adversaries' prank, but somewhat saddened by the fact that they could not call it their own. McGonagall had not been amused when the relationship gossip had started using herself and Headmaster Dumbledore because of the rose fact dance the teachers and staff had been subjected to. But everyone else had had a laugh, including the Headmaster, who's eyes twinkled when that was brought up.

The flashing hair and burst of songs from various students had also been a hit at the return of Christmas break, and no one could figure out who the Ghosts were.

But she still stood there in the kitchens and in the Room of Requirement silently thinking and remembering the days past. Only the red head was there because the blonde had been taken kicking and screaming from their home in the break between first and second year. Who they were, she couldn't figure out but the connection between them had dimmed considerably.

Even though both had distant seer blood in them, neither had seen them coming. The blond had always smirked when she saw her twin and the spiky-haired marauder, Potter; and the red-head had been able to tell when news, bad or good, was coming; but when the men had rushed in an stunned her family and taken her twin away, a part of her had broken and to this day she could not manage to move the depression and oddly quieting sadness that had covered the area she was in.

And then James had started stalking her. He had followed her around and tried asking her out and then pranked her like crazy since she wouldn't go out with him until he finally stopped and she had retreated to the few friends she had.

In her fifteenth year, she had collapsed. She didn't know why and Madame Pomfrey couldn't figure it out either. But she felt like, for a simple moment, that her blood had been sucked a way and her soul had readied to leave this plain. And then she had woken up to the white walls with the Pronged marauder carrying her to the white walls that she loathed.

It was then that she understood those creepy smirks her sister had always given them; she had somehow, sometime, managed to fall in love with James Harold Potter. But she still missed her sister and she still couldn't bring herself to even mention the secret time her sister had always shared with her in their planning and practicing of pranks.

So it was now her 17th year and in her 7th year she continued doing the New Year pranks by the thousands of ideas she had created with her sister in their shared imagination that had become half when her other half disappeared from her life. She had done so every year and wistfully smiled at every performance she had had to craft on her own.

In her 17th year, she didn't know she became an aunt. In her 17th year, she could never imagine the depressions her sister had gone through at the hands of a demon wearing the blonde's own husband's face and that the green eyes she shared with her twin had reached out for her but could not, for the life of them, remember where to look.

She had continued the yearly rituals her twin and her had shared, rarely sharing anything about her lost twin with even her chosen mate. At her wedding she had looked around and wish for her twin to be standing at her side for her Lady in Waiting as Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were sharing with Peter Pettigrew as James's best men.

When she was eighteen, she found she was pregnant. The people in the wizarding world often married early, right after or during seventh year even. So it wasn't very surprising that her son came in her early nineteenth year. He was put in her arms and she could recognize the green vibrant eyes she had shared with her twin and the scraggly black hair that ran through her husband's family. He wouldn't be petite, but tall and strong like her husband. And she loved him with the place in her heart that loved her husband and her sister above everything else.

But in the back of her mind, she could feel the wheels of fate turning and she knew that her son's life would not be easy. The bit of seer blood that remained active in her veins told her that she would die before her son's wedding, but the time she had with him would be dramatic as well as happy.

And that her death would be her sacrifice for her son. Her love would protect him if she died.

It was Halloween morning, barely after midnight. Things were quiet some places, but angry and loud others.

Once young woman was racing to the top of a tower to saver her twin children which a god had kid-napped to use in a twisted sacrifice to send her home.

Another young woman held her son close to her as the seer blood told her that time was almost up.

But were readying for something they knew they'd have to face and protect their children with their last breaths.

In a green light and a surging burst of color was energy reaching out to sap life from two beings. The connection was energized with a last bit of energy withstanding death. The bond between twins reformed as strong as ever before it gave out and they were bent to allow eventual death. But the bond had strengthened and lashed out to those against or with them.

Shields and bolts of plasma; everywhere was at once. As two mothers of magic fell into oblivion, and one from the sky, memories were sealed and Destiny's weaving twitched with uneven bits of fuzz. Something was wrong.

Three months later, a dark spell was cast, but because of the price and the problems with letting go, not one, but three (two sisters, the other a mated of one of the sisters) were forcing their coffin lids away with their bloodied knuckles.

From here, Destiny's weaving twitched again with changed paths and the bonds reformed. Now, all there was needed was clothing and food to deal with their sanities, and the regrouping of parties. The children were taken from the darkness and brought back into the light.

… And every year, the two Ghosts still take their secret pranking seriously. The second generation of Ghosts keep it a secret for when it is their turns to keep up to holiday cheer; they will be the second generation of marauders and demons hunters as well after all. They will need to keep up the moods.

Okay, that was dumb, wasn't it? I'm sorry. It came as a bit of thought once and I couldn't resist changing Dawn to my way of Buffy's&Angel's twins. And I thought the idea was nice, I guess.

I think I'm obsessed with the green eyes though-the way I picture then, they're emerald green and almost glowing in the dark kinda. The bit "the eyes are the windows to the soul" has always stuck too.

EEE NNN DDD !