Heya people! Thanks again for all the reviews!
I'm glad you're all so intrigued about Faith's family… it shouldn't be a huge part of the story, but I plan to do something with it- could be fun. *grins*
Dueling Destiny- Oops. Yeah, it should have been "Wizard? As in male witch?" Not 'as in female witch'… sorry, me dumb.
OOOH! Shootingstar19 actually updated! So all go read that, aswell as witchlight's stories- the alternate ending for Consequences is SOO incredible. :'( AND go read Becks 89's stories too, cos they just generally rock my socks- please bug her to update 'the boy who lived' cos I love it!!! Pleeeeeeaaaaaaaassse, Becks!!!!
And back to my story. Nice long chapter for you here- not much action I'm afraid, but some cuteness and lots of explainy. So here ya go…
Chapter 37- Why, part2Hogwarts-present time
"So he just told you that right up front?" Xander asked, "Help me kidnap this boy an' I'll make you all powerful?"
"Pretty much." Faith shrugged.
"Then what? How did you know it was me?" Buffy asked.
"The next day, one of his lackeys turned up with more info from his spies…"
FLASHBACK
"Faith, good news." Voldemort declared. "We have more information on this pesky girl." He was looking at a pile of parchment, reading bits out to her. Faith screwed up her eyes for a moment and forced herself to concentrate. It seemed that there were side affects to being forcibly woken from a coma, in that all Faith wanted to do was sleep for another month. "Aha, we have a picture." Voldemort said.
"That could be helpful, don't wanna go killin' the wrong girl now do I?" Faith murmured. Voldemort smiled, and past her the photograph. It was a view from a bit of a distance, which showed a group of people walking down a lawn, talking animatedly (and actually moving). Most of them were clearly school children, but with them was another girl in brightly coloured robes, talking to the black haired boy on her left that Faith already knew to be Harry Potter. Faith felt her breath catch as the blonde girl turned, her face looking out of the picture. Buffy.
"I'll do it." Faith said suddenly.
"You…?"
"I'll do it. I'll get the boy." She said confidently.
"You do not wish to see the rest of the information?"
"I said I'd do it, didn't I? So what are you arguing for?" She snapped. Voldemort frowned a moment, then chuckled,
"Excellent, I am pleased."
Hogwarts, present
"He didn't know who I was?" Buffy asked.
"No."
"And… you didn't tell him?" Willow added.
"No." Faith replied.
"Ok, ok.. so then we know what happened next." Buffy said, "You got a port key from Voldemort, and came here, took Harry…"
"Wait." Hermione snapped, and they all looked at her. "If you were lying to Voldemort, and you didn't really intend to hurt Harry… what were you doing?" She of course didn't know what Buffy and Harry had seen, no one else did; so while the question seemed incredibly tactless to the Potter siblings, everyone else looked to Faith, thinking it was a very good question. Under the affects of the Veritaserum, Faith had no choice but to answer.
"I was trying to get at Buffy." She said quietly. "I wanted to piss her off as bad as possible, and I know how protective she is of those she loves." Her hand trailed unconsciously to her stomach.
"Huh?" Ron exclaimed, "You did all this just to piss Buffy off?"
"Why?" Willow said in the same disbelieving tone. Faith swallowed, looking at Buffy as she spoke.
"Because I couldn't do it myself." She said, and dropped her gaze again- it was taking a lot to avoid the full truth while obeying the truth potion.
"You couldn't do what?" Giles asked. Buffy winced, she wished that they could understand from her expression, or her reluctance to say it, but Buffy knew that anyone who had met Faith would never guess this of her.
"I couldn't kill myself." Faith said in little more than a whisper. "I knew that Buffy was one of the only people who could take me, and that she would only do it if she thought I had killed someone she loved… I've had experience in that, remember?"
No one said anything for a while, all suddenly realising how tactless the questions must have sounded. If there had been any doubt of the truthfulness of her answers, most would have thought she was just trying to get sympathy. But they had all seen her drink the potion- there was no way Faith was lying. Eventually Willow spoke up. She had seen (and personally experienced) the glee Faith had seemed to take in her actions, and she just had to ask,
"Why would you want that?" She gasped, "Why did you want to die?" Faith let out a hollow chuckle.
"Because inside I'm already worse than dead." She replied. "You don't know what it's like- to see dead people in your mind everyday, to hear the voices of people you killed in your head, over and over." She chuckled again, "And every time you try to make it go away, it gets worse, rotting you from inside out. No matter what comes after death… it can't be worse than this. I wanted it to stop."
"Faith…" Buffy began.
"Don't, B. I heard you before." Faith said, cutting her off. Their eyes met once again, and Buffy smiled sympathetically.
"So…" Dumbledore said, not wanting to sound harsh, but needing to know the rest of the tale. "What happened after you took Harry then?" He asked.
"I took the port key back to the hideout, and Voldy took Harry." Faith replied quickly, just as eager to change topic. "He was scarily happy. He tied Harry up, and gave me a wand as he had promised… apparently it was my father's." She pulled the wand out of a trouser pocket, and handed it to Buffy. "It's made of ebony." She said, "And he told me that it contains the blood of a pure vampire."
"A pure vampire?" Dumbledore and Giles both exclaimed.
"You mean a Turok'han?" Giles continued alone. Faith shrugged, shaking her head,
"I dunno."
"I didn't know they really existed." Giles said.
"Apparently one of my ancestors was big with the pure demons. My family worshipped them, and eventually my great great grand-something-or-other managed to summon up and control a pure vampire… or he thought he could control it. It killed him and several others. Another ancestor killed it, but not before he took some blood, and made that." She nodded to the wand. "It's been passed down through generations, and now it's meant to be mine."
"Wow." Ron murmured.
"Creepy." Oz added.
"Still." Dumbledore said, "It should be a very powerful substance."
"Whatever." Faith shrugged, "Anyway, after he gave me that, he…" She glanced at Harry…
FLASHBACK
Faith tucked the wand away, and looked down at the scared teenager. He saw no emotion in the slayer's eyes, as if there were shutters behind her pupils. She looked away again, to Voldemort.
"What now?" She asked.
"Now we deal with Harry Potter." Voldemort hissed. "You ensured that his sister could not follow?"
"She wont be bothering us." Faith said with a nasty smile. Harry's forehead creased in a frown. She was clearly suggesting that she had killed, or at least incapacitated Buffy… but Harry knew she hadn't.
"Excellent, excellent." Voldemort said. "Well then. Let us…"
"Master! Master, please forgive my interruption, but the messenger has returned with much news." A death eater cowered in the doorway.
"Bring him forth!" Voldemort snapped impatiently.
"He is rather badly wounded, sire… our sources were… well…"
"Yes yes." Voldemort said. "Very well, I shall come. Faith, why don't you… amuse yourself with our guest?" His smile could have frozen flame as he passed Faith a long, slender, slightly curved knife. Harry's eyes widened considerably, and he wriggled, looking around in vain for help. Voldemort chuckled. "Have fun." He said, before leaving.
Faith crouched down beside the struggling boy, letting out a long breath. She cocked her head to one side, fingering the knife as she gazed at Harry.
"So you're B's brother, huh?" She said. "Gotta say I really don't see the resemblance." But she frowned as she looked into his terror-filled eyes, "Cept maybe in the eyes." She then added. She sighed, and her eyes dropped, starring at the ground, then back up at him, as if she couldn't think of anything to say. Harry's eyes kept track of the knife, presuming that she was considering where to start. Suddenly, Faith raised the knife, and he winced. Faith smirked at him, but just held the knife up, and examined the blade, "This is beautiful, ain't it?" She said more to herself than to Harry, "Damn sharp too." She ran a finger along the blade, and flinched, chuckling, "Damn sharp." She sucked her cut finger. Then she stood up, looking down at Harry at such an angle that her eyes looked jet-black. The knife was held in her fist, by her side, while she just starred at him.
"Faith!" Voldemort's angry voice came from the corridor. She didn't look up. "Faith!" He repeated, coming into the room. "I have just been informed that this girl is known by some as 'Buffy', and our demon sources tell us that the only 'Buffy' they know of is the slayer. So pray tell me, my dear, how you failed to mention that?" He was standing right behind her.
"Oops." Faith said, her eyes still locked with Harry's. "I guess the problem with me, Big-V, is I never was much of a team player." As she said it, she spun, her free left hand catching his wand even as he drew it, snapping it clean in half. The other hand, gripping the knife, followed through, embedding itself in the dark lord's side. Faith wrenched it back out, and slammed the hilt into Voldemort's shocked face. He fell unconscious on the floor. Faith looked down at him, and at the blood that was pooling around him and dripped from her hand. One glance back at Harry, and Faith dragged the evil wizard across the room, away from the boy. She then went to the grand curtains that flanked the windows, and ripped one down, tearing off strips of the thick red cloth with which to bind Voldemort. All this Harry watched with wide, bewildered eyes. Faith looked at the knife in her hand for a moment, before flinging it across the room where it clattered on the stone floor. Faith herself didn't know why, but she tucked the broken wand into her jacket pocket, before closing the door through which the deatheater had come to talk to Voldemort, and tying more of the curtain material around the handles. When her eyes returned to Harry, he was looking at her expectantly. Faith glanced back at Voldemort, seeing that to Harry it would look as if she was trying to help him, but she shook her head,
"Sorry, kid, there's something that's gotta be done first." She ignored his yells, muffled by the gag, and left him alone in the room, closing the other door behind her.
Hogwarts-present
"And the rest you know." Faith finished. Everyone looked to Buffy at this, and she sighed,
"I got there… Faith told me she had killed Harry, and I believed her cos of the blood on her hand- Voldemort's blood. We fought, but…" She paused, "When it came to… to…it… I couldn't. I have to admit that I nearly did…" She looked at Faith, "But when you didn't try to stop me, I knew something was wrong."
"And that's when you found Harry and saw Voldemort." Giles said. Buffy nodded. Both slayers we're praying no one would ask for details of the events directly after this, and thankfully they had all caught on well enough to say nothing.
"Did Voldemort tell you anything else?" Dumbledore asked Faith instead. "Anything at all about his plans?"
"Nothing more than I've said. He was still testing me. I got the feeling that he had just got some big info though… the state that the messenger was apparently in, and the info on Buffy suggests that their latest source was a demon… which doesn't seem good… this guy has a major grudge against any muggles or non-pureblood witches and wizards… and if he gets the support of demons and stuff like that… it's not gonna be an easy fight." Faith said.
"And If Voldemort ever did manage to take control…" Giles said thoughtfully, "If Demons were in his inner circle… once they got control, the demons would betray him, it wouldn't take much for them to kill him and his inner circle…"
"And then the world is an all you can eat demon buffet." Buffy finished.
"Fun." Harry murmured.
"So we stop it. Right?" Xander said excitedly, "Right? We do stop it?"
"Cos demons, and magic, and bad guys… not of the good." Willow added. Oz smiled and slipped an arm around her comfortingly.
"We'll stop it." Buffy said, "It's what we do."
"I'm afraid it is not quite that simple." A cold voice put in from the doorway. Snape stepped in, scowling as usual. "You see, Miss Potter, we have tried many a time to vanquish the dark lord, and it is no mean feat. You don't just decide to destroy him."
"Buffy does." Faith mumbled. Buffy grinned at her, but then turned to Snape,
"Why not?" She asked.
"Why…? Because he is an incredible powerful wizard!" Snape exclaimed, "He has no qualms about killing innocents, and challenging him is not child's play."
"Child's play?" Buffy repeated in disbelief.
"The slayer you may be, but an experienced warrior, knowledgeable about the dark arts you are not." Snape snapped. Everyone in the room was looking back and forth between them in eager anticipation.
"You want experience?" Buffy replied, "I told you before, Snapey, I have experience- count the apocalypses! …or rather non-apocalypses."
"Some demon trying to open a hellmouth with pitiful spells hardly counts as a great victory." Snape scoffed. Buffy raised her eyebrows, her expression clearly saying 'you think that's the extent of my experience?' but she actually said,
"Try fighting hand to hand with the guardians of the damned hellmouth! Or fighting hand to hand with a vampire so strong many other vamps call him master! Try getting an entire class of eighteen year olds to fight off an army of vampires and a giant bloody snake who happens to be the friggin mayor! You don't know me, Snape, don't tell me what I can and can't do." Buffy growled.
"Woo!" Willow said quietly.
"Go Buffy." Xander chanted in a whisper. The Hogwarts students were all grinning widely, and adults looking on with masked amusement. Snape's temple twitched as he shifted his gaze to Faith.
"Is this not the murderer who kidnapped Potter?" He said coldly.
"You missed story-time, Snape, so don't judge when you don't have a clue." Buffy said. Faith raised her eyebrows, not expecting Buffy to come to her defence.
"She is still a filthy murderer." Snape snarled.
"Preachin' to the choir here, vamp-boy." Faith said, raising her hands in surrender.
"What happened to second chances?" Buffy asked him. He didn't reply, glancing quickly at Dumbledore, who had the strangest expression on his face. Eventually Snape said,
"So what will happen to her?" And no one could answer. Buffy locked eyes with Giles and indicated the door with her eyes. As Giles began to move, Buffy said,
"Dumbledore, can we talk?" and followed him. Snape bought up the rear.
Outside the hospital wing, Buffy flung herself into Giles' arms, shocking him.
"It's so good to see you." She said, not having had a chance to say it before. Giles chuckled,
"You too, Buffy. This is quite a complicated world you have entered."
"Oh you don't know the half of it." Buffy replied. She stood back, and took a deep breath.
"So what does happen?" Giles said.
"She should go to Azkaban…" Snape began.
"Not happening." Buffy snapped.
"Why not? She is a mass murderer."
"One word- circumstances."
"That is no excuse…"
"Do desist." Dumbledore said tiredly. "Buffy, you must see Serverus' point- Faith has committed jail worthy crimes…"
"Which she's sorry for!" Buffy interrupted. "Didn't you hear her back there? She hates herself for what she did, she wanted to die! She begged me to kill her." All three men were a little taken aback, having not heard this part of the story in detail. "Locking Faith up would not help her in any way. It would only make her worse, you heard what she said it was like, like rotting away your very being… sticking Faith in jail will kill her. Not to mention the fact that Voldemort would only have to go get her again, and he will be pissed that she betrayed him."
"We understand that, Buffy… but what other solution is there?" Giles asked. "I suppose we could contact the council…"
"Oh, yeah, cos their approach will be so much better than prison." Buffy snapped sarcastically. "She needs help, Giles. Friends, a controlled but… nurturing environment. She can be a good person, Giles, I feel it." She looked around at them, even Snape not saying anything. Buffy turned to Dumbledore, "Harry told me how in to second chances you are- what makes Faith any different? What happened to her before… it wasn't her fault."
"You still neglect the fact that she kidnapped your brother at knife point." Snape said. Buffy rolled her eyes,
"It was a trick, dumbass!"
"Buffy…" Giles scolded, but was ignored.
"She only did it to get at me so I would kill her, you can't just…"
"Perhaps… perhaps there is a solution." Dumbledore said thoughtfully.
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He he he.
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