Love and Magic
A/N This is the story of Practical Magic, the film and the books because I've read Practical Magic and Rules of Magic so I know the aunts' background. But I'm using the Buffyverse characters because I was watching the film and I thought they would fit. But if you don't know the story then this will just be a story about Buffy and Angel finding their love, but he's human. So complete AU. No demons and Hellmouth but magic does exist. With a little help from Willow and Tara who have looked after Buffy and Dawn since their parents' deaths. Tara still had the same upbringing, just in the 1950s. And Dawn and Xander will be married, but that's actually canon so I'm not doing something weird, it just fits the best. Also, I didn't put this in crossovers because it only takes the setting and the main plot, there's no actual interaction with the real characters. The italics is narration.
Magnolia st. Boston, Massachusetts 2002
"You see Dawnie, me and your other old hag aunt over there," Tara pointed at Willow who gave her a half irritated smirk back and stuck her tongue out. Even in her fifties the redhead still had an edge. A very childish silly edge, but it was there. They were sitting round the dining table in the kitchen, chocolate splodged on Dawn's nose, fairy wings tied onto her shoulders, crouching on the table over by the pile of books Buffy was trying to study from. Every so often she'd ask Willow for what one of the words meant but she was mostly ok. But Tara was telling the story, the story of how they met, of how Buffy and Dawn came to live with them and the rest of history.
"We fell in love, when I visited one summer, in this very house..."
Once upon a time, there was a girl, not unlike myself. She was blonde and had big blue eyes like yours. She was seventeen and of the witching age, so her mother sent her here to this big house on Magnolia Street for the summer. You see, she was to learn all the important parts of witchcraft properly and so she would be able to control her power. She was taught by her aunt Isabelle, who was very old but very wise, with lines under her eyes and wrinkles on her forehead.
"Was the girl you aunt Tara?" Dawn said, pressing her fingers into the brownie mix again getting it all over her sticky fingers. Tara grabbed some tissue and wiped away the endless layers of sweetness, smiling warmly at the six year old with a familiar mischief. On the other side of the table, Buffy was still studying with Willow, blowing flame into the candles, smiling at her aunt with a pride she hadn't felt yet. She was witchy after all, she'd worried she wouldn't be, but now it was, she really was a witch. The bloodline was true.
"Perhaps Dawnie, but perhaps not, you'll have to wait and see." Tara said giving Dawn a quick kiss to her forehead and continuing with the story. Willow gave a little chuckle, she loved the way Tara told stories, she was always so excited just to tell it.
So, the girl, she was staying up in the cold draughty attic and her feet were always cold. But everyday she would walk past the ice cream shop, and inside there was the most beautiful girl about her age sitting in front of her fan. Red hair blowing out into the air behind her, flustered at the excruciating that she looked so hot. The girl could almost imagine the romantic music playing in the background as she decided one Wednesday it was time to talk to 'the redhead' and what she saw when she walked inside the shop was the girl on break with an ice cream cone between her lips, licking them deliciously.
"Ok honey, stop, she doesn't need to know in that much detail." Willow interjected giving her wife a little smirk. They called each other that, wife and wife, because it was what they were, they just didn't have the piece of paper confirming it. But they couldn't get married, not for another two years. And they would, it would be a beautiful ceremony, they had Buffy and Dawn aged only nine and eight respectively, be the flower girls. Willow'd curl her wavy red hair and Tara would lace it with the dozen kinds of wild flowers picked from the garden. Including a lilac from the brooding patch over by the tomatoes. But for now, they were respective wife and wife and that was fine enough for them.
"Ok fine, but I'm telling you later." Tara replied, giving Willow a smirk and blowing her a kiss across the table. Buffy rolled her eyes at the ridiculousness of her aunts, they were definitely in love, but definitely too smoochy for her liking. But then again she was seven.
But that day at the ice cream shop was the day that I talked to your aunt Willow for the first time. And to be fair all she did was serve me mint choc chip and smile at me, but it was the fifties. But gradually we started to talk more and I started to show her little spells and bits of magic we could get away with. And over the summer we bonded, we had to hide of course, and I wasn't even sure she would like me. It was different back then, we weren't allowed to be together, the law wouldn't allow it. And people would turn their noses down at us of we were together in public.
"Why weren't you and aunt Willow allowed to be together?" Dawn asked as Tara scooped her up and she settled into the blonde's lap, her head resting on Tara's shoulder, her face still covered in chocolate. But it was late, and she was tired, and really should be going to bed. Buffy looked up from her books at her sister's question, folding over the pages she got up from her chair and perched herself on the spot on the table Dawn had just vacated. She was interested, she wanted to know, she liked history. Willow walked over too, standing beside the table and running one hand through Buffy's hair, she had Tara's honey blonde hair too, something she'd inherited. The redhead's other hand was now linked with Tara's free one as they looked lovingly upon their two girls.
"Well, years ago when a man and man or a woman and a woman wanted to be together, they couldn't be. People believed it was against the church, because in the Bible it says that a man and a woman are supposed to be together. I think they were afraid jelly bean. I think that if they saw two women in love and no bad things happening to them that maybe the Bible was wrong. People get very afraid when they can't explain things. And years ago, when the Bible was written it was because people didn't have an explanation for miracles, and they explained it all away with these rules. But now we have science that has moved on, and the rules no longer make sense. But people are still taught them, still cling to the old reasons for things."
Tara continued on, until she looked down at the sleeping girl in her arms, brown hair drifting over her shoulder. The sleeping Dawn had one thumb in her mouth, fairy wings falling off her back and a little drool dripping down onto Tara's shoulder. Buffy was asleep too, leaning against Willow's shoulder. Tara gently stood up, supporting Dawn's little body as her and Willow brought the girls up to bed. Buffy was awake enough to walk behind Willow, her hand gripped on tight as she was still scared of the rafters in the attic.
The witches settled their little ones into bed, they were cuddled in beside each other in the bed nestled in the attic. Lavender and salt on their bedside tables and estranged owl hoots flooding the room. The house was rickety and old but it was theirs. Willow and Tara stood leaning on each other for a second, gazing down at their adopted children, Tara's niece's children. Of course that was a whole different story. Then the pair of them carried themselves off to bed, where they too cuddled in beside each other, a little closer than the girls but warm all the same. Just left with gentle words as the wind shook the house. I love you Willow.
"I love you too Tara." Willow didn't need ears to hear her woman speak, their minds were as perfectly in tune as their hearing was.