Little bit of Magic

A/N The details of Donny's life are taken from the life of the aunts' brother Vincent from Rules of Magic, you won't find it in the film. Oh in this magic isn't something you can get addicted to, it's natural, just something that's in your blood and self not something you can control.

Magnolia st. Boston Massachusetts 2015

The three of them were walking through town, Tara saying the odd hello to people hither and thither. They still thought the pair of them were weird, that their whole family was weird and deranged. Tara was used to it, her whole life had been stares and whispers, now she just embraced the mystery surrounding herself and tried to be as nice as possible. At one point in her life it would upset her, the names she was called, something her older brother couldn't protect her from.

But he was gone now, not gone as in dead but he was gone from their lives, living a sentient life in the quiet cobble streets of Paris with his lover William. Yes, he'd gotten some names too, not when he was younger, no Donny was quite the ladies man in his time but after he'd faked mentality to avoid Vietnam. He couldn't handle the fight, even for his country, the conscription had sent him far away. He'd had to escape, get away, and William had loved him in return and followed him to France. But dear Donny was gone to the world, a grave with his name on it centred in one of the many war cemeteries in the north of France, he was buried in his own death but not dead himself.

Willow remembered the long life they'd been through and smiled on it, often admiring how Tara still tried to communicate with the lost causes of town, the ones who judged them fiercely and would never be turned around. She'd been there all the whilst Tara had to deal with the escape, even pulling her friends in to help him. She'd been the one who'd comforted her wife through the plane across the Atlantic to Europe and through the blackness of the faux funeral. All for the knowledge Donny would be safe from detection. Tara still cried about in small hours. When she remembered their childhood and how their father would beat them, how they clung to each other when the crash happened.

My seventeenth birthday, I went to meet Willow at the train station in uptown New York City, my home at the time. And they followed us, my dad's idea of a cruelty checking where I was going. Donny was out at the bar on Side Alley st. They didn't approve, well my mother didn't much mind my leanings but my father used it as an excuse to harass me further, to beat me up because I was half a person. A sinner. He was so angry he wasn't looking where he was going, his eyes a blown red, he didn't see it coming. The lamppost. Willow she saw, I was looking the wrong way, she tried to signal scream that he was going to crash but it was no use. She'd stood in front of me to protect me but they didn't make it. The curve went swerving towards the post at full speed, I could see mom's concentration shoot up, she was trying, using all the force she had to soften the blow with magic, but it was too late. They were gone, too far gone to be pulled out. Nothing worked. I moved back to Boston to be with Willow, she kept me, framed my tears and held me when I couldn't stop shaking. I felt it, the pain they must have felt, curse of an empath.

I won't see Donny's grandchildren go down the same route, be so blinded by hate that they corrupt. I'll feed them love if I have to. "Darling, you've done enough. We've kept them safe for a long time now, they've grown, they're good people Tara. We did a good job. You did the best job you could, a wonderful mother." Willow had said the night all her fears collapsed into reality. After Buffy there was a crack in the house, it'd started in the porch wood but now it was seeping through the frames of the windows. They were breaking apart. Magic taking over because it could, pulling a family apart. Tara cried when she thought of her girls losing their love, feeling the pain of heartbreak. She couldn't bare it, it was pulling her apart.

Willow had to do something, her love was drifting away in a flood of future grief, nothing had happened yet. She was dwelling on the darkness of the future, it was gut wrenching her, she couldn't do anything else. So that day, they were walking through town, it was a light breezy spring morning. Tara was concentrating on her niceties towards the townspeople. Dawn was walking behind them, slightly withdrawn, she had been since Buffy left. They walked out from the post office back towards the house on Magnolia st. the buildings looming in the distance. One was particular usual but had all the telling signs of construction, scaffolding and whatnot, vans, ladders and most importantly construction workers.

Dawn's eyes picked up when she found herself almost staring at one brown floppy haired guy in a hardhat. He turned to look at her, gave a give gaze and smile before he was reminded to return to work by a another man in a yellow hardhat. Dawn walked far too slowly from that point on, her mind wandering about the man in the hardhat, a nickname her brain would give him in future. Willow caught her stares and took note of this man from the site, he seemed like he'd be a good fit for her. Then a very very bad idea struck her mind and looking at Tara she couldn't bare but to see it through.

Later that night, Willow had books cast the table, she knew Tara wouldn't approve so she was working alone. Candles lit the room in a hazelnut glow as she began to enchant the words in old Latin, her tongue flicker over new syllables as she dropped rose petals and lavender into the stove pot and stirred. "Amor veniet" repeated fervently until the spell was complete. The words rolled around her mouth before coming out, pushing her teeth forward as part of her soul wisped into the large pot. The cats roaming around the table legs as they sensed the power drawing from their mistress, they were as a guide, familiars to the cause. Their presence only insinuating the scale of the love she was undertaking.

She gave the caring love part of her towards Dawn, retreating into herself she fell gravely sick for days. It was only by some heaps of rosemary and great loads of care from Tara that she recovered in time to see her sacrifice play out in vivid reality. She would confess her spell one day, tell Tara in the dark of night and yes she would be angry, she would stay mad and sleep in a different room for weeks to come afterwards, but it was years in the future. And once Willow had proven she knew her place and that magic was not a toy and she could've really messed with Dawn's life.

Dawn and Tara were sitting on the porch steps in the midsummer sun, it was mild evening breeze just grazing up to five pm. The hardhat man would get off his shift at five, as the bell tolled it's time, Dawn felt a flicker. She felt warm, and sunny and suddenly her mind flushed with love. She stood up suddenly, leaving the clutches of Tara's arms as she walked across the veg patch and out the back gate towards the town.

"Dawn, sweetie where are you going?" Tara called after her, but there was no reply, she looked over to where Willow was tending the cabbages as she glanced over the fence after Dawn too. She shrugged her confusion over Dawn's swift exit but she couldn't explain yet, the blunt lie was for her own benefit.

Dawn walked towards the town, her mind focussed on the task of walking quickly towards this man. He was standing on the edge of the house, it was a site that was almost finished. He removed his hardhat and smiled sweetly and the joke he'd just heard as he walked towards his van. Dawn walked at fast pace towards him, smiled as she stopped in front of him. Their blue-brown eyes connected in a single moment of perfect happiness, all the worry about love failing and Buffy leaving was gone in an instant. It was just him and her in that insatiable moment.

She kissed him. Pushing her lips firmly against his in a mix of summer warmth and the rosy smell of bread that wafted from him, was it bread? No, more like biscuits, he was loving and a kind kisser. Taking her lead and rolling with it until their lips parted and the held breath left his lungs in a great gasps. There was silence around them for a few seconds before a couple of the construction worker crowd gave a little applause and Dawn flushed a bright pink in excuse for her actions. She looked at him and he looked down at her.

Running a single hand through his hair and picking up his hardhat he said. "Hi, I'm Xander. Xander Harris."