Disclaimer: I don't own any characters.
Chapter 33
"Piper, are you sure?" Buffy asked for the fifth time as they made their way back to the Manor.
They walked briskly down side streets and Piper tried to convince her companion that the plan was foolproof. Again.
"Buffy," she began again, losing patience, "I told you...the Draught of the Living Dead is the most powerful sleeping potion in existence. The only way someone can wake up from it is by giving them the antidote. But you know what? I just thought of something. Here we are talking about Angel like he doesn't have a say. What if he doesn't want to be cured? You did say he was the brooding type."
"Yeah. He can be pretty big into the self-loathing. Says he deserves everything that's happened to him, which I can't argue with...to a point."
"How about we bring it up to him after the big battle? Honestly, if we survive it, he'll just deserve it that much more," Piper compromised.
"Yeah," Buffy agreed. "That sounds fair."
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Back at the manor, Harry was answering Angel's questions in the kitchen. He didn't have many, however, as Draco had been pretty thorough. Harry had just finished telling him about Phoebe's latest premonition when Willow walked in with Spike and Draco.
"I need some other volunteers to test out how many individual force fields I can keep going at one time," she said, looking pointedly at the two brunettes sitting at the table.
"Come on then, Foreheads R' Us," said Spike while he retrieved a coffee mug of blood out of the fridge. "Let's have a rumble for old times sake."
Draco snorted and Willow looked at him, disappointment clear on her face as if to say, don't encourage them, please.
"I'm in," said Harry quickly, standing up to join the group. "Angel?"
He sighed heavily. "This is a bad idea."
"A little faith please, Angel," said Willow looking offended. "We need more people though."
Just then Buffy and Piper had returned from their walk.
"More people for what?" asked Buffy.
"I was just going to test out how many force fields I can hold at once," replied Willow. "My guess is about a dozen factoring in all the movement and distance and -"
"Yeah, yeah we got it," interrupted Piper. "Chris! Ron! Hermione!" she bellowed.
Soon they had a decent sized group of people all waiting to see Willow show off.
"Alrighty. The plan is simple," Willow began. "I'll put up a force field around each of us and then we'll just try to hurt each other in some way and see if they hold," she finished, smiling as if they were just about to have tea and not possibly cause each other bodily harm.
Hermione looked a little nervous. "Maybe we should just try some stunning spells?" she suggested. "You know, nothing too dangerous."
"Honey, I don't think the Death Eaters are going to be trying to stun us," Willow said, gently. "I have to really test myself on this. Don't worry. I've done way harder things."
Willow put up a force field around each person. There were 12 in all. First, it was Hermione's job to perform spells of increasing degrees of danger to each person. Then they progressed to two people dueling. Then two pairs of two people and so on until there was basically a free-for-all in the manor. Ten minutes of heavy mock combat later and the good news was that all the force fields had held. The bad news was that Willow collapsed and the living room was pretty much destroyed.
Looking dejected she said, "I'm sorry, guys. It looks like I can only hold them all for a short time. There's just too much going on, too many things to concentrate on. I have to reinforce them individually after really nasty spells and I'm almost positive that they won't hold up for more than ten minutes if I'm trying this many at once."
"You did great, Will," said Buffy. "Ten minutes of invulnerability is way better than none."
"Buffy's right," chimed in Angel. "Ten minutes is more than enough time to change the tide in a battle. We'll have to use them strategically and not all at once. We need a battle plan."
There was a chorus of serious agreements all around. The severity of what they were going to come up against was beginning to weigh heavily on everyone involved, and with no way to tell when Phoebe's last premonition was going to happen, everyone was on edge.
"Ok, if we're going to do this, we need to do it right," Piper began. "Someone needs to send word to Dumbledore and the rest of the Order."
"I'll go to Dumbledore," said Ron.
"I'll go with him," Hermione added, taking Ron's hand so they could orb.
Only Harry caught the subtle glare that flashed swiftly across Draco's face before he expertly composed himself again.
"Next, we need all the room in here we can get. Let's move out all the extra furniture and get some more chairs and stuff," Piper continued.
Paige orbed all the unneeded furniture to the attic and Snape conjured up a few dozen chairs. All that was left was to wait for the cavalry.
In less than twenty minutes, the manor was jam packed with magical and supernatural beings which mostly consisted of the Order and a few handfuls of Buffy's closest slayer friends.
Everyone that was present was up to speed with the situation. They were simply here to discuss strategy. Piper began.
"From Phoebe's premonition we know that we are up against three main enemies. Well, four if you count Voldemort separate which we probably should. They are Death Eaters, the super vampires-"
"Uber-vamps," Buffy corrected.
"Yeah, that," Piper continued, "and demons." She was about to go on but Phoebe raised her hand. "Yes, Phoebe I count warlocks and dark lighters and all that good stuff under just plain 'demons.'"
"Hey, I'm supposed to be the psychic one," she pouted, trying to lighten the mood but only earning one of Snape's rare smiles, which was enough for her.
"I think it would be best if we matched ourselves up with the enemy that we know best," Buffy suggested. "Me and the other slayers will take on the uber-vamps, the sisters can go after the demons and the wizardy types can handle the Death Eaters."
"That'll be good to start," said Angel. "But once we get down there it'll be chaos. The uber-vamps alone will probably outnumber us all," he pointed out.
"Yeah but we can each take on about four at a time," Buffy reminded him.
"Yeah we know you're all really strong and that's splendid," Draco interrupted hotly, earning him some glares. "I just want to remind some of us here," he said looking pointedly at Piper, "that we need to be aiming to kill. I don't want to hear any of this, 'we don't vanquish humans' nonsense."
"Don't you take that tone of voice with me, mister -" Piper began.
"He's right, Piper," Dumbledore said, calmly. "Those who have sided with Voldemort are prepared to kill. They are not interested in stunning their enemies or taking any prisoners. Their main goal will be to clear the way for Voldemort to get to Harry." He paused here and looked to Harry trying to read any trace of distress on his face, but Harry was merely looking at Piper and nodding gravely. "And they will do so without mercy. Those of us in the Order are prepared to do what it takes to stop them."
"Well we are too," said Paige. "We know this is life and death. We won't hesitate if it means losing someone we care about. Which is why Hermione and I have been slaving away making more potions than we can count. We have enough vanquishing potions to fill up a backpack for everyone."
She waved her hand and a large box, big enough for a couple of people to sit in comfortably, orbed into the middle of the room. It was full of brown, canvas bags that were a bit smaller than an average backpack and each one was full of small bottles of an electric green potion. Paige began handing them out as she spoke by orbing them one at a time onto people laps. Once everyone had a bag, she put hers on.
"The strap is elastic," Paige explained. "It'll fit each person differently, but we made them so that you wear them off to the side and out of your way. If you're right handed, wear it on your left hip so you can reach across and throw it without having to fumble with it."
"There are a decent amount of potions per person but you should really only use them in an emergency," Hermione added. "Basically, if you get cornered or outnumbered or are about to face off with something you've never seen or dealt with...use one," she finished bravely, but it was easy to see that she wasn't thrilled with the idea herself.
Draco noticed. Great, he thought, another person I have to worry about.
While people around the room were outfitting themselves with their packs, Paige continued. "We were also able to cook up one more beauty. By 'we' I mostly mean Hermione and her giant brain with Snape's help too I guess." She waved her hand again and a small golden pill, about half the size of a plain M&M candy, appeared in everyone's hand. "This is a luck potion. It was the closest thing we could think of to a protection potion since those apparently don't exist. We made it into a pill form to make it easier to carry around. Since we don't know when this battle is going down, I suggest everyone keeps it on them at all times. Pop this little sucker and you'll be lucky for about fifteen minutes so don't panic and take it early."
Several people gingerly placed their pills in their pockets, triple checking that there weren't any holes in their pants.
"So we have Willow's shields for ten minutes, on and off, and a luck potion for another fifteen minutes...what do we do when we're on our own?" Dawn asked, nervously, "Cross our fingers?"
"We do the best we can," Kingsley replied in his calming voice, and several people just nodded at no one in particular.
"We still need a way to close the seal," Buffy pointed out. "Even if things go our way at first, if we don't close it, we'll just end up getting overwhelmed."
"Willow and I have been working on a spell for that," Phoebe said. "All we need is a bit of Piper's blood, but we can't exactly test it out till we get there."
"It's better than nothing," Xander said.
"We seem to be saying that about a lot of things," Spike muttered, but no one heard him.
"We have one last thing to pass out," Snape said. "The Headmaster and I have been working on a way to communicate to everyone that the battle has started and to get everyone to the seal when the time comes, as not all of us have the ability to travel quickly," he said mostly looking at the slayers. "We have combined our portkey and floo powder magic with the sisters' magic and we devised these coins." As he spoke, he walked around the room handing out silver coins the size of quarters but with nothing on the front or back of them. "When the time comes, the coins will emit a high pitched tone. Then you simply take the coin in your hand and say 'seal' and you will be taken there. The coins will become inactive after use to prevent any unwanted enemies from using them."
Before anyone could say anything else, an owl flew into the room from the open windows in the conservatory and dropped a letter in Kingsley's lap.
"I am needed at the Ministry if we're done here," he said.
"Yes, I think that we are as prepared as we can be," said Dumbledore. "All we can do now is wait."
With that, the group slowly started to disperse. The slayers went home with Buffy, the Order members apparated back to England for the time being and Leo took Wyatt up to the Elders, until only the sisters were left with Chris and Ron, Harry, Hermione and Draco.
Hermione wandered off into the kitchen alone and Draco, feeling her turmoil, followed.
He watched as she took a jug of orange juice out of the fridge and poured herself a glass. Her hands were shaking. It wasn't until she turned to sit down at the table that she saw him there.
"Let me guess," she said morosely, "you can feel my inner grief?"
"Er, yeah," he admitted a bit awkwardly, sitting down in front of her.
"And?" she pressed, clearly wanting to get rid of him.
He sensed this too and it irritated him. Here he was trying to help her and she was snapping at him.
"And I don't understand what the problem is," he stated.
"It's not that hard, Malfoy," she snapped again. "Or did you not hear the same thing I did in there? It'll be a miracle if we survive this and we have to kill people. I don't know if I can do it," she finished lamely, the fire going out of her as she spoke.
"You can and you will," he retorted.
"That's easy for you to say. You don't understand. The potions that Paige and I made...you didn't see what they do. They blow things up! If I throw that at a death eater, I'll be blowing up a person! It could be your father!"
"Good!" he hissed. "It's what he deserves, what they all deserve. Or did you forget that those people you're so worried about blowing up are the same people that supported Voldemort blowing up Harry's parents, the same people that would get in line to blow you up?"
"But that's what separates us from them, don't you see?" she argued. "They're evil. All we have going for us is that we're not. If we go down to their level -"
"Dammit, Granger! We'll live," he said, banging the table with his fist. "That's what will happen if we go down to their level. If you hesitate for a second, you're dead."
He was right and she knew it, and he knew that she knew it but she would never agree out loud. Instead she took a few gulps of her juice, pushed out from the table and got up.
"I can't talk to you when you're like this," she said sadly.
She turned around to leave the kitchen and right as she crossed the threshold into the living room she walked into Bellatrix Lestrange's knife.