By: PepperjackCandy
Disclaimer: All things Buffy are owned by Joss Whedon, Alien Enemy, 20th Century Fox, etc. The Harry Potter universe is owned by J.K. Rowling. I'm just putting them in the same bowl and mixing them up a bit. 8-)
Once again, SPOILER WARNING for those who haven't seen Season 5 of Buffy or read Book 4 of Harry Potter.
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Harry was silent for the rest of the trip, thinking about what Giles had said. Did he mean that all of his friends when he was at Hogwarts were Slytherins? That's what he must have meant. Does he support Voldemort, then? Seems that most Slytherins do. Draco's father does. And Snape does. Or did. But Dumbledore wouldn't send me to one of Voldemort's supporters, would he? But what if Dumbledore doesn't know? That's stupid, because if Giles supports Voldemort because of who his friends were when he was at Hogwarts, Dumbledore certainly would know about it . . .
"We're here." Giles said shortly, and Harry noticed that they'd pulled up in front of a brick house. At least, it looked like it was brick - it was too dark to see clearly.
Harry and Giles got out of the car and silently walked up the sidewalk to the front door. Giles knocked twice, then opened the door.
Harry saw a roomful of people, their eyes all red and swollen from crying. An air of hopelessness surpassing anything Harry had ever experienced filled the room. Dawn sat on the sofa, her head pillowed on the shoulder of the only person in the room whose eyes weren't red, a young man with obviously bleached-blond hair. A red-haired young woman sitting on the sofa next to her held Dawn's right hand.
All eyes turned to the door as Giles and Harry walked into the room.
Dawn lifted her head slightly. "Harry?" She asked.
"I heard." He said simply. "Hope you don't mind."
She shook her head. "No. I hoped you'd . . . but I thought . . ."
No longer seeing any of the other people in the room, Harry walked over to her and placed his hand on her mouth. "Shh." He said. "Don't talk. Save your strength." Then he took her left hand in his and sat on the floor next to the right leg of the blond man, facing a blonde woman also sitting on the floor, who had the redhead's right hand.
How long they sat like this, Harry wasn't sure. Him with his right arm rested on the seat of the sofa, Dawn's hand in his, silently willing as much strength to her as he could.
Finally, though, the young dark-haired man on the other side of the room fell asleep, his chin resting on his chest. He jerked awake.
"Why don't you go on up to bed, Xander," the red-haired woman said. "You can use," she looked at Dawn for confimation, "any room but Dawn's."
After Xander left the room, the woman with honey-blonde hair who'd been sharing his chair with him said, "I'm going to go with him. Upstairs. With him." There was nervousness in her tone, and she fidgeted and pointed vaguely in the direction Xander had gone.
"'Night, Anya." The red-haired woman said, and the honey-blonde woman disappeared up the stairs so quickly, Harry almost could have believed that she'd Disapparated.
Harry thought idly that if the honey-blonde's name was Anya, then the redhead and the blonde on the floor next to him must be Willow and Tara. He'd looked forward to meeting them, once.
Somewhere in the house, a clock tolled 3:00 a.m. The redhead started to cry again, and the blonde moved up to her lap, holding her and stroking her hair. Eventually, the blonde started crying, too, and this time it was the redhead's turn to be the comforter.
Eventually, all cried out once again, they fell asleep in each other's arms.
Dawn released Harry's hand momentarily and turned towards the two women. "Willow? Tara?" She shook them gently.
"Hm?" The blonde said, gazing blearily at Dawn.
"Why don't the two of you go on up to bed. You can use whatever room Xander and Anya aren't in."
The blonde nodded. "Will? Wake up." She nudged the redhead gently.
"Wha?"
"We're going to go upstairs."
"'Kay."
Linking hands, the two women went upstairs.
Harry wasn't sure what to do - whether he should take the spot that the redhead - Willow, he guessed - had vacated or stay there on the floor.
Dawn solved that problem by looking down at Harry and patting the sofa on her right-hand side.
"Thanks." He moved to sit on Dawn's right-hand side, and Dawn put her head on his shoulder, reaching out for the blond man with her left hand this time. Harry ran his fingers through her auburn hair in what he hoped was a consoling manner.
They sat in silence until Dawn eventually started to fall asleep where she sat.
"You should go get some sleep," Harry told her.
"I'm all right," she mumbled, "just resting my . . ."
Harry and the blond man looked at each other met each other's eyes over her sleeping form. Harry propped her up as Spike lifted her in his arms to carry her upstairs.
Spike lay Dawn gently on her bed, and pulled the covers up as Harry went to the window and opened it to let Joy out to hunt.
"But where will you sleep?" Were Dawn's last words before sleep claimed her.
"I don't need to sleep," they said in similar dismissive tones.
Surprised, they looked at each other, and, by mutual silent agreement, headed downstairs.
"I'm just dying for a fag," Spike complained once they were downstairs, pulling a cigarette out of his pack. "You coming with?" He asked as he opened the door.
"Sure." Harry shrugged as he glanced into the living room and saw that Giles had taken over the sofa, where he was snoring peacefully.
They moved out onto the steps of the house, and Spike lit his cigarette. He took a long drag. "You want one?" He held the pack out to Harry, who gracefully refused.
"Spike." The blond man introduced himself, extending his right hand for Harry to shake.
Harry shook Spike's hand. "Harry Potter." He noticed that Spike's hand was awfully cold.
"*The* Harry Potter?" Spike asked.
"Well, *a* Harry Potter, certainly." Harry responded.
"Good answer." Spike gave Harry an approving smile. "Don't want to give any more information than you need to people you don't know.
"So, why don't you sleep?"
Harry shrugged. "Well, partly because it's what? 11:00 a.m. my time?"
"You in London?"
"Scotland."
"Close enough. It's noon your time. Eight hour difference. Remember that, it'll come in handy the next time you . . . drop in for a visit." Spike dropped his cigarette butt to the ground and lit another one. "You sure you don't want one?"
"No, thanks."
"And what's the other reason?"
"Other reason?"
"Why you don't sleep."
"Oh. Well, I go to school all day, then study all evening, then I usually have a detention. And then there are my after-hours activities."
"Like what?" Spike asked, intrigued.
"Following spiders through the forest, sneaking food from the kitchens, conspiring to free the house-elves, listening to golden eggs underwater in the Prefects' bathroom . . ."
"And I thought *my* mates're strange."
"Well, with one thing and another, I just lost most of my need to sleep." Harry sat down on the step next to Spike. "How about you? Why don't you need to sleep?"
"I'm a vampire."
Harry jumped back up. "A vampire!" He exclaimed, startled. "You aren't going to . . . you know . . ."
"No, I'm not going to bite you. Sit back down."
"But, if you're a vampire. . . Buffy was the Slayer, wasn't she?"
Spike nodded. "And I loved her."
The painful simplicity in Spike's tone drew Harry to sit back down on the step next to him again.
"But how . . ."
"Does it matter? She was bright, and beautiful. She glowed like the sun. Like the moon. Like the stars.
"I know what you're thinking. It doesn't make sense. But when does love ever make sense?"
Harry hated breaking the vampire's romantic mood, so he merely shrugged silently.
Spike grew silent, also. They sat watching the night for a while pass into morning. At quarter of five, Spike stood. "Almost sunrise. Got to get inside. You coming?"
"I'll be there in a minute," Harry said as he looked up into the now navy-blue sky. He saw a familiar white shape ghosting towards the house and into Dawn's bedroom window. He was glad he had left Dawn's bedroom window open. That way Hedwig could make herself comfortable without waking her.
When Harry went back into the house, Spike had pulled a chair well away from the range of the windows and was curled up in it reading a book of poetry. Harry sighed, wished he'd thought to bring his novel with him, and went into the kitchen.
Once he was in the kitchen he dug through the cabinets until he found a bag of pretzels. He pulled his wand out, determined to see how many different colors he could turn the pretzels. Red. That was easy. He slid the now-red pretzel to one side.
Orange. Not too bad. The orange one joined the red one.
Yellow. The color of sunflowers. Pretty.
By the time Willow and Tara came downstairs, Harry had a rainbow of pretzels on the table. The one Harry thought was Willow, the redhead, grabbed the teal one, popping it in her mouth. "Mm. Not bad. Still tastes like a pretzel."
"What did you expect it to taste like?" Harry asked with genuine curiosity.
She shrugged. "Dunno. I just figured that it'd taste, you know, different."
"You want one?" Harry asked the blonde, who merely shook her head.
"Oh. We never introduced ourselves last night." The redhead said. "I'm Willow."
"Oh. So you," he spoke to the blonde, "must be Tara?"
"How'd you know that?" Tara asked, watching with fascination as Harry created a new teal pretzel.
"Dawn talks about you a lot. She says you're both witches."
"So what're you doing?" Willow asked, glad to think of something besides Buffy, "Homework?"
"No. Just seeing how many different colors I can come up with. Hold out your hand."
Willow complied, and Harry put a pretzel in it, and turned it the same peachy-pink of Willow's skin.
"I guess I'm now to the point where I'm making up colors," he said as he looked at his most recent pretzel, a golden blue.
"That's a pretty color. Could I have it?" Tara asked as she took a seat across from Willow.
"Sure." Harry smiled gently at her as she took the pretzel and bit into it.
"It's good." She said.
"Good morning." A groggy voice behind Harry said.
"Morning, Dawn." Willow and Tara smiled gently. "Harry here was just . . ."
"Harry?" Dawn seemed to see him for the first time. "You really are here." She threw her arms around his neck, hugging him.
"I got here last night. Didn't you remember?"
She gave him a sad smile. "When I woke up, Hedwig was there with a note from you, so I thought I must have dreamed it. So I answered the note and came downstairs."
"You answered it?" Harry asked. "I wonder what . . ."
Tap, tap, tap.
Everyone looked around for the source of the tapping. "The window!" Willow said, running over to that side of the room and pulling aside the curtains.
With a half-grin, she opened the window, and Hedwig flew in, looking from Harry to Dawn and back again with what looked very like a smile on her face. She extended her right leg for Harry to take the note off.
"Do I need to read this?" He asked Dawn.
"No. I just told you what happened to Buffy, and about the dream that I had that you were here in Sunnydale."
Harry smiled and slipped the note into his pocket, to put it with Dawn's other notes.
The rest of the day, Harry didn't do much but be supportive of Dawn. When she went upstairs to cry, he went with her and held her, her tears soaking into his shirt. At lunchtime, Harry made his best stab at fixing lunch for the rest, but he didn't have much experience with cooking, so he eventually settled for heating up some condensed soup and leaving bread and lunchmeat out on the counter. They opted to order delivery pizza for dinner.
That night, when Dawn went up to bed, she asked Harry to come with her.
They walked upstairs and didn't come down for a long time.
Finally, Spike stood and headed for the stairs.
"Where are you going?" Willow asked.
"I'm going to go up there and make sure that that wizard's not deflowering our little girl." He spat.
"Harry wouldn't do that. He's not like that." Willow insisted.
"Oh? How do you know that?"
"Because . . . Dawn told us so." Willow finished with false bravado.
"And that's what a seducer of young women would *want* you to think." Spike said as he headed for the stairs again.
Willow threw herself in his path. When she insisted, "I'll go upstairs and check on them," the vampire backed down and returned to his chair in the corner.
Willow climbed the stairs as quietly as possible, not sure if she was doing it to avoid disturbing them, or to avoid warning them of her presence.
She cracked Dawn's door open quietly, and found Dawn asleep on the bed, with Harry asleep in a nest of blankets on the floor by her side.
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A/N: Before someone tells me that Harry hadn't found out about Snape's former Death Eater status before May 23, you're right! However, Harry's a smart kid. He probably figured it out from watching Snape and Karkaroff talking about the Dark Mark on Karkaroff's arm that it had something to do with Voldemort.
"And I thought *my* mates're strange." Is courtesy of my dear husband, Andy.