Chapter Four: Adrian-
"You're overreacting! I'm not trying to be a stick in the mud here, but it was only a few snippets of conversation. You don't know exactly what's happening."
"Staying places unneeded suspicion. She saw it. They'll be coming here next. I know it. I know you think Divination's cracked, but you have to trust me on this. Two of them are coming. They're going to ask me dozens of questions then take me from here. I won't be able to go back to Hogwarts. They'll give me to what's left of the Initiative and I'll end up being sliced and diced like Spike was."
"Divination is not a guarantee. You don't know that that's going to happen."
"It's not gonna happen Herm. I'm able to see certain parts of the future. I saw what was going to happen if I stay. I love it here, you know that, but I don't want to end up as the Initiative's newest pet project! I talked to Cordy, she hasn't seen it, but she says I should trust my instincts, and my instincts say go to England and stay with Spike and Buffy."
"But Adrian, you don't even know if they're there! Eavesdropping is never completely reliable. Stop packing!"
"You stop taking my stuff out!"
I grabbed a pair of jeans from Hermione's hands, accidentally snagging my fingers on the locket she wore around her neck. My fingers touched the small gold chain the world flashed in front of me. Another vision.
A brief flash of a woman. Brownish hair flowed down her back. Her clothes were witches robes and she sat at a desk inside a stone room. She smiled warmly at a child who walked up to her and pointed to a scraped knee. It healed when she spread her hands across it. Hermione's locket, or something like it, was around her neck. A man who's face was completely blocked suddenly appeared. They embraced and kissed. The vision ended with that, and I found myself slumped against the side of my bed.
Hermione was clutching me to her, her hand gently feeling my forehead. "Adrian, are you alright? I'm so sorry I yelled! I hope-"
"Your locket," I said, reaching out to touch it once again. "Where'd you get it?"
"Mum brought it for my birthday. The local jeweler sold it to her." She looked concerned. "Did it do something to you? What happened?"
I closed my eyes trying to recall the details. "It was a vision. There was a woman, a witch, in a room. It might've been the Hospital Wing at school. I couldn't really tell when I saw it. She healed a kid, a first year maybe, then kissed a man."
"Do you think it was the past or the future?"
"I dunno." I shrugged, as we both heard a knock at the door. "Come in."
Angel walked into to the room, shutting the door behind him. He eyed the mess on my bed from the previous frantic packing. His gaze slid slowly down to Hermione and I. It was then that I realized I was basically in her lap. We both blushed as we hurriedly got off of each other. She smoothed her jumper back into place while I tied my hair back trying to act like nothing was going on.
"Leaving?" He asked with a cocked eyebrow.
Hermione answered quickly. "No he's not, he knows it's safer here, don't you Adrian?"
"Cordy was convinced otherwise, and since Adrian was listening outside the door while we were talking I'd guess the idea popped up in his head too." I scowled as Angel spoke. I'd been perfectly quiet out side the door, yet he'd still heard me! And Cordelia had spoken. Of course I hadn't said anything about it being a secret… but still. "I guess I was right." He finished.
"If I stay I become a scientific guinea pig. I'm leaving." I stood, and started to throw the rest of my things into my trunk.
Angel held up his hands in defense. "I'm not stopping you."
"You're not?" Hermione and I both asked.
"Cordy told me about the visions. You can go if you think you'll be safer with Buffy and…him. I'll fax them, and tell them you're coming." Angel grimaced at the thought of Spike. "If anyone does come for you we'll that you've gone back to school early."
"See 'Mione, everything'll be perfectly fine." I stroked her hair as I spoke. "You've got the Floo Powder right?"
Hermione sighed heavily. "Yes I do. I suppose I'll help you pack."
*~*
We arrived at the underground apartment an hour later after stopping to rest somewhere in Massachusetts. Hermione was the first to Floo in with my trunk. I came in next and was bowled over by my sister when I'd barely taken three steps out of the fireplace. She pounced on me, knocking us both against the wall. My head hit the stone painfully. I think it was meant to be a hug, but it was like being caught in a vice.
"Nice to see you too Piper." I said while concentrating on pushing down the demon that wanted to come out with the pain. "Missed you."
"Yeah, me too. I wasn't expecting to see you for another three weeks." Piper finally released me and now just grinned widely. After greeting Hermione with the same exuberance she literally dragged us out of the kitchen. What I saw during this process was impressive. Either they'd had an interior decorator come along with a couple of bulldozers, or some one with a wand had done a great job with the place.
Piper showed me my room after we talked for a while, and then took Hermione off to do whatever it is girls do upon being reunited. I decided not to bother them, as I had no desire to find out. Unpacking was easy, because in my rushed packing I'd only grabbed some essentials figuring I could ask Cordelia to send the rest over once I was settled. I stuffed a few clothes into my drawers and went back to the hall to see if I could find the adults or Dawn.
The place was quiet except for the occasional laughter from Piper's room. I found the twins asleep in their room but not Buffy, Spike, Dawn, or Willow. They were probably at the school. I was tired, but didn't want to fall asleep incase anyone came in, so I went to the couch in front of the TV and made myself comfortable. Some of Piper's Transfiguration books were on the small table next to the couch and I randomly took one and started to skim through it. The topic was Self-Transfiguration. I was flipping through random pages until one caught my eye. The one on Animagus Transfiguration. Closing my eyes, I shut the book and didn't look at it any further.
The idea of becoming an animagus had flitted through my mind hundreds of times since last year. I'd read up on it, but hadn't told anyone, because it would either cause everyone else to want to 'help' me, or I would've gotten the lecture of my life on not looking for unnecessary problems. Even not telling anyone, dad still gave Harry, Piper, and I a talk at the end of the school year about how we shouldn't try to follow in his footsteps in becoming one. He'd made us promise that if we wanted to we'd wait and do it legally when we graduated. Piper and Harry seemed to have no interest in it anyway and took the lecture to heart, but I was still curious. I didn't know exactly why, but I wanted to, and I didn't want to wait. It was probably the whole jokester complex in me.
Rebelliously I grabbed the book up again and used the table of contents to flip to the animagus section. There was a pen and paper on the desk. The chapter was about one hundred pages and for a half hour I took more notes than Hermione on a typical day in class. From the research I'd done last year I knew most of the information in the book but I wrote it down anyway, and I copied the spell itself word for word. It was a complicated spell, but Transfiguration was my best course, and the more I thought about it, the more determined I was to pull it off, with no outside help.
As I scribbled down on the paper I heard voices in the kitchen. Spike was talking to Buffy about something. I kept writing until I heard heavy foot falls right behind me. At this point I stuff the papers into my pockets and laid down, pretending to be casually reading.
"'Ey Adrian," said Spike as he came into the room. He sat slouched in the easy chair across from me.
I looked up from the book. "Hey .Where were you guys?"
"Up at the school," Spike grinned. "So, Peaches get on your nerves and send you running back here?"
"No." I rolled my eyes. "In fact, I'm planning on working there after I graduate."
"Got you bloody brainwashed, the poof does." He muttered. "I'd rather spend time with Xander than Angel."
'The guy's in his 120's and he's still more immature than me', I thought sighing. "Anyway, so why were you at the school?"
"Well Oz's been shrunk back to about age sixteen, so y'know that's always something to talk about. And there was some other stuff too." Spike ended vaguely. He looked suspiciously at the book I was holding and occasionally looking back to. I think in that moment he read my mind pretty well, because he looked at me and said, "Didn't you lot get a talk 'bout that?"
"Yeah," I said innocently. "It's just research."
"Research my arse." Spike smirked knowingly. "I won't tell anyone, but don't come crawling back to me when you end up turning into a fish or something like that."
I scowled at him. "I won't. Nice to see you have that much faith in me."
"Hey, I'm not telling your dad, Remus, Red, or any of 'em mate, but that's all I'm doin'." He said, pulling a pack of cigarettes of his pocket and a lighter. "So, how about we forget this conversation ever happened and you tell me why you had to leave Peaches, other than the fact that he was probably annoying the hell outa you."
"He wasn't… forget it" I trailed off realizing it would be useless to argue that point with him. He took a long drag and gave me an expectant look. "Fine, I listened in on the conversation when Buffy called to tell Angel you guys were leaving…" I explained the whole thing to him stressing the parts about the Initiative, because I knew that would get his attention.
"Good thing you left then," he said when I was done. "The Initiative isn't fun to deal with. You can ask me, and you can ask Oz, and we'll say the same thing. They're all bastards."
I nodded and started to get up. "I'm gonna go find Buffy and Willow to say hello."
"You forgot your book." Spike said, casually blowing smoke from his nose.
"Thanks," I said half glaring at the grin he was wearing. I took the book and held it close to my chest. Piper would get it back, one day.
*~*
Hermione left two days later which good, because I knew that she would not think highly of what I was planning on doing next. Personally, I was quite proud of myself for actually being able to go through with my plan. I couldn't use magic, and that alone was going to make this complicated. Hoping he had a home to go to during the summer was very wishful thinking. Oh, what was I doing? Raiding Professor Snape's store closet. Am I a smart one or what?
There were some things for the Animagus spell I needed and I figured I'd get into less trouble going into his dungeons than I'd get crawling through the Forbidden Forest looking for the stuff. At least in the dungeons there wasn't any possibility of getting eaten by a giant spider or being trampled by trolls and giants. I could deal with Snape, and it was the summer, it wasn't like he had any authority over me yet. The worst he could do was hand me over to Buffy's wrath.
After saying goodbye to Hermione I told Buffy and Spike I was going up to Hogwarts for a while. Spike only leaned back in his chair smirking knowingly while Buffy grilled me with questions. They finally let me go after making me promise to be back by one. It was eleven in the morning and I figured two hours was more than enough time to get what I needed and avoid capture.
I didn't go by fireplace, instead I walked through the forest to the back of Hagrid's Hut. He had a pumpkin patch where he was again growing larger than life pumpkins. When the bottom right fence post was twisted three times to the right and twice to the left two tree stumps at the very edge of the forest moved apart leaving a hole in the dirt. When you dropped down you ended up in a passage that led to the dungeons. It didn't show up on the map, I'd found it last year along with the Weasley twins. I figured dad and his friends had deemed it an unimportant passage seeing as it only led to the dungeons and Hagrid's Hut.
Now I jumped down the three foot drop and hurried along through the darkness. It took five minutes at a swift jog to reach the end. There was a ladder to climb up into a dungeon corridor. A stone from the hallway floor moved when pushed up from the bottom. I popped up after making sure no one was walking around and walked to the right, towards Snape's offices.
The smells coming from the potions lab almost knocked me over when I opened the door. It was all I could do to keep from throwing up. No one was in the lab, but three cauldrons were simmering indicating that someone could come back at anytime. With that in mind I crossed to the back of the room, stopping at the door to the stores. I threw one last look over my shoulder and ran into the room. Once in I shut the door behind me and delved into the list of ten materials I needed.
I had little plastic bags that I wrapped the things up in and stuffed into my cargo pants. Snape would know if anything was missing, so I had no delusions about managing to fool him on that account but just the same I took exact amounts and as little as possible.
"What the hell are you doing?"
The voice wasn't Snape's, it was too feminine for that, but it had the same silky quietness of Snape's voice and certainly the same scare appeal. I cursed myself for allowing someone to sneak up on me. It hadn't happened all summer, it could've meant death.
I turned around and found that the words had indeed come from a woman. I guessed she was maybe somewhere in her thirties. Her arms were crossed and her lips were set in a thin line almost resembling Professor McGonagall. She had brown hair that wasn't natural; I could see the black roots. I think I might've been taller than her but she was wearing wedge sandals under her red robes so I couldn't tell. In her hands she held a small smoking cauldron. She looked almost like the woman I'd seen touching Hermione's locket, but I didn't ask.
"Well?" She stared at me. "Who are you, and what the hell do you think you're doing?"
I opened my mouth to say my real name, but then on a whim I said, "James, my name is James."
"Well James," I gritted my teeth anticipating the normal shudder I experienced whenever anyone called me James, but nothing happened. "What are you doing here?" Her tone seemed to have softened a bit but her face was still stern.
"I just needed a few things, for research. Summer homework and all that." I lied, using the same lame excuse Spike hadn't bought.
She narrowed her eyes at me. "Professor Snape gave you permission to do this?"
"Yes." I lied again. "End of the school year."
"Then I suppose it's alright." She said. Even though she agreed it was still plainly obvious she didn't believe me at all. "Please hand me the Aconite." After I did so she put two leaves into the pot and looked ready to leave. "Nice to meet you James. For future reference my name is Wren Morela. I'm the new nurse, among other things." She turned and left the room, her red robes flowing out behind her.
A/n- Ah, finished. Did you like it, please tell me in the reviews. Oh and someone e-mailed me asking if Harry and Ron would finally get love interests. Yes they shall. For awhile I really wanted to make Ron gay (I don't know why, it was just a sudden impulse) but I decided not to. Harry will be with *truck rolls by honking it's horn* and Ron will lust after *air raid siren goes off*. Do you like? Oh well, gtg, my friends coming over and we're gonna have an Aladdin and Mozenrath marathon. Wheeeee! Please Read/Review!
-Kendra (AKA- MJ Parker. Why I just used my real name I don't know. I'm just in a highly euphoric mood)
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