The conference lasted for hours.
Willow shook and cried in Grey's arms the entire ride back. She had been helped from Dumbledore's enchanted coach and put to bed in her room. Spike and Hermione were watching over her while Ron helped Harry get his things unpacked.
Grey, Giles, Dumbledore, Snape, and Professor McGonagall were trying to decide what to do about Willow. So far, they had only managed to grow greatly frazzled. Even Dumbledore seemed weary of the lengthy debate.
"The girl is a menace. She must leave at once," Snape said for the hundredth time. "If not, then I will…"
"You'll do nothing, you bloody pillock!" Giles roared, his control finally snapping. "She is a frightened girl with an enormous amount of power. She needs help. I will not allow you to impede that in any way." Grey merely glared at him. Cowed for the moment, Snape said nothing further.
"Rupert," McGonagall said, "we know you care deeply for the girl. But the reality is a bit more dangerous than we had originally thought. For us to train her would be very difficult indeed."
"So you abandon her?" Grey said, shocking them with his emotion. He had said barely a word since recounting the events of the evening. Now his face contorted with rage. "Let me explain something to you all. That is the stupidest fucking thing you could possibly do. You throw her out of here and two months later she'll back as Voldemort's top field commander. Or she'll be dead. The last thing someone with that kind of channel to dark magic should be is alone. You can't fight that alone. I've seen it." He turned away, his eyes filled with tears. When he continued, his voice shook. "He'll help her contain it, except it won't be contained. It will dominate her. And she'll hate us for leaving her alone. Then she'll try and kill us. And God help me, I won't go through that."
"No one is abandoning anyone, Mr. Grey," Dumbledore said in his soothing way. "You are, I gather, referring to Miss O'Brien?"
"Yes." He left the room without another word. The others stared at Dumbledore.
"Dave has had … some unfortunate experiences in the past year. It is not my place to explain them to you." He looked at McGonagall, who nodded her agreement. Grey's outburst had been the final piece of the puzzle for both of them. "I have no intention of dismissing Miss Rosenberg. However, given the circumstances, I am loathe to allow her to practice her magic wand-less and unsupervised. We will reconvene here in the morning, at which time I will listen to suggestions for her training," he turned to Snape, "that do not include her leaving. Further, I will not tolerate harrassment of any kind. Is that clear?" Snape nodded, and the meeting broke up.
Spike heard the soft knock at the door. It was Grey.
"So they've made a decision, then?" He asked, concerned.
"No. Not yet. I just had to leave before … I just had to leave. How is she?"
"Seen her better, mate. Also seen her worse, though. She's a tough bird, this one. Just sittin' there now, staring out the window."
"Hermione still with her?"
"No, she left about an hour ago. Didn't want to, but she still has school in the morning, so I made her."
"Is it a problem if I talk to her?"
"Shouldn't be. You want me to stay or go?"
"I thought vampires didn't care for humans?" Spike barked a quiet laugh.
"They don't. I'm special. What can I say?"
"Why don't you let me be alone with her for a bit? Stick around though, in case they finish and come with news.
"Right then." The blonde vampire eased his way outside. Grey walked across the room to Willow. She looked fourteen, wearing fuzzy pink pajamas with her hair in a ponytail. She was staring at the cloudless sky.
"Thinking anything special?" He said, taking a seat next to her on the bed.
"I wish Xander were here. He'd do something stupid to take my mind off of things, and for maybe thirty seconds this feeling would be gone."
"What feeling is that?" His voice was soft now, tender. He thought it would be hard to unearth that part of himself, but it came surprisingly easily. Must be Willow, he thought. She seems to have that effect on me.
"When I was eighteen, I got caught … making out with another guy other than my boyfriend. Not too smart, of course, since, hello, dating a werewolf with rage issues. Afterwards, I would see him, and I felt so dirty. Like I needed to take a shower on the inside. That's how I feel now. Dirty." She still hadn't looked at him. He knew it would be that kind of night. Sharing painful secrets.
"Well, I'm not much for doing stupid stuff, and I definitely am not about offering showers on the inside, so I guess I can't be a Xander substitute."
"Was that a joke?" She asked, now sliding around to look him in the eye. He gave her a small smile, the first real one she had ever seen from him. It changed his face completely.
"A mild and not terribly good one, yeah."
"I didn't know you could." His eyes grew distant, but he responded immediately.
"Back … in the day, I joked a lot, actually."
"Back in the day?" Their eyes met, both full of pain and sadness.
"Willow, I …used to be a lot different. I have a story that I think you need to hear. You won't like it. It will scare you. I don't want to tell it. But I think I have to."
"I'll listen," she said solemnly. "But I don't want to make you tell it if you don't want to."
"No, I need to. Maybe for both of us." The last sentence came out under his breath. "I used to be an auror."
"Oh wow," she said. Giles had explained about aurors. "But you don't do magic? Do you?"
"No. I don't. I can fight, though. And I understand magic; my parents are powerful wizards and aurors, both of them."
"You're a squib." She said it without thinking. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to…" He cut her off.
"No, it's okay. I am a squib. Doesn't bother me. Never did. Because of their jobs, I mostly lived with my muggle aunt in Boston; it limited my exposure to magic in everyday life. Not the point here, though." He was leaving a lot out, she realized as she gestured for him to continue. "When I was eighteen, training to be an auror, I met this amazing girl. She had graduated from Hogwarts and moved on to the normal training, unlike me. They have a huge need for investigators as well as enforcers in the auror ranks, which got me in." His vision blurred with tears as he remembered.
"What was her name?" Willow asked.
"Jess O'Brien." He paused, gathering himself. "She had power, like you. Nearly unlimited, when she wanted it to be. She loved … making a splash. The big fight, the speedy takedown, the brilliant quip. All about the glamour and show, I guess."
"Your partner?"
"Yeah. We were in love, going to be married. It was natural. And we were good together. I'd find them, she'd light them up. We took down a bunch of Death Eaters that messed up the Quidditch World Cup. Went after Voldemort himself a few months later. In his weakened state, he should have been easy prey." Willow was watching him, fascinated by the story. He suddenly put a hand on her shoulder, leaning in and speaking incredibly harshly. "The man is poison, even without power. Never forget that. He'll talk circles around you until up is down and left is right." Realizing his position, he removed the hand and backed away. "Sorry."
"I understand. Not a problem. What did he do to her?" She pulled her legs onto the bed and folded her arms around them.
"He goaded her. I tried to talk her out of it, but it didn't work. He kept talking to her, getting her to toss increasingly nasty spells at him. He must have felt her connection to the power. Her eyes went black, just like yours did. I had never seen that before. The spells and curses would hit him and vanish. He kept laughing and laughing. It was a nightmare. Finally, she collapsed from exhaustion. With the spells dissipated, I charged at him and kicked him in the head." The empty air didn't stop my foot at all, he remembered. Just made me fall flat on my ass.
"It was a decoy. Like a magic hologram. He was talking from somewhere else. In her haste, she hadn't noticed."
"What happened to her then?" When he had mentioned her eyes, Willow's breath had caught in her throat.
"I brought her to the Ministry. They got scared. That idiot Fudge had her quietly removed from service. They left her out to dry. I resigned on the spot, nearly punched the fat bastard's head in." He shook his head. "Political hack. Anyway, we went to our place in London to lay low. Jess was despondent for a month. Wouldn't get out of bed, wouldn't do anything. And at night, she would have these dreams. She would murmur and mutter incoherently, and shake like a leaf all night. In the morning, she would claim not to remember any of them. Last spring, Voldemort came back to power." Willow nodded. She knew. "Jess left the same night. Told me she had a destiny. That a fool squib like me was holding her back." He was crying silently now, the tears finally coming after months of restraint. They rolled down his cheeks and pooled on his chin, rivers of pain overwhelming him. Willow put a hand softly on his shoulder. "Her eyes were entirely black. She snapped her wand in half. I told her she had to stop, that we had to get her help. She laughed, called me a fool again. We fought. Without magic, I was screwed. She liked to play around a bit, you know? Part of the show. Left me for dead when the fun was over." He lifted up his shirt, revealing a web of pink scars. Willow gasped, blood draining from her pale face. "I haven't seen her since."
"Dave … I am so sorry." She was crying now, too, thinking about the horrors she had made him relive.
"I know you are, and I appreciate it. But I told you this for a reason. Dark magic is dangerous. I'm not saying don't use it. I'm no fool. I know what we're up against; at some point you'll have no choice. But don't abandon yourself to it. Whatever you have to do, whatever you have to learn to keep yourself in control, do it. Don't forget my story, because Jess never understood that. Now she's gone." Willow put his arms around him, and he put his around her. They held each other, crying until dawn.