"Any change?"
Xander's eyelids were drooping. He had been wandering back and forth to the infirmary for six hours. This was his first visitor since Harry, Ron, Neville and Dawn had come down a few hours before, and the distraction was more than welcome to keep him awake.
"Sorry, Buff. Nothing. They've been in there for hours. I've been walking in every half-hour or so, but it's always the same. Willow and evil-girl sitting at his bedside, Tara and Nurse Betty muttering or chanting. But they all look the same – like it won't get any better. What about the others?"
"No luck. Before I went out on the hunt, Giles was talking like it's all hunky dory but acting like if they don't find a cure soon, it'll all be irrelevant."
Willow was cried out. She had never been so tired in her entire life. She grimly recalled feeling the same way before the fight with Voldemort even began. After hours of sobbing, all she could manage was to sit by the bed and hold Grey's limp hand.
Tara and Madame Pomfrey had done their best; his vital signs had stabilized and his breathing was stronger, but no matter what they tried, they could not draw a response. Pomfrey kept saying that, except for the fact that he was still unconscious, he should be awake.
If Jess knew anything helpful, she wasn't saying. The girl sat across from Willow, Grey's other hand in hers. She hadn't moved or spoken in hours.
Tara crossed the room quietly and laid a hand on Willow's shoulder.
"You should get some rest, Will."
"Not moving."
"If there's any change, we'll wake you. I promise. Just lay down in one of the empty beds for a little while." She gestured to one of the open beds; Dumbledore, also still unconscious, slept on obliviously in the bed next to Grey.
Buffy opened the door and slipped inside just as Willow was shaking her head.
"Hey, Wills," Buffy said. The redhead turned to greet her, eyes glazed and puffy. "How is he?" Buffy leaned down and hugged her friend tightly.
"Not good, Buffy. It's like … it's like he's not even there."
"That's what the spell does," Jess said, speaking for the first time. The other three girls looked at her in horror. "It separates the soul from the body, an' it does it violently. That's how it kills."
"But he's not dead," Buffy said.
Jess nodded. "I know, Slayer. I know."
"W-what does that mean?" Tara asked.
"I think it means the damage can be repaired," Giles told the assembled group. McGonagall, Hermione, Ginny, Angel, Wesley and Spike were all camped out in the library, trying to find instances where the Avada Kedavra curse had failed.
"But that's for failed death curses in general," McGonagall countered, pointing at the passage he was reading. "This curse is the most powerful of them, and it was cast by the most powerful dark wizard any of us have ever known, Rupert."
"It's also thought to be unblockable, Minerva, and yet he is still alive."
"How?" Angel asked. He had never heard of that curse being blocked.
"The lightsaber," Giles answered. "Willow enhanced it with a very powerful protection spell. That must have deflected some of the damage."
"So we know the Jedi's soul is still attached," Spike said, bringing the discussion back on track. "If it wasn't, he'd be as dead as me or Peaches. Which leads us back to our original question – why the hell won't he wake up?"
"Maybe it's partially severed," Ginny offered in a tiny voice. The presence of two professors and two vampires had her more than a little intimidated, and she was still shaken from her hostage experience. She and Hermione had insisted, though, that they be allowed to help research. Ron, Harry, and Neville were in the Gryffindor common room, protecting Dawn and trying to rest before taking the second research shift in the morning.
"What do you mean, Little Red?" Spike asked.
"Well," she said, then cleared her throat and spoke in a normal voice, "if his body is healed but his soul isn't, which is what I believe I'm hearing you say, then his soul is probably the damaged part, right?"
"We need to repair the cut," Jess said.
"How do you repair a cut soul?" Buffy asked. "I'm thinking not Bactine or stitches."
Jess didn't answer. Willow and Tara traded a look.
"There are spells to fix damaged souls," Tara said after a long pause. "They're really dangerous and y-you have to be really powerful to make them work properly. I can't do th-that level of healing magic, and if you don't have enough power or skill … it can make things worse. A-and we'd need to know the specific spell to work on this, or …"
"Or we'll kill him," Willow finished.
Giles and McGonagall jumped on the logic of Ginny's assertions, both agreeing that she was most likely correct. The argument that erupted, though, was about what to do next. It drowned out all other conversation. Spike, though amused by the feuding professors, kept his eyes on Hermione. As soon as Ginny had said it, she had a revelation. He could see it in her body language; she quickly grabbed a book from the stack and hurriedly flipped through it. When she found the page she wanted, her finger skidded briskly across the text as she read.
"Giles, I have it." Her voice was too soft to be heard over the shouting. "Giles, I've found it." They still ignored her, and she looked up, the shouting match finally registering in her brain.
"HEY!"
Hermione's shout shut them all up.
"I have it."
"What?" Giles asked.
"For the fourth time, I've got it. The spell that will fix it." She handed him the text. "I saw this earlier in the year when we were looking for the Spring Rain spell. The left-hand page, top entry."
Giles read the text and met her eyes. They were as grim as his own.
"Oh dear."
"Will, could you …"
"Uh uh, Buff. I'm less down with the healing mojo than Tara. And the thing is, you could screw it up and never know until AFTER they woke up and started acting funny. Then we'd have a whole 'nother issue on our hands." Willow's strangled voice seemed to suck all hope from the room.
Jess was still silent, staring at Grey's inert form.
The door opened, and this time Giles, McGonagall, and Hermione came in. Giles had the volume in his hands.
"I …" he paused, realizing that saying anything would raise Willow's hopes. He rearranged his phrasing delicately, then continued. "We think we know the problem."
"Frayed soul?" Buffy said, trying to keep her voice light.
"We think his soul has been partially … what was that, Buffy?"
Willow impatiently brushed the exchange off.
"His soul's torn, Giles. We … she," she pointed at Jess, "figured it out."
"We have the spell that we think can repair the damage," Giles said, cursing himself as he saw the light of hope suddenly aflame in Willow's eyes. "But … Willow, you must understand … there are complications."
"Show me." Her eyes were still green, but the frustration in them shown as fierce as Giles had ever seen, and he could tell she was struggling with her control.
He handed her the text and pointed to the spell.
"This one, the one called …"
"Merlin's Salve," Jess said from the other side of the bed.
"Good Lord, you knew?"
She nodded, still staring at Grey.
"You knew? We've been sitting here for hours and you didn't say a word, but you knew?!?" Willow shouted at her, anger nearly boiling over. Buffy and Giles each put restraining hands on her.
"Read it, Red," Jess said calmly. "Read it, then tell me why I didn't say anything. Go on," she said, waving her hand at the book.
Willow picked up the book and scanned the cover. It was a spell diary of a wizard whose name had long since faded; she had seen similar books on the shelves, personal jottings about spell research that wizards kept for themselves and their students.
She began to read.
MERLIN'S SALVE
Discovery date unknown
Supposedly Druidic in origin, this spell emerged from Dark Age Britain in the hands of several Master Healers. Recorded successful uses of it are exceedingly rare, whereas spectacular failures are well-documented, if not numerous. The wizard Borthas supposedly healed his dying son following a raid by the Grannach Enclave on his home during the Spring of 1466. The boy was said to be struck with the Avada Kedavra curse through a layer of Borthas' most powerful protective wards, which prevented his instant death. Borthas, though he had the power to cast Merlin's Salve, lacked the expertise to execute it correctly. Everyone knows the consequences of this, of course.
Willow looked up. "Everyone knows the consequences?"
Hermione fielded the question, answering in her lecture voice.
"Borthas was a powerful healer in fifteenth-century Germany, famous all over Europe for his talents. Apparently, his son was supposed to follow in his footsteps, and had quite the talent for healing. About the Grannach Enclave I have no idea, except that they must have been powerful dark wizards to even approach Borthas' home. At any rate, his son ended up … changed after the healing. Corrupted. He became a wizard known as Ferocytas."
"Oh my," McGonagall said. She knew of Borthas and Ferocytas, but hadn't known of their relation. Hermione had obviously been thorough in her research.
"Yes, quite," Giles said. "Let me put it to you this way, Willow. One might not exaggerate in saying that Ferocytas was the Scourge of Europe before Angelus took over the mantle."
"Yikes," Willow said, turning back to the book.
Obviously, from my example it is clear that the miscasting of this spell can have disastrous effects on the intended target. Some have surmised that, other than human error, what most often goes wrong is the use of tainted magic. Only one with completely pure magic can perform the spell successfully, even if all of the necessary steps are completed. Should tainted magic be used, it appears to taint the target of the spell and permanently alter their personality. Tragically, this is believed to be irreversible.
Of course it is nearly impossible for a wizard with experience enough to cast this to have never strayed into the territory of dark magic. I had hoped that the threshold would be reasonably high, but it appears that even a small dark spell will taint the caster enough to sabotage Merlin's Salve. This is unfortunate, as I fear it will thus never be able to be placed in widespread use against dark wizards.
Because it is so powerful, and its purpose so crucial, I have included instructions for its use. I pray that anyone who reads this after me proceeds with care.
In My Own Hand,
Lucitas Doppler
19 January, 1713
Reading the instructions that followed, Willow's hopes disappeared, her heart flattened like concrete for a new highway. No one could do this without someone who had done it before; it was complex and potentially deadly for the caster and the target. She looked at Jess with considerably more understanding than before.
"I'm sorry … I didn't realize … thanks for not getting my hopes up, I guess."
Jade eyes turned and met emerald ones.
"So you know that you can't do it. And Blondie, she can't do it. Neither of you can save him, Red."
Willow narrowed her eyes at the odd look on the girl's face.
"But I can."
*********************************************
[Author's Note, Supplemental]
So tempting to call these things captain's logs. But anyway … I just wanted to say THANK YOU for the enormous lovefest that was the reviews of the Not Without a Fight storyline. I got all giddy as they kept rolling in, and they totally blew my writer's block out of the water for the ending, as you can see by the quick post of 82-83 (with more on the way). I figured people would like some of it, and I was cautiously optimistic for some positiveness (positivity?) when I wrote my note, but that was way beyond what I had expected. Or what I could have expected. Or what a sane person would have hoped for.
So to all of you (and not just recent reviewers, but the whole lot of people who have been supportive for months), I say one more time:
Wow. Thanks again.
It's the fact that people other than me like this that has kept me going long enough to cross page 300 (which, according to my calculations, will be somewhere around Chapter 86). - 40
P.S.: Okay, I know I have been only mediocre at answering questions in reviews (and those I did by email rather than A/N), and I'm sorry about that (and if you have ?s, email me!) but one came in that I thought needed a few words. One of the reviewers, Vld, asked who else had died in the Halloween attack, and then named a list of Hogwarts' finest. These are the questions that come up when you read this thing straight through, which I went back and did for the first time in months in response to that.
The answer (and this was intentional, for plot flexibility) is: 13 unnamed students. Emphatically not anyone on your list (somewhere later on I know I mentioned Seamus in a Potions class); it's true I left them out of this story, mostly because a) I wasn't comfortable writing them at the time, while later there was no real good place put them in without it being more than a token appearance, and b) I had enough characters to handle already, and I'd rather I got the time to focus on Harry/Hermione/Ron/Ginny and Willow/Tara/Spike/Giles. As for Grey, I needed room to say who he was and use him to set up Jess. All in all, despite that I might have liked to do more with the 'school' aspect of Hogwarts, I'm okay with how it turned out. Besides, it's so freakin' long, I don't think it would have been good to expand it with more 'school' stuff. It is a bummer, though.
One other thing I realized that irked me: I forgot, way back in Chapter 9, to say that Dumbledore had enchanted Giles' cell phone. And one reviewer pointed it out at the time, and I still didn't catch it in the story. Sorry 'bout that. My excuse: I'm a moron. Sometimes I think of things and in my head I know them, but forget to translate them into the story itself as it goes on paper. I've actually gone back and done a bit of revising (only chapters 1 and 2 have been replaced, though), and will fix this on the next go round. Again, my apologies. Also, for those of you Spike fans out there, I added a scene to Chapter 1 with him in England prior to getting on the Hogwarts Express. Why? Because I wanted a fight scene early on in the story and dumbly never wrote one. Have no fear, though, none of my revisions change the plot at all. Mostly grammar fixes or moving a sentence around. -40