CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: THE MORNING AFTER

Sunshine shone through the window, creating a light glow on the sleeping couple.  Harry was the first to awaken, smiling as he remembered the previous nights activities.  He reached for his glasses, which were on the nightstand next to the bed.  He ran his hands lightly through Buffy's hair and rested them on the small of her back.

Buffy stirred and lifted her head from Harry's chest.  She opened her eyes to see Harry staring intently at her.  She smiled shyly and blushed.  Harry felt his heart about to burst.  He'd never felt anything like this before.  He was fairly certain that feeling this happy was a rare occurrence.  He smiled contently and leaned down to kiss his girlfriend.

Buffy sighed happily into the kiss and ran her hands over his bare chest.  They pulled apart breathless and dizzy.

"Not evil?" she asked.

He grinned at her and kissed her once more.  "Depends on your definition of evil," he replied.

Buffy shivered at the sound of his voice, which sounded incredibly deep from sleep.

"Well, what's your definition?" she countered.

Harry gripped Buffy's waist and flipped them so Buffy was beneath him.  He stared at her naked form, smiling appreciatively.  He lowered his mouth to her stomach and placed nipping kisses over her well-toned stomach.  He began moving slowly lower, and just as he'd made Buffy almost incoherent with lust, he stopped.

Buffy whined with no words and Harry just laughed, moving back up to kiss her neck.

"How's that for evil?" he whispered.

"Harry," she whined.  "God, please…"

He grinned and moved his lips back down her body.  The rest of their conversation was filled with moans, groans, and general sounds of pleasure.

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Hermione and Ron met in the Common Room, grinning as they greeted each other with a kiss.

"Morning," Hermione whispered.

"Morning to you too," Ron replied. 

They kissed deeply and passionately, ignoring the stares they got from other students.  They'd learnt to ignore the curious people who looked at them whenever they showed their affection publicly.

They pulled apart and revelled in the feel of each other as they hugged.

"Ron?"

"Mmm?"

"Was Harry in your room last night?" Hermione asked.

Ron looked thoughtful and shook his head.  He'd thought it odd, but he'd been too tired to really question it.  He'd noticed that Harry hadn't been in the room in the morning either, but that wasn't anything too out of the ordinary.  Harry had often woken up before Ron, and it had never been cause for concern.

"No…why do you ask?" Ron replied.

"Buffy didn't come back last night either," Hermione explained.

Ron's face got a speculative look and he raised his eyebrows suspiciously.  "You think they spent the night together?"

Hermione shrugged and nodded.  "They've been talking about it recently," Hermione commented.  "Maybe they finally found a place."

"Maybe who finally found a place?" a new voice asked.

Ron and Hermione turned to see a grinning Harry and Buffy holding hands, having just come through the portrait.  Ron and Hermione shared a look and couldn't help but laugh at their friends obvious happiness.  There was only one word to adequately describe how Harry and Buffy looked.  Sated.

Hermione and Buffy shared a look, having a silent conversation.  Buffy was smiling and blushing brilliantly.  Hermione was grinning.  Harry and Ron just stood there in amusement as Hermione and Buffy hugged enthusiastically.

"I want details," Hermione whispered to Buffy as they pulled apart.

Ron grinned at Harry.  "So…"

Harry just laughed and brought his arms back around his girlfriend, hugging her closely.  "So…we had a good night."

Ron went to make a lewd comment, but seeing the matching smiles on Harry and Buffy's faces, he just couldn't bring himself to do it.  "Congratulations you guys."

"Thanks," the couple replied simultaneously.

They lapsed into silence, not entirely awkward or uncomfortable, but still silent.

"So…breakfast?" Ron asked.

The group was thankful for the topic, and quickly agreed to it, moving out of the Common Room and down towards the Great Hall.

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The four friends were seated at the Gryffindor Table, eating breakfast and talking quietly about their various lessons and assignments, as well as the age-old custom of discussing their Professors.  Harry and Buffy were almost hyper-aware of each other.  They sat as closely as they could, their hands brushing against each others as often as possible, the two of them whispering sweet nothings in the other's ear whenever they could.

Ron and Hermione fought the urge to either laugh or smile at their friends behaviour, but ultimately found the entire thing incredibly cute.  Somehow they knew that the smiles that were on their friends faces were worth everything they'd had to put up with over the last year or so. 

Of course, the smiles were short lived.  Hermione and Ron were the first to notice, and their grins turned to expressions of worry when Professor Mcgonagall and Giles came to a stand still behind the happy couple.  Harry and Buffy saw their friends lose their smiles and turned to see what had caused the problem.

They were met with the stern looks of the Professors.  Buffy immediately turned her gaze to her mentor and pseudo-father, who was blushing slightly.  She couldn't help but wonder how exactly the Professors knew about what she and Harry had been up to the night before, but she knew that Giles was definitely aware of it.

"We'd uh…like a word with the two of you," Giles said.  His voice was gentle, quiet and gave absolutely nothing away. 

Buffy and Harry exchanged worried glances, but knew that they had no choice but to follow Giles and Professor McGonagall out of the Hall.  They clasped hands, both of them feeling horribly nervous.  Just outside the Great Hall was Professor Dumbledore who was smiling slightly.  His expression eased the minds of both teens immediately, but they couldn't help but wonder what they'd been called out of breakfast for.  Surely they weren't the first Hogwarts students to sleep together within the castle.

"Morning sir," Harry said quietly, not quite able to meet the Headmaster's gaze.  He wasn't ashamed of what he'd done with Buffy, but having his Professors know about it wasn't the most comforting thought.

"Good morning Mr Potter, Miss Summers," Dumbledore said, his voice slightly jovial.  "It is good to see the two of you in such high spirits."

"Well, you know us…Sunday mornings and all that.  Who among us can resist the lure of a sunny morning and barely any homework," Buffy quipped nervously.

Giles could tell that his young charge was uncomfortable.  He couldn't help but remove his glasses and polish them with a handkerchief, soothing his somewhat frazzled nerves.

"Buffy, you're not in trouble," he assured her quietly.

The blonde girl immediately relaxed a little, and she felt Harry do the same, their grips on each others hands loosening significantly.

"Believe me, you two are not the first students to be in a loving relationship with each other," Dumbledore assured them.  "But you are the first to make use of the room that Dobby showed you."

"We were wondering how to ask you about that," Buffy said, a grin coming to her face as she remembered the conversation from the previous evening.  "What is that place?"

"It is called the Room of Requirement," Dumbledore replied.  "It is an enchanted room that reacts to your requirements.  I believe I may have mentioned it to you before Mr Potter."

Harry cast his memory back to the numerous conversations he'd had with Professor Dumbledore over the years.  He couldn't think of a single time when that room had ever been mentioned to him before.  It hit him with a sudden jolt.  Dumbledore had mentioned it to him.  It had only been in passing, but Dumbledore had mentioned something about bathrooms appearing at three in the morning.  Harry had thought it to be a joke, but apparently it had been more than that.

"The bathrooms in the middle of the night," Harry said quietly.

"Precisely," Dumbledore replied with a smile. 

"Okay…soooo…cool room and all, but…if we're not in trouble, then why the sudden summit meeting?" Buffy asked.

"We wish for you to not reveal the room to anyone else," McGonagall explained. 

"Except perhaps to Mr Weasley and Miss Granger," Dumbledore added quickly, knowing that no power on the earth could ever keep Harry or Buffy from telling their friends about what they'd discovered.

"That room is not something to be toyed with," McGonagall continued.  "If that room were to be discovered by students better left un-named, it would be quite disastrous."

Buffy couldn't help the snort of laughter that came to her involuntarily.  The three Professors and Harry turned to look at her.

"Sorry," she said, still laughing slightly.  "It's just, can you imagine if Fred and George Weasley had ever discovered that room before they graduated?  I don't even want to imagine what they'd require."

Harry grinned, loving that his girlfriend could find humour in a situation where she was so obviously uncomfortable. 

"Precisely the point that Professor McGonagall was trying to make," Dumbledore said.  "Though I think perhaps she was hinting more towards students who would use the room for more nefarious purposes."

"Right…weapons, dark magic books, maybe an army of vampires, that sort of thing?" Buffy asked.

The three Professors nodded. 

"You have our word," Harry said, rejoining the conversation.  "We won't tell anyone except Ron and Hermione."

There was a slightly uncomfortable silence.  Giles couldn't help but fall into the role of the concerned father figure as he turned towards Buffy with worried eyes.

"The two of you were careful, yes?"

Between the blushing and Buffy's giggles, they managed to explain about the two protection charms they'd used, unable to believe that Giles had actually asked.  When the two teens were dismissed, they were bight red and horribly embarrassed.

"Well, that coulda been worse."

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Buffy and Harry sat by the lake, Buffy seated between Harry's outstretched legs, her back to his front.  They were luxuriating in the sunlight, smiles on their faces as they enjoyed the quiet moment between them.

"This is quite possibly the strangest morning after I've ever had," Buffy said with a smile. 

"Not what I was hoping for," Harry admitted.  "Until we got to breakfast it was good.  I can't believe that the Professors all know."

A sudden and horrific thought snapped Buffy to attention.  She sat up, her eyes wide, looking at Harry in panic.

"Oh god…Snape knows.  He's never gonna give us a moment of peace," she said.

Harry hadn't thought of Snape.  "I never thought I'd say this, but thank God you're not in my Potions class anymore."

Buffy couldn't help but grin.  She forced herself to relax and melted back into Harry's arms, closing her eyes and nestling her head against his shoulder.

"Buffy?"

"Hmmm?"

"You don't have to answer, but…after you slept with Angel…did you…feel closer to him than before?" Harry asked.  He couldn't really explain it too well, but he was fairly sure that he hadn't been as in love with Buffy the day before as he was now.

Buffy stiffened slightly.  Harry knew the very basic facts of her relationship with Angel, but none of the horrific details that came with it.  He knew that Angel was a vampire and that he'd lost his soul, but Buffy hadn't told him the details of how exactly Angel had lost it.

"Well…not exactly," Buffy said.  That wasn't entirely true.  When she'd first woken up, she'd felt extremely and utterly content.  It had vanished the second she'd reached her hand over to touch her sleeping lover and found him gone that everything had spiralled horribly out of control.

"You don't have to answer," Harry said quietly, knowing that this was an uncomfortable topic with his girlfriend.

"Well…I didn't exactly feel closer to him, because…well, the first conversation we had afterwards was…well, basically him telling me that what had happened between us hadn't meant a thing to him," Buffy explained.  She could still feel the coldness of Angelus' words.  They'd stung like nothing before.  "I didn't know it at the time, but he'd actually lost his soul sometime during the night."

Harry felt his heart break for his girlfriend.  He'd known that Angel losing his soul had wounded Buffy greatly, but to have it happen the night after sharing something so special was excruciating.  He couldn't imagine what he would do if he'd woken up and have Buffy tell him that he'd meant absolutely nothing to her.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

She nestled closer to him, grateful for the warmth that he was providing her.  "Not your fault," she replied quietly.  "And besides, the worst part came when he started threatening my friends, my family.  He killed Giles' girlfriend.  He blurted out to my mom that we'd slept together.  God, that was a fun conversation between us."

Buffy suddenly froze once more.  It had been so long wince she'd thought about Joyce Summers, let alone spoken about her. 

"Tell me about her," Harry said quietly, his breath tickling Buffy's neck, making her shiver slightly.  "What was your mum like?"

Buffy smiled at the memory of Joyce.  "She was beautiful," she whispered softly.  "Caring, loving.  She was good at being a mom.  I wasn't too much of a help though.  I was always getting in trouble, mainly cos of the Slayer thing.  She didn't know about that though, but…she still loved me.  She reacted badly when she found out, and…well, I ran away cos…well, she threw me out really.  But…when I came back, she forgave me.  She still loved me.  I'd like to think that it wasn't just cos of the spell…that she really did love me for who I was."

Harry held onto her tighter, seeing the tears forming in her eyes. 

"I know for a fact that she did Buffy," he whispered.  "Everyone who's ever crossed paths with you has no choice but to love you.  You tamed Malfoy, which is a feat everyone thought was literally impossible.  Your friends back in Sunnydale…the Scoobies, they love you.  Giles, and Ron and Hermione…Ginny, Lavender, Parvati, Dean, Seamus, Neville, Tara…all of us.  We all love you Buffy, so how could your mum not have?"

Buffy sighed and hoped that he was right.  Hearing her mother ask her who she was after Giles had reversed the spell to make her believe Buffy was her daughter had been one of the most painful moments of Buffy's life.

"Sometimes I wish I could have grown up with Sara," Buffy whispered honestly. 

"I know what you mean," Harry replied.  "Not knowing my real parents…it hurts."

Buffy smiled softly at him and turned in his arms to press a gentle kiss to his cheek. 

"They loved you so much Harry," Buffy whispered soothingly. 

"Just like Sara and Joyce loved you."

They sat in quiet contemplation for several moments, watching the rippling water of the lake.  Buffy suddenly laughed quietly.

"Well, that got depressing."

Harry couldn't help the light laughter that escaped.  "Didn't it just?"

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Three things:  First…thank you sooo much for all yoru feedback!  Fully very encouraging.

Second, I'm an idiot (well, we already knew that, but…eh)  I labelled the chapter incorrectly last update (I've fixed it though).  So, for those of you who read last chapter and it was labelled 21 instead of 20…it's the right chapter, but was labelled wrong.  SO…tis all good.  They're in the right order, I swear.

Third…What You Did WILL be getting updated, but I don't know when.  I didn't realise that my last update was accidentally the last chapter I've got written, something I don't particularly like doing.  I'm in a slight rut with WYD at the moment, but it WILL be worked on.  I swear.  I've just been concentrating on this fic (I've only got three more chapters to write!  Hurrah!!  [This is the theory of course…]  It comes in at a total of forty chapters.  Very cool, eh?)

Toodles.

DKG.