Dawn stood shivering on the platform of the Hogsmeade train station with Ginny, Harry, Ron and Hermione. It was late October, and the temperature had dropped sharply as soon as the sun had set. The moon, just a day past full, was rising in the east. Dawn could see her breath as she exhaled. The others didn't seem to be noticing the cold nearly as much.
"Why aren't you guys freezing?" asked Dawn.
Harry had already given her his robe to wear over her own. He looked at her holding her arms around herself. "It's really not that cold." He stepped up behind her and wrapped his arms around her anyway.
"Hey, California girl here!" said Dawn. "This is just about as cold as it ever gets there!"
"Well, you won't have to put up with it much longer," said Hermione. "There's the train."
Dawn looked and saw the headlight of the Hogwarts Express coming toward them out of the darkness. That was another thing that got her. Here it wasn't even 5:30 yet, and the sun had set half an hour ago.
Dawn leaned back against Harry, feeling his warmth, as she watched the train pull into the station. It was just the two coaches again this time. It came to a stop with the steps for the passenger coach right in front of them.
"Dawnie!" cried Willow as she jumped down out of the train. Harry let go of Dawn as Willow came toward them, and Dawn stepped forward to exchange his arms around her for Willow's.
"God, it's good to see you again!" said Dawn.
"You too, kiddo!" said Willow. She looked over Dawn's shoulder. "You must be Harry."
"Oh yeah!" Dawn released Willow and pulled back a bit. She saw that Willow wasn't alone either. "Everybody, this is Willow Rosenberg, a kick ass Wiccan, and that girl behind her is Kennedy, an ass kicking Slayer."
Kennedy smiled and hopped down off the train. "Hi Dawn." Her eyes moved over the others on the platform, and settled on Ginny. "Hi."
"I'd like you to meet Ginny Weasley," said Dawn. "Who is also going to be an ass kicking Slayer."
"Are all Slayers so short?" whispered Ron to Harry.
"No, but we all have very good ears," said Kennedy.
"The over tall, tactless one is Ginny's brother Ron," said Dawn, "and that's our friend Hermione. Professor Lupin couldn't make it. He's all wolfy tonight."
Kennedy looked around. "So where's this castle I've been hearing about?"
Willow pointed to the north. "That way, about half a mile."
Harry, Ron and Ginny all looked surprised. "Er, yeah," said Harry. "How'd you know?"
"I can feel it," said Willow. "An incredible concentration of magic."
Willow felt the power growing as they approached the castle. She hadn't felt so much magical energy concentrated in one place since she left Sunnydale. She felt like she wanted to immerse herself in it. The feeling exhilarated and scared her. She clutched at Kennedy's hand, and squeezed it tightly as she looked up from the boat at the castle looming above them.
"You know, if I wasn't a Slayer, I'd be in danger of having broken bones right now," whispered Kennedy.
Willow released her hand. "Oh, Goddess, I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"
Kennedy took hold of Willow's hand again. "Hey, it's okay. I am a Slayer, and that means you can squeeze as hard as you need to. What's the matter?"
"It's just…there's so much power here…I feel like I could lose myself in it."
"Never," said Kennedy. "You're stronger than that. You could never lose yourself, and if you did get pulled off track a little bit, you've got me to pull you back."
Willow smiled at her lover, taking in the supreme confidence in her eyes. She knew that Kennedy put people off a lot sometimes with her attitude, that she could do anything, but Willow loved it. She knew that part of it was an act, she'd seen Kennedy's confidence get shaken a couple of times, revealing an inner vulnerability that she rarely let anyone else glimpse. In a strange way it reminded her of Tara. The two girls seemed to be polar opposites in so many ways. Tara was shy, Kennedy was brash. Tara was haunted by self doubt, and Kennedy was supremely confident. Tara's shy exterior hid an inner core of great strength, and Kennedy's brash exterior hid an inner vulnerability.
"I know you will, baby." Willow gave Kennedy a kiss, their tongues meeting…the pierced tongue was a bonus too. She heard a strangling sound coming from behind them, and looked back.
Ron, Ginny and Hermione were in the boat behind them, and Hermione and Ginny were shooting Ron a very annoyed look.
"What?" asked Willow. "Never seen two girls kissing before?"
"Not like that," said Ron.
"Well, get used to it," said Willow. She went back to kissing Kennedy, until Harry called out for them to duck before they entered the passage into the cliff.
Willow followed Dawn and Harry up multiple flights of stairs, with Kennedy by her side, and Ron, Hermione and Ginny following along behind. They were led into a corridor on the sixth floor, to a painting of a couple of mermaids sunning on a rock. "Wiccan magic," said Dawn.
Willow felt the magic ripple through the painting. The mermaids giggled, and the painting swung open.
"This is your room," said Dawn. She led them through the doorway into a large, comfortable room with an enormous four-poster bed in it. "We considered having you bunk with me, Hermione and Ginny, but we decided we wanted to get a little sleep tonight." Ron made a strangling noise again, and Willow blushed. "Dinner starts soon, so we'll let you get settled in. Be back in fifteen minutes to show you down to the Great Hall. There's a bathroom through there…" Dawn pointed at another door. "…so you can freshen up a bit. If you want to change your password, you just have to call the mermaids into that painting…" Dawn pointed to a seascape on the wall, complete with waves crashing against the rocks. "…and tell them what you want it to be. If you need us, we're one floor up. Turn left, and ask the Fat Lady in the pink dress to announce you." She gave Willow another hug. "God, it's good to see you again!"
Willow hugged back. "And you Dawnie!"
Dawn let go, and moved toward the door. "Okay, see you in a quarter hour." She waved for the others to leave ahead of her. She backed out the door, and gave Willow and Kennedy a wave. "See ya!" She closed the door.
Willow turned to Kennedy and saw the grin on her face. Kennedy's eyes flicked to the bed. "Oh no!" said Willow. "Dawn's going to be back in fifteen minutes!"
Kennedy grabbed Willow and carried her to the bed. "Lots of time!"
Willow squealed and giggled as Kennedy threw her onto the bed, but then she was silenced by Kennedy's mouth on her own. Their hands started to pull at each other's clothes.
Willow brushed her hair quickly, and checked out her face in the mirror for any lingering signs of how she and Kennedy had spent most of the last fifteen minutes. She had cleaned off all the smears from Kennedy's lipstick. She was thankful that she often didn't bother to wear much makeup of her own, so she didn't have to go through the touchup job that Kennedy was doing beside her.
Willow adjusted her blouse. She almost hadn't managed to get dressed again. Once Kennedy had seen their bathtub—the perfect size for two—she had wanted to blow off dinner completely. She went back out into their bedroom, and sat in a chair to finish putting her shoes back on. "You have visitors," said a giggling voice from the seascape painting.
Willow looked up, and saw one of the mermaids bobbing in the surf. "Oh, uh, just a minute."
She ran around the room gathering up Kennedy's clothes, which seemed to have been thrown pretty much everywhere. She tossed them into the bathroom with Kennedy, and closed the door. She looked around for more evidence. There was no way she could fix the rumpled blankets on the bed, so she pulled the curtains closed around it. She glanced around the room one last time. "Okay, I guess you can let them in now."
The door swung open, and Dawn and her friends came back in. "So, you guys ready for dinner?" she asked.
"Kennedy needs another minute I think," said Willow. She saw a startled expression suddenly appear on Ron's face, and looked where he was looking. She saw that she had missed Kennedy's panties. They were lying across the arm of a chair. She hadn't noticed their black on top of the black leather during her quick inspection.
Kennedy came out of the bathroom. "So, we all set?" she asked.
"Uh, if you are?" asked Willow. Her eyes flicked briefly toward the arm of the chair.
Kennedy glanced that way too, and smiled. "I'm good to go, and really hungry." She turned away, and walked out the door. Willow couldn't help looking at her girlfriend's ass, even smoother than usual under her tight jeans.
Willow followed Dawn down a long corridor, looking around in wonder, and feeling the magic flickering about her. She clutched at Kennedy's hand again, and felt butterflies in her stomach the size of bats. She was beginning to think it hadn't been such a good idea to eat so much at dinner…but the food had been so good.
Dawn looked back at her friend and smiled. "Relax. Professor Dumbledore is a real sweetheart. A skinny Santa."
"But remember what Anya told us about the real Santa?" asked Willow.
"There's a real Santa?" asked Kennedy.
"Yeah," said Dawn, "But according to Anya, he's more into eviscerating children, than giving them presents."
"And Dumbledore has so much power!" said Willow. "I've never seen anyone I felt so much power in before!" She had only seen him from a distance during dinner, but even then she could feel it.
"Sure you have sweetie," said Kennedy. "Every time you look in a mirror."
Dawn stopped in front of the gargoyle statue. "Chocolate Frog." she said.
Willow felt the same magic pulse through the gargoyle that had passed through the painting over the entrance to their room. It stood up, moved aside, and more magic made the stones in the wall pull aside. She saw the spiral staircase twisting upward.
"Come on," said Dawn, and stepped onto the stairs.
Willow followed Dawn into Dumbledore's office, and looked around in amazement. She had been steeped in magic ever since she had entered Hogwarts, and here she was in what she knew was the heart of it. She could feel it flowing around her. She wanted to reach out and suck it all in.
She saw Dawn glance back toward her, with a smile on her face, that quickly became a look of startlement. "Willow…your hair…?"
Willow looked down, and saw that her long red hair was shot with white. "Whoa!" She closed her eyes, and concentrated, releasing the magic she had been unconsciously drawing into her, letting if flow freely around her again. She staggered, and would have fallen if Kennedy wasn't holding her. "Sorry about that."
"I've seen your hair go black, but it's never done that before," said Dawn.
"Yes it has," said Kennedy. "She looked just like that when she made me a Slayer."
"Most extraordinary," said a soft voice.
Willow looked up and saw Professor Dumbledore smiling at her. "Oh, sorry about that. I didn't mean to…whoa, I need to sit down."
"Quite all right." Dumbledore made a nice comfortable love seat, just right for two, grow out of the floor. "Do sit down, both of you." He produced two more chairs, and pointed to one of them. "You too, Dawn." He waited for all the girls to be seated before he sat himself in the remaining chair. He turned his attention back to Willow. "Most extraordinary!"
Willow shook her head. "No, I'm not—"
"Modesty is all well and good, Miss Rosenberg, but when it gets in the way of someone recognising their own abilities, it should be cast aside. Your friend was very nearly correct downstairs when she said that you needed to only look in a mirror to see power greater than mine."
"Very nearly?" asked Kennedy.
"At the moment, Miss Rosenberg has a great deal of potential power, but it will take study, and time for her to fully master it, make it real power. Learn to be able to control it, without it controlling her. She has already made great strides in that direction. I have never met anyone so young who could do what she just did."
"Um…what did she do?" asked Dawn.
"She absorbed a great deal of magic into herself, and then she simply…released it," said Professor Dumbledore. "She let it flow back out into her environment, with almost no effect on it, and very minor effects on herself. It takes an enormous level of control to be able to do something like that, and an enormous level of talent to be even aware of the energy flowing around her."
"It's all over," said Willow. "I can always feel a little, no matter where I go, but the concentration here…I haven't felt anything this strong since we left Sunnydale, but the energy here…it's so much…cleaner!"
"And that makes you doubly extraordinary," said Dumbledore. "Growing up around all that dark magic, and not succumbing to it."
Willow hung her head. "I nearly did…if not for Xander."
"Yes, well, in the end, we pretty much all would succumb to something, if not for our friends," said Dumbledore.
"So do you want me to come to school here?" asked Willow. "Like Dawnie?"
"No, Miss Rosenberg," said Professor Dumbledore. "No. I would have been delighted to have you for a student ten years ago, but now, I'm afraid it's too late."
"What do you mean?" asked Willow.
Dumbledore pointed to a large book, lying open on a stand. "Could you fetch me that book please?"
Willow frowned, and started to get up. "Okay."
"No, no!" said Dumbledore. "Stay seated. Use your magic."
Willow looked puzzled. "I don't like using magic for little things…that's what led me into trouble last time."
"I am aware of that," said Dumbledore, "but I want to illustrate a very important point. Go ahead."
Willow shrugged. "You're the Headmaster." The book rose off the stand and floated across to Dumbledore. He caught it in his hands.
"You see?" said Dumbledore. "There isn't a student, or professor in this school who could have done what you just did. They all would have had to use their wands, and most would have had to use in incantation."
"I started out having to use incantations for everything," said Willow. "But once I've done something a few times, it becomes unnecessary. I've never used a wand to do anything."
"Incantations work the same way with wizards," said Dumbledore. "They don't actually do anything, magically speaking. The magic is done in the mind. 'Hocus pocus' would work as well as 'Accio' in a Summoning Charm, if you learned it with 'Hocus pocus.'"
Dawn frowned. "So why is Professor Flitwick always correcting my pronunciation, if the actual words don't matter?"
Dumbledore smiled. "The words have a Pavlovian effect on your mind. Professor Flitwick isn't correcting your pronunciation, he's changing it. Making subtle adjustments until you find the pronunciation that has the desired effect for you. Pay attention next class to the way all your classmates pronounce their spells. No two will do it exactly the same. But once they have learned the spell, repeating the words helps put their minds into the right state to perform the magic. But with greater practice you learn to put your mind into the correct state without the crutch of saying the words."
"Okay, but what about wands?" asked Willow. "Why won't a wand work for me?"
"A wand is a tool," said Dumbledore. "A conduit. It channels the magic from within the wizard, and focuses it outward. But your magic doesn't work that way. You don't use your own internal magic. You reach out into the world around you, gather magic from it, and you channel it yourself. In effect, you are your own wand. For you, using a wand would be like putting water wings on a duck.
"What you do is a very rare form of magic. It is ancient and powerful, but very few have the ability to do it, and fewer still learn to control it before it consumes them. There is only one student in Hogwarts now who may have the ability, and the potential to control it, and he is the first I've seen in many decades."
"Who?" asked Dawn.
"It is best that I not say," said Dumbledore. "It is a talent that must be nurtured very carefully. To push him along too quickly could lead to disaster."
"But what I do isn't that rare," said Willow. "There are several witches in the Devon Coven who can do it too."
"Nearly anyone can learn to play Chopsticks on a piano," said Dumbledore. "Very few can become concert pianists. The Wiccan way of doing magic, is very much like teaching people to play Chopsticks. No one else in the Devon Coven comes close to your ability, though there are not a few who do have some talent. Miss Harkness was considered for admission to Hogwarts during my predecessor's tenure as Headmaster, but it was decided at the time not to admit her. I have met her since, and I believe that a mistake was made, but she has done a very fine job of finding her own way."
"So, why did you want me to come here?" asked Willow.
"Firstly, I had to meet you for myself, to see if everything I had heard about you was true," said Professor Dumbledore. "I had to find out if Miss Harkness, and your friends were exaggerating your abilities."
"And were they?" asked Kennedy.
"If anything, I think they underestimate her," said Dumbledore.
"So now that you've seen me, what do you want from me?" asked Willow.
"I want you to teach me," said Dumbledore.
"You want me to teach you?" asked Willow. "Do you think you can learn to do my sort of magic?"
"No," said Dumbledore. "I am too old a dog to learn that new trick. But I need to learn as much as I can about how you successfully learned to control your magic. As I said, it has been many decades since anyone with your abilities has passed through Hogwarts, and now I have a student who may need to learn to control magic as you do. I was the Transfiguration Professor last time we saw someone like you, and quite frankly their education was botched, badly. I hope to avoid the mistakes made in the past."
Dawn accompanied Willow and Kennedy back to their room, and they sat around for an hour talking about old times, and how all their friends were doing. Dawn had only had sporadic contact with Buffy since she'd left Hogwarts. The easiest way to contact her once she left on her world tour had been via Willow, who was keeping in touch with her by email.
"Speaking of," said Willow. "Time to see if there's anything new from her." She pulled her computer out of her bag, and opened it up.
"Uh, that won't work here," said Dawn.
"That's what you think," said Willow. She pushed the power button, and Dawn heard the startup chime.
"How'd you do that?" asked Dawn.
Willow wiggled her eyebrows. "Magic, of course."
"Yeah, but Hermione and I have gotten almost nowhere with our project. How'd you do that?"
"If I told you, it would be cheating," said Willow. "I can recommend a couple of books though." She dug into her bag and pulled out a large volume. She handed it over to Dawn.
Dawn looked at the book. "Principles of Quantum Mechanics?"
"Yeah," said Willow. "After thinking about it a bit, I realized that the problem with getting electronics to work in a magical environment had to do with magic's effects on quantum level interactions. And don't worry too much about the math. You just have to read the introductory chapters, that give an overview of just what QM is. The other book you'll need is Magic vs. Quantum Mechanics: Two World Views Collide. I found it in Flourish & Blotts, but they said that the library here should have it."
Willow's computer finished booting, and she logged in. She opened up her email application. "Oh! A new message from Buffy. She says she's in Costa Rica…Caridad says to say 'Hi!'"
"You've got internet working too?" asked Dawn.
"Oh yeah." Willow reached into her bag and pulled out something that looked like a pen. "Here, once you get your computer working, plug this into the Ethernet port, and you're online. Configure your system just like you would for a regular Ethernet connection. Uh…you'll have a fixed IP address. It's on the dongle."
"Uh…isn't this cheating too?" Dawn looked at the device Willow had given her. It had an RJ45 plug on the end of it and was hinged so it wouldn't stick straight out the back of her computer.
"No, your project is to get your computer working, and you have to do that for that to work," said Willow. "It's also has to be one of a matched pair. The mate to that is plugged into a hub in Althenea's cottage, and from there you've got a DSL link to the internet."
Dawn left after using Willow's computer to send an email message to Buffy. It was getting late, and she had to get up for classes next day. Kennedy turned to Willow as soon as she was gone. "So, you wanna try out that bathtub now?"
