Willow and Kennedy sat in on Dawn's Transfiguration and Charms classes on Monday morning. Willow was fascinated as she watched and felt the magic flowing around her, directed by the students' wands, but she could feel that Kennedy was quickly becoming bored with it. Sure it was neat to see a hedgehog get turned into a pincushion, but after the dozenth time it started to get a little old…even if some of the students' failed attempts were quite amusing.

Watching the students attempt to summon pillows and such in Charms class was even more boring for Kennedy. They weren't really doing anything that she hadn't seen Willow do a zillion times, (and for the most part the pillows weren't getting summoned at all, really.)

Dawn knew that Kennedy was bored, and she knew that the afternoon would be worse for her: Willow was going to be shut up with Dumbledore, and Dawn had Potions and Muggle Studies. Professor Snape wouldn't be happy having Kennedy observing his classes…none of the Professors aside from Dumbledore and Lupin had any idea that Kennedy was a Slayer. They mostly thought her being there was just an indulgence for Willow. They did know that Willow was there as a practitioner of wandless magic, and Willow had participated in both the Charms and Transfiguration classes, demonstrating some of her abilities for the students, and Professors Flitwick and McGonagall.

Rather than put Kennedy through her afternoon classes, Dawn introduced her to Hagrid at lunch, and suggested that she spend the afternoon sitting in on his Care of Magical Creatures classes. They would be much more interesting for her than Dawn's afternoon classes. Later that afternoon, when Dawn looked out one of the windows during the break between Potions and Muggle Studies she saw Kennedy flying around the castle on Buckbeak.

Kennedy joined Dawn for her afternoon run. "So, Magical Creatures more fun than Summoning Charms?" asked Dawn as they left the castle.

"Much!" said Kennedy. "And Hagrid's really fun too…can't say I like his cooking though."

Dawn laughed. "Hagrid is the only one who can eat anything he cooks." They set out to follow Dawn's old route around the grounds. Since Trei had started popping up pretty much anywhere when she was running on her own, Dawn had started taking different routes, exploring more of the grounds, but with Kennedy along she figured Trei would be sticking to the paddock.

"So, what do you do for fun around here?" asked Kennedy.

"There's flying, and Quidditch," said Dawn. "We're going to finish this run at the Quidditch pitch, so you can see the practice. I've been teaching a martial arts class a couple of evenings a week. You can come to that too, if you promise not to go all Drill Sergeant Kennedy. It's mostly just a bunch of kids doing it for fun, we aren't preparing them for a life or death struggle against the Ultimate Evil here."

"I'll behave," said Kennedy. "What else?"

"Friday's Halloween, and we get the day off, and can go into town," said Dawn. "Halloween is a big holiday in the wizarding world…kinda like Thanksgiving…which they don't do here."

"I know," said Kennedy. "I spent a year in England before…before my Watcher got killed."

Dawn looked at Kennedy, and saw the sadness. It wasn't something that Kennedy let people see very often. Dawn said nothing, and kept running. They reached the paddock, and started running along the fence. Trei soon joined them, keeping inside the paddock, but coming a lot closer than she had when Buffy had been there a month earlier. Dawn stopped to feed her a carrot, and to give her ears a scratch before continuing on their run.


Kennedy sat in on the DADA classes with Professor Lupin the next morning, and went back to the Care of Magical Creatures classes with Hagrid in the afternoon. She found both classes to be much more to her taste than any of the other things taught in Hogwarts.

Ginny got to spar with Kennedy that afternoon. It came as a bit of a shock to her. The sessions with Buffy, and the following month of sparring with Dawn had really built her confidence to the level where she thought she could go up against pretty much anyone. Kennedy demolished her defenses, while not letting any of her attacks break through. Ginny was feeling pretty dejected later that evening. They sat together in their room while Hermione was off somewhere with Ron.

"Hey, don't worry about it," said Dawn.

"But she damn near killed me!" said Ginny. "I sucked!"

"No you didn't," said Dawn. "Kennedy has had years of training. You've had two months."

"With Buffy…I felt like I had a chance of getting to be that good," said Ginny. "Kennedy just takes apart everything I try to do."

"Kennedy never learned to temper herself," said Dawn. "She was trained for years before she was called, and all that training told her she had to go all out. Try her hardest all the time. Never give her opponent a break. Buffy never got any training before she was called, and she's got almost eight years of experience training with people less capable than her. She knows when to hold back."

"You're saying Buffy went easy on me?" asked Ginny.

"Yeah, she did," said Dawn. "Buffy is the best Slayer alive. I've seen her sparring with Kennedy, and Kennedy does about as well against her as you did against Kennedy tonight. Faith can hold her own against Buffy, but she can't beat her."

"Faith?" asked Ginny.

"Uh…she's the Slayer who got called a few years ago because Buffy refuses to stay dead," said Dawn. "That's not important. The thing is, give you another six months, or a year of practice, and you'll be just as good as Kennedy is now."

"You're not just saying that?" asked Ginny.

"No, I mean it," said Dawn. "Did you notice how Kennedy always drops her left shoulder a bit before she punches with her right?"


The next few training sessions with Kennedy went better for Ginny. They layed in extra evening sessions in addition to her normal afternoon ones with Dawn. Ginny managed to surprise Kennedy a couple of times by anticipating her attacks, and being ready to counter them. Dawn tried sparring a little with Kennedy, to see if she was capable of holding back a bit when fighting with someone who didn't have a Slayer's resiliency. She didn't want Kennedy anywhere near a DA meeting if she couldn't hold back. Kennedy demolished Dawn even more easily than she had Ginny, but she managed to do it without breaking any of Dawn's bones, or bruising her too badly, so Dawn decided it was safe to let her near the other students.

Kennedy surprised Dawn by holding back even more when they gave a demonstration match for the DA martial arts class. To most of the kids watching it looked like Dawn and Kennedy were pretty evenly matched (even though Kennedy didn't go so far as to let Dawn actually appear to beat her.) They were down to a dozen kids in those sessions, and they were all suitably impressed. Kennedy was also surprisingly good at passing on a few lessons to the kids, with very little of her Drill Sergeant persona showing through.


Friday morning dawned bright and clear. Dawn looked out from her bedroom window and saw the frost was quickly vanishing from the grass of the lawn. Much of the green of the leaves on the trees had turned to yellow or gold, but they hadn't started to fall yet. The main topic at breakfast that morning was everyone's plans for visiting Hogsmeade. Dawn was looking forward to having another look around the town.

Willow and Kennedy went with them into town. They spent the day exploring it. Willow was thrilled by some of the magical items she found in Dervish & Banges as well as the candies available in Honeydukes. She was slightly less impressed with the sort of clothing available in Gladrags Wizardwear: she didn't think wizard styles agreed with her. Ron and Ginny were excited to discover that Zonko's was now carrying the Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes line of products, though they charged more for them than Fred and George did in their shop in Diagon Alley. They didn't buy anything, since they could order all that stuff from their brothers, at wholesale rates. Dawn did pick up something while the others were all distracted by someone setting off some Dungbombs in the shop.

They had lunch in the Three Broomsticks. When it was over the others showed Dawn, Willow and Kennedy the Shrieking Shack…supposedly the most haunted house in Britain, though it had been quiet for twenty years now.

"It isn't really haunted," said Hermione quietly. "That was just a story made up to keep people away from it. The howls people heard from it every month were really Professor Lupin. That's were they used to shut him up during the full moon, when he was a student here, before Wolfsbane Potion was invented."


They returned to the school at the end of the day, with plenty of time to get ready for the Halloween feast.

Dawn had already had a couple of exposures to the sorts of feasts that could be layed on in Hogwarts, so she wasn't too surprised by the food that appeared on the tables. Willow on the other hand had never seen anything like it, and unlike her Thanksgiving experiences, this feast was completely guilt free. Kennedy had seen some pretty good meals served up on special occasions in her family's homes, but this one impressed even her.

After the remains of the meal were cleared away, and the younger students were sent back to their dorms there was a dance for the senior students. Some eyebrows were definitely raised by the way Willow and Kennedy were seen dancing together. Willow overheard a couple of boys making some snide comments, but they went very silent after they saw her eyes flash at them.

The dance ended at midnight. Dawn and her friends escorted Willow and Kennedy up to their room, and said goodnight to them at the painting of the mermaids. Willow and Kennedy started to enter their room.

"Oh, just a sec." Dawn reached into her pocket, and pulled out a bag that Harry saw came from Zonko's. "I got you some Halloween candy." She handed the bag to Willow.

"Thank's Dawnie!" Willow took the bag. "Kinda sweeted out already today though."

"Oh, trust me," Dawn had a big grin on her face. "You guy's will want to try a couple of those before you go to bed."

"Alright," said Willow. "Well, good night. See you in the morning." She and Kennedy entered their room, and the painting closed behind them.

Dawn started back toward the stairs up to the seventh floor. Harry came up beside her. "Okay, what did you give them?"

"A couple of dozen Ton Tongue Toffees," said Dawn.

"A couple of dozen?" asked Harry. "But no one ever eats more than one of those things!"

Dawn grinned. "Oh, I think they'll want to eat more than one. I just hope I got them enough. Maybe I should talk to Fred and George. Special Order some longer lasting ones."

Hermione suddenly turned red. "Oh, they wouldn't!"

Dawn smiled at her. "I used to sleep in the room just down the hall from them. They will."


Willow lay blissfully snuggled up against her Little Slayer, resting her head on Kennedy's chest. She could hear Kennedy's steady heartbeat beneath her breast. She really had to find a way to properly thank Dawn for those toffees…and find out where to get more of them. She smiled at the memory of Kennedy's reaction to seeing what had happened to Willow's tongue when she had tried one of the toffees Dawn had given her.

The old Watchers' Council would have had fits if they'd known about her and Kennedy's relationship. Willow was now officially Kennedy's Watcher, and in the old rules Watcher/Slayer liaisons were strictly verboten, with very stiff penalties…up to death for Watchers who violated that rule. Of course that sort of relationship was still forbidden, but there was now an exception in the books for cases where the Slayer was over eighteen, and the relationship predated the Watcher being appointed. The same exception allowed for Faith's relationship with Robin Wood…not that any rule book would stop Faith from laying anyone she wanted to lay.

Willow was starting to doze off when she felt Kennedy tense, and heard her heartbeat accelerate.


Kennedy moved slowly through an underground passage. The walls were damp, and the air smelled of mold and mildew. It was nearly pitch dark, and she could hear the sound of dripping water. A glimmer of light flickered up ahead. She moved toward it.


Ginny peered around a corner in the passage. She could now see that the light came from some torches up ahead. She moved toward them, her feet splashing slightly in the shallow puddles of water on the ground.


Kennedy approached the dozen or so hooded men holding the torches. They were bowed before a slender figure with bleached, bone white skin visible beneath its hood, burning red eyes, and slits for nostrils. She thought at first it might be a demon, but something about it felt human to her. Vile and corrupt, but human, with something else added. It felt serpentine. There was what looked at first to be a body lying on the ground in front of him, but Kennedy saw a flicker of motion. The figure pointed a wand at it.


"Crucio!"

Ginny watched the man writhe in agony, and heard his screams as Voldemort's Cruciatus Curse wracked his body with waves of agony. She saw the hooded and masked Death Eaters looking on. Some of them seemed impassive, not caring what happened to the man on the ground. She could feel pleasure emanating from the others. They were rejoicing in the pain their master was inflicting.

The man on the floor suddenly went still, and his cries ceased. Ginny knew that he would never feel pain again.


Harry looked down at the dead man in front of him. He felt rage building, nearly overwhelming him. The man had died without revealing the last bit of information he needed. He glared at the Death Eaters cowering before him. "The Key is in Hogwarts!" he hissed. "Find it!"