They stayed at Grimmauld Place for another day while Xander fixed the hole he'd made in the wall. Tonks, Willow and Dawn had all tried to repair it with magic, but the spells that had kept them from using magic to remove the portrait were still in effect, resisting their efforts to use magic to fix the wall too. They finally gave up, and Xander went shopping for the lumber and other supplies that he'd need to repair it.
Harry insisted on paying for Xander's time. Xander tried to refuse. He only wanted to let Harry pay for the materials he needed to make the repairs, but Harry eventually prevailed and made him add his labour costs. Harry still thought that Xander was letting him off cheap, and decided to talk to Dawn privately about what the real hourly rate paid to carpenters was.
Dawn tumbled out of the fireplace into the Great Hall of Giles' house. She sat up, and shook her head, waiting for the room to stop spinning around her. Buffy followed her out of the fireplace a few seconds later, and managed a much more graceful landing.
"Whoa!" said Dawn. "That is a weird way to travel."
Buffy coughed, and brushed soot off her clothes. "Dirty too."
"I can fix that." Dawn drew her wand and performed a couple of quick Scourgify charms on herself and Buffy. "See, no problem!"
"Ahem."
Dawn turned around again and saw that a couple of people were staring at her and Buffy. "Oh. Hi guys."
Andrew lifted the face guard on his helmet. He was completely decked out in Kendo body armour. "Um, what were you doing in the fireplace?"
"Oh, Mr. Weasley had his friend on the Floo Regulation Panel hook it into the network," said Dawn. "We were just trying it out." She turned back to Buffy. "I don't understand what you said about your appetite. That was better than an E ticket ride at Disneyland!"
"So, are the others following you through?" asked Faith.
"Nope," said Buffy. "Everyone else opted to drive back with Giles. They should be here in a couple of hours. So how's it goin' here?"
"Glad you're back, I'm almost ready to kill this guy." Faith waved her bamboo 'sword' in Andrew's direction. "I got it all planned out to make it look like a training accident."
"Hey!" said Andrew. "I thought you were serious about teaching me to use a sword!"
"I am," said Faith. "You're a frickin' hazard to everyone within twenty feet of you whenever you pick one up. Since I can't get you to leave them alone, I might as well teach you enough that at least you'll be more dangerous to the bad guys than you are to the rest of us. But if you don't stop with all the Star Wars light saber crap, I'll show you that even these practice swords can be deadly!"
Andrew backed away. "I think it's time to go check on how dinner's coming." He quickly vanished in the direction of the kitchen.
"I swear, if he couldn't cook, I think I would've killed him by now!" said Faith.
"Who knew that he'd be good for something other than summoning demons for us to get rid of?" asked Buffy.
"So how'd the meeting go?" asked Faith.
"Better and worse than I'd hoped," said Buffy. "The Knights know more about the Key than I'm happy about, but they don't seem to be planning on doing anything about it."
"So what's so all fired important about this Key?" asked Faith.
"It's an ancient and powerful…artefact that can open the gates between the dimensions," said Buffy. "And we have to protect it."
"Why?" asked Faith. "It seems to attract evil things, and I haven't heard of anyone doing anything useful with it. Why not just destroy it?"
"That's not an option," said Buffy.
"Why?" asked Faith. "I haven't heard any explanation for that other than 'because.'"
"There are reasons," said Buffy. "I'm sorry, but I can't tell you what they are."
"Your little inner circle all knows," said Faith. "Hell, it seems that even Andrew knows more than I do about this. You trust him more than me?"
"Andrew doesn't really know anything," said Buffy. "And what he knows didn't come from us trusting him. He overheard a couple of things he shouldn't have back when he and his friends had our house bugged, and I've been tempted to ask Willow to do a memory erasure spell on him, but she's really touchy about those." She turned to Dawn. "Say, have you learned that neuralizer spell Tonks did in the train station?"
"Obliviate," said Dawn. "And no. They don't teach that one at school. It only gets taught to Aurors, and Obliviators who work for the Ministry. It is highly illegal for anyone else to use it. It's just a step below the Unforgivable curses."
"Nice try at changing the subject," said Faith.
"We're not changing the subject!" objected Buffy. "Okay, we did, but we didn't mean it that way. Faith, we haven't told anyone about the Key who wasn't directly involved the first time. It isn't just you." She turned back to Dawn again. "Right? You haven't told any of your new friends?"
"Nothing that isn't ancient history," said Dawn.
"You don't even trust me enough for the ancient history parts of it!" said Faith. "I've been told squat!"
"We haven't been excluding you Faith," said Buffy. "You've been in Cleveland, and you're going back there after the holidays are over. There's been no reason to tell you."
"Yeah. No reason to tell the killer."
"That's not it at all!" said Buffy. "We haven't told anyone!"
"Typical. You never tell anyone anything!" Faith turned away from Buffy and nearly ran out of the room.
"Faith!" Buffy started after her.
Dawn caught her sister's arm. "Let me do this."
Buffy looked back at her. "What?"
"We agreed that no one gets told about the Key without my say so," said Dawn. "It's my fault we haven't told Faith, not yours."
Dawn found Faith in the training room. This one was quite a bit different from the one the Room of Requirement had made for Ginny. It was full of modern equipment, and everything was clean and sterile. Nothing in it looked improvised, or home made. It looked like it had been equipped by someone with a no-limit credit card who was sent out to buy the best of all the training equipment available, which is pretty much how it was equipped. Faith was letting loose on a punching bag, and from the way she was going at it Dawn thought that they'd have to get it replaced soon.
Dawn circled around Faith, keeping her distance until she was sure the Slayer had recognised her, and then she moved in to brace the punching bag for her. "So, you imagining this is Buffy now?"
"Yeah." Faith hit the bag with a hard punch. "Big Sis send you to try to calm me down?"
"Nope, I sent myself. I figured if Buffy came and tried to talk with you, you'd end up trying to beat the crap out of each other, and then you'd be all bruised for the party tonight. Neither of you are very good at the talking thing, and I didn't want you frightening my friends."
"I just don't like being left in the dark. I know that something big is happening, and B doesn't trust me with it." Faith hit the bag with a spinning kick.
Dawn was rocked back by the force of the blow. "Buffy does trust you. It's not her fault we haven't told you."
"Yeah?" Faith took a step back from the bag. "Then whose fault is it?"
"Mine," said Dawn.
"Yours?" Faith looked genuinely surprised. "How could B not telling me something be your fault?"
"Because I'm the one who decides who does and doesn't get told about the Key."
"And why is that?" asked Faith.
"Because I am the Key."
"What?"
"I'm the Key," said Dawn. "Or rather, the Key is part of me. When the monks decided that the Key needed to be hidden, and protected from all comers, they put it into me, so Buffy would protect it."
"So this Voldemort guy is looking for you."
"Yeah, only he doesn't know that yet, we hope," said Dawn. "After Glory died we thought that no one else knew, outside of the Scoobies, and we decided to keep it that way. We didn't tell anyone else about the Key, figured it was best that way. There hadn't been any reason to tell you, up until now."
"What changed?" asked Faith.
"Well, for starters, the Key isn't nearly as big a secret as we'd hoped," said Dawn. "The Knights of Byzantium know about it, and prior to the news about Voldemort, they were the group we were mostly worried about, since they want to destroy it.
"But the most important thing is…I don't want you thinking that we don't trust you. We do trust you Faith. I trust you. Buffy trusts you. We weren't keeping the information from you because we didn't trust you, we did it because we do. We knew you'd protect me, even if you didn't know why."
"You're not afraid I'll run off and join the other team, now that I've got this really juicy piece of information to sell them?" asked Faith.
"No," said Dawn. "You've changed, Faith. You aren't the person you used to be, and I don't think you ever want to become that person again. Now, I suggest that you go have a shower. You don't want to be all sweaty when Charlie gets here."
"Hey!" said Faith. "I'm not interested in Charlie! He's a nice guy and all, but I'm with Robin now."
Dawn grinned at her. "See? You have changed. The old Faith would have dumped Principal Wood months ago, and racked up another dozen notches on her bedposts between then and now."
Dawn stood nervously by the fireplace and picked invisible lint off the red blouse she was wearing, wishing that Buffy hadn't made her go back to her room and change from the first top she had come down in. Buffy wasn't happy with the black leather pants either, but she didn't make Dawn change them too. Dawn looked at her sister. "What time is it?"
"About thirty seconds past the last time you asked me the time."
"I wish you let me wear the other outfit," said Dawn. "I looked hot in it."
"You looked like a streetwalker…and I can't believe I'm channelling Mom." Buffy shook her head. "Dawn, it isn't just Harry who's coming tonight. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley are going to be here too, and they're the closest thing he's got to parents now. You have to make a good impression on them too." She gave her sister an appraising look. In addition to the red blouse, and black leather pants she was wearing a silk scarf, and earrings that she had received from Harry for Christmas. "Don't worry. You look great!"
Green flames filled the fireplace, and Dawn turned expectantly toward it. She tried to hide her disappointment as the dark skinned boy tumbled out of it onto the hearth. He sat up and looked around hopefully, and a similar look of disappointment flashed across his face.
Dawn put on a smile and held out her hand to help him to his feet. "Hi Dean. You're the first to arrive."
Dean smiled back, and started to brush the soot from his clothes. "Of course. Couldn't have the Weasley's show up on time. That's one of the signs of the apocalypse."
Buffy smiled at him. "Actually, no…I think I've seen most of the signs, and that's not one of them."
"Oh. Hi Miss Summers," said Dean. "Thanks for inviting me."
"Buffy, and I'm glad you could come. Dawn, why don't you introduce Dean to everyone?"
Dawn had just finished using her wand to clean the soot off Dean. She led him away to introduce him to the others.
Dawn was introducing Dean to Xander when the fire flared green again. She turned toward it just in time to see Fred and George come tumbling out. They managed to roll to their feet, having had much more experience at Floo travel than the Muggle-born Dean Thomas. They were followed closely by Bill, Charlie and Ron. Dean and Dawn were both watching the cavalcade of arrivals hopefully as they moved toward them.
Dean was the first to see who he was waiting for. Ginny's exit from the fireplace was a thing of beauty. A graceful roll that looked totally effortless, and one that Dawn knew only a Slayer could pull off. She managed to complete it by coming to her feet directly in front of Dean. "Missed you." She wrapped her arms around him, and gave him a kiss.
"Missed you too," said Dean after Ginny let him come up for air. He looked around the room and saw five pairs of eyes from Ginny's older brothers, all glaring at him. "Um, hi guys." He looked around a little more and saw that Harry had arrived, and was getting a greeting from Dawn that was very similar to the one he had gotten from Ginny, and that Xander was glaring at them in much the same way that Ginny's brothers were glaring at him. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had also arrived, and were looking much more amused by the public displays of affection going on than annoyed. Mrs. Weasley started to bustle around her brood, performing quick cleaning charms on everyone. Dean and Dawn did not escape her attention, since they had collected a fair amount of soot from their greetings of Ginny and Harry.
Dawn showed her friends around the house. Ron was impressed by the buffet of food laid out in the dining room; Dean was impressed by the library. "I don't think I've ever seen so many magical references in a Muggle house before," he told Dawn. He noticed some books that were kept in a locked bookcase. "Some of these have copies in the restricted section of the Hogwarts library! Why do you guys have so many books on the Dark Arts?" he asked suspiciously.
"Because you have to know about them in order to fight them," said Dawn. "Giles has been fighting against the Dark Arts for over twenty years. Mostly demons and other Dark Creatures, but he's come up against a Dark Wizard or two in his time." She really didn't want to talk about this. So far Dean still didn't know about Slayers, and Ginny wanted to keep it that way, so Dawn decided to distract him. "Come on, there's a really neat exercise room that Buffy uses too!"
Dawn found that Tonks and Professor Lupin had arrived when they got back to the main room. They were watching with amusement while Mr. Weasley attempted to dissect a lamp. Dawn quickly checked to make sure that the lamp had been unplugged. It wouldn't do for one of their guests to electrocute themselves. Mrs. Weasley wasn't looking nearly as amused. Giles was quietly assuring her that he didn't mind in the least…this wasn't his Grandmother's lamp.
The party spread out as the evening progressed. The older people gravitated to the library where they could talk without having to shout over the music the youngsters were dancing to in the Great Hall. People kept moving around between the hall, library, dining and training rooms. That made it easy for Dawn and Harry to slip away from the party without anyone noticing.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Harry asked as Dawn led him up the stairs.
"This is a great idea," said Dawn. "We haven't had any alone time for like, weeks!"
"Twelve days," said Harry with a grin.
"Lot of time to make up for." Dawn opened the door to her room and pulled Harry in with her.
Harry looked around the room. It was big and comfortable, and…sterile looking. It almost looked like it belonged in a hotel, there was almost nothing in it that proclaimed it to be Dawn's. There were no pictures on the walls, and only a few school books on the desk. "This is…nice."
Dawn seemed to sense what he meant. "Yeah, it is, but I haven't had a chance to do anything with it yet. I spent a week here this summer, and now this two week vacation, but I haven't had a chance to make it mine. A vamp could probably just come waltzing in."
Harry sat on the bed. He noticed a framed picture on the bedside table and picked it up. It was a photo of Dawn and Buffy with an older, blonde woman. "Is this your Mum?"
A distant sadness passed over Dawn's face as she sat down beside him. "Yeah, it is."
Harry put the picture back down. "Sorry. Didn't mean to upset you."
"No, I'm not upset. I mean yeah, thinking about her does make me sad sometimes, but I like to remember her."
"I can't really remember my Mum," said Harry. "Just impressions…and nightmares from the night she died. I didn't even know what she looked like until I was almost twelve, and Hagrid gave me a photo album of pictures with her and Dad."
"Oh, Harry—"
"Don't," said Harry. "I don't want your pity." He looked back at the picture of Buffy, Dawn and Joyce. "She's very beautiful." He smiled shyly at her. "Almost as beautiful as her daughter."
Dawn blushed. "I'm not—"
Harry's mouth twisted into an impish grin. "I meant Buffy."
Dawn looked surprised for a moment, and then she whacked him on the arm. "Harry!"
"Ow!" Harry rubbed his arm.
"You deserved it!" said Dawn.
"Oh yeah? And you deserve this!" Harry reached out and started to tickle her.
Dawn squealed and grabbed Harry. She pulled him back with her onto the bed while they tussled. They wound up lying face to face. Harry stopped and looked into her eyes. He brushed her hair away from her face. "Neither of them holds a candle to you." He kissed her.
They lay together on her bed for a long time, holding and kissing each other. Harry's hand on Dawn's back slowly started to move, coming around her side, and sliding up over her breast. He gently caressed her. He could feel her heart pounding beneath it, just as fast as his own.
Harry's mouth left Dawn's, and he pulled back a bit. His green eyes looked deep into her blue. His hand stayed on her breast. "You don't mind this do you?"
"Quite the opposite," said Dawn. "I like it a lot." She closed her eyes, and brought her mouth forward to meet his again.
Harry was starting to think about undoing a few of Dawn's buttons when there was a knock on the door. "Dawn, are you in there?" came Buffy's voice from the other side of it.
Dawn and Harry pulled away from each other, and sat up on the bed. She quickly straightened her blouse. "Yeah! Come in!"
Buffy opened the door and saw Dawn and Harry sitting together on her bed, looking flushed. Her eyes quickly scanned them both and saw that their clothes were still all in place, even if they were a little rumpled. She smiled. "Uh, it's almost midnight. Are you two going to come down and ring in the New Year with the rest of us?"
"Oh, uh, yeah." Dawn got up off her bed, and Harry followed her. "We're coming."
"Uh, Harry?" asked Buffy.
He stopped and looked at her. "Yes?"
"You might want to stop by the bathroom before you go downstairs. You've got a little…" Buffy brushed her fingers across her lips. "…you might want to clean up a bit."
Harry rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth, and blushed when he saw red streaks, the colour of Dawn's lipstick, were left on it. "Er…yeah. Er, which way?"
Dawn pointed to a door. "In there."
Harry disappeared into the bathroom. Buffy gave Dawn a look too. "You might want to do a little touching up too."
"Uh…we were just…"
"Making out?" Buffy grinned. "Yeah, I figured that out."
"Uh…you're not mad?"
"Why should I be mad?" asked Buffy. "I like Harry, he's a good guy, and unlike most of my boyfriends, he's got a pulse."
"And we were born in the same century," said Dawn.
