Title: Harry Potters and the Ultimate Scooby Gang, Part 2

Author: Nopporn Wongrassamee aka the Evil Author

EMail Address: EvilAuthor@aol.com

Archive: Anywhere and everywhere. Just tell me if you do.

Spoilers: Anything goes

Summary: It's super witch vs. super witch while a wizard makes off with the prizes.

Disclaimer: Characters and concepts belong to their owners who I'm too lazy to list.

Power wafted through the air of the Bazaar of Deva like an unseen fog bank. It poured down the crowded streets flowed into open tents. Those individuals with even a minimum of magical training could feel it. Magical detection devices primarily intended to spot magic using cheaters and thieves began going off one after the other in an expanding ring.

Vic the Vampire, late of the dimension of Limbo, was meeting a client in the shade of his stall when he felt it. He marketed himself as a wizard for hire, and business was picking up since word had spread that the Great Skeeve had retired. Still, a lot of demons were leery of hiring a vampire.

When the wave of power rolled over him, it almost knocked him flat. Vic came from a magic poor dimension. Having this much hit him was like hitting a desert camel with a tidal wave. When he recovered, he switched to second sight to see what was with Deva's magic. What he saw terrified him.

Whatever was going on was happening miles away. Someone somewhere was drawing in vast quantities of power from the local ley lines. What Vic was feeling was spill off from the effect, since no use of magic was completely one hundred per cent efficient. Whoever was doing this was drawing so much power that the ley lines were visible bending towards the super magician. He could actually see the magical aura of the guy or girl from here.

And then Vic realized it wasn't one person doing all this. There were two of them.

***

As she drew upon this world's energy, Willowmorte assessed the people arrayed before her. She had mentally labeled them the Opposition.

First there was Albus Dumbledore, or at least a version of him. He was powerful, but Willowmorte was more powerful now. The component part of her that had once been Voldemort had always avoided tackling the older wizard head on. Dumbledore had been more powerful than Voldemort in magic even if he held to some weak philosophies. As Willowmorte, her combined self had squashed the old guy easily. The Dumbledore here was a little stronger than the one Willowmorte had destroyed, but she still overshadowed him. The look in Dumbledore's eyes showed that he knew it too. But he also held her Ring in his hand.

Then there was Spike. Willowmorte dismissed him almost immediately. He was the same soulless vampire as the one she had known. Spike was no threat to at all, not by himself at least.

Next was Dawn. Willowmorte could sense the power of the Key in her. That power was active, under Dawn's conscious control. In her reality, Willowmorte's Dawn had escaped her by ending the spell that had made her, dissolving the power of the Key until it was more effort than it was worth to reassemble it. Here, Dawn was still whole. Willowmorte looked forward to assimilating the Key's power.

Willowmorte didn't know what to make of Buffy. She got the impression of extreme age behind those youthful looks. And there was immense power both physical and spiritual in Buffy. The latter concerned Willowmorte because she couldn't tell what powers this gave Buffy.

Xander was also a mystery. His aura was wrapped around him like a bubble, invisible to Willowmorte's magical senses until she was immersed in it. Even then, it seemed to keep trying to slide beneath her notice. Xander's power was unlike anything in the experience of her three lives. All that Willowmorte could tell was that Xander's power was mostly dormant. and that it would be pure idiocy for her to wake it up. Perversely, this actually made him very attractive to her, awakening that buried high school crush.

But the real threat to Willowmorte was her other self. Willow - she was pretty sure the other was just Willow Rosenberg - was drawing in almost as much power as Willowmorte was. Willow's magic wasn't black like Willowmorte's, but it wasn't white magic either. It was more of a combined mottling of the two in a sort of TV static pattern; something Willowmorte would have sworn was impossible. That power was even reflected in Willow's hair, which was half black and white.

Although Willowmorte was sure she was stronger than her double, she wasn't that much stronger. In a straight up fight between them, the winner would be determined more my luck, ruthlessness, and skill than sheer magical might. To even the odds, Willow obviously had allies in Buffy and Xander. Dumbledore would throw in with them having recognized that part of Willowmorte had once been his nemesis. The odds did not look in her favor.

Willowmorte began to reconsider her stance on minions. Having some cannon fodder would have come in handy right about now.

***

Saying the situation was tense was an understatement. Buffy hadn't studied much in the way of magic in her long life, but she couldn't help but pick up a few things. For example, she could tell that both Willows were drawing in enough power combined to nuke a major city. And they were ready to go toe to toe with each other. The locals could see the same; the streets of the Bazaar had emptied amazingly quickly.

This new Willow was giving off dark vibes like there was no tomorrow. Buffy was of two minds about this. On the one hand, she felt both sad for that Willow going dark. At the same time, she also felt like rooting for Willow power. But if it came down to it, Buffy would back "her" Willow in a fight.

"Okay, I'm not unreasonable," Dark Willow said after a few moments of silence. She had obviously been sizing up them up and not liking the results. "If I can just get my Ring back, I'll just be quietly on my way."

"Ring? What ring?" their Willow asked.

"Hey, it's not your Ring," Dawn jumped in. Seeing her sister alive again stirred sentimental feelings inside Buffy. "The One Ring belonged to some Evil Overlord guy. Emphasis on GUY."

"Which you stole," Dark Willow pointed out. When next she spoke, the burning badge on her chest pulsed in sync with her voice, which shifted octaves into something decidedly male. "AND THE 'EVIL OVERLORD GUY' IS PRESENT."

"Dawn, have you been a bad girl?" Buffy asked.

"What? No, I. We just steal evil dark magical thingamabobs from bad guys for uh, safekeeping," Dawn said quickly. "Yeah, that's it, safekeeping."

"We have?" Spike said. Dawn glared at him. "Oh! Too right we have!"

"So where's this big bad ring?" Xander asked.

In answer, both Willows turned to look at the old guy. Dark Willow had called him something Buffy hadn't quite caught. Double Door? Dummy Door? It was something like that.

"You may all rest assured that the One Ring will be quite safe with me," the old geezer said, his voice barely above a whisper yet still audible to everyone. "After all," He placed a hand on Dawn's shoulder displaying a gold band wrapped around his middle finger for all to see, and clicked his heels together three times, "there's no place like home." The old guy and Dawn vanished into thin air.

"Dawn!" Spike cried in shock.

Dark Willow just cursed, incidentally melting the café's plastic tables.

***

"Hey, did you just kidnap me?" Dawn asked after she and Dumbledore had appeared on the edge of a lake. In the distance, a castle loomed above the lake.

"I prefer to think of it as rescuing a damsel in distress," Dumbledore replied. "Unless you prefer the company of the lady with glowing red eyes and enough power to flatten cities?"

"Willow? She wouldn't hurt me. I think," Dawn said.

"Ah, but it's not just your friend Willow there," Dumbledore told her. "I saw my former student, Tom Riddle in her as well as the former owner of the One Ring. Neither are - or should I say were? - nice men."

"Men? In Willow?" Dawn's imagination conjured up a scary image. "Whoa."

"In any case, I wish to hire you for another job," Dumbledore continued.

"Um, okay. What is it?"

"I rather expect your friend Willow to follow us," Dumbledore said. "Both of them in fact. They'll try and take the Ring back. I intend to stop them. But I need your help to prepare a defense."

"Only if the price is right," Dawn hedged.

"Of course," Dumbledore said, smiling paternally. "We can do that while we go along. First, can you open a portal to Hogwarts?" He pointed to the castle. "The magic here prevents apparating on the grounds and we need to move as quickly as possible."

"No problem," Dawn said confidently. "That'll be fifty of. what do you call those gold coins of yours again?"

***

"What's she doing?" Xander asked, looking at the "other" Willow. His maleness noticed that she looked really hot wearing what looked like sprayed on black latex. On the other hand, that trick with the voice was way creepy. Her eyes were closed.

"My skanky evil twin is trying to figure out where Dawn and that other guy teleported off to," his Willow replied. Her eyes were also closed. "I'm trying to do the same. Now shush."

Disgruntled at the brush off, Xander moved over to Buffy. Buffy had moved off to the side to question Spike. Or he assumed that was her original intent.

".and what were you thinking?" Buffy concluded, obviously coming to the end of a rant.

"Keeping my promise to you," Spike replied.

"What promise?"

"I promised to keep the Niblet safe for you," Spike explained. "Seeing as how you died and all."

"Stealing dark magic artifacts is safe?" Buffy said in disbelief.

"Well, they weren't always dark," Spike continued. He smiled fondly. "Hell, they weren't even always magical. Or even old. They just had to be valuable and locked up. URK!"

"YOU TOOK MY SISTER ON A LIFE OF CRIME?" Buffy shouted, strangling the vampire with one hand.

"Urk!"

"Buffy, he can't answer without moving air over his vocal cords," Xander said reasonably, putting a hand on Buffy's strangling arm. "You can kill him after you learn everything."

Buffy didn't let go, but she did ease up on the pressure.

"Didn't take 'er," Spike choked out. "Her choice. Niblet's. boss."

Buffy let go. Spike fell down into a chair. "Why would Dawn choose this?" Buffy asked quietly. "Why'd you let her?"

"You were dead, Buffy, jumping off Glory's tower and all. Dawn, she didn't want to stay in Sunnydale," Spike answered, rubbing his neck. "Ow, you've gotten stronger. Almost thought you were gonna squeeze my head off."

"It can still happen," Buffy replied. "How could you let this happen?"

"I promised to keep her safe, not be her conscience," Spike told her, getting to his feet. "Kinda hard to be the latter considering my lack of a soul and all. Besides, Niblet's got a knack for breaking and entering even without the Key powers."

"Found her," the other Willow sang, her eyes popping open in a blaze of red glory. Moments later, she was gone in a pillar of fire.

"Willow," Buffy said too calmly, turning to their Willow, "tell me you know where Dawn went off to."

"Sorry, Buffy, haven't found her," Willow replied. She smiled. "But I do know where my evil twin went."

"How's that?" Xander asked.

"Planted a magical tracer on her when she wasn't looking," Willow explained. She pulled out the gizmo she had taken from the Watcher's TARDIS. "Now we just need to get a ride to where she went off to."

"Hey, I'm coming too," Spike interjected.

Willow nodded and spoke a word that impressed itself into reality.

TRANSPORT.

***

"You sure it's just one drop you need?" Dawn asked dubiously, examining the knife in her hand.

"One drop is more than enough, Miss Summers," Dumbledore replied, leaning back in his chair in the Headmaster's office. His mind was elsewhere, expanding to become one with the school. Magic was soaked into every stone of Hogwarts, constantly adjusting the structure of the castle to the wants and needs of the occupants. The school was almost alive in a way, with the Headmaster serving as the brain. "Whenever you're ready."

"Okay, here goes nothing," Dawn murmured, pricking her thumb. Redness welled out. Dawn let a drop fall onto a carved statue of the Castle and its surrounding grounds.

This was ancient magic of several orders. There was the immense power of the Key in that single drop, enhanced by blood magic. There was voodoo in the representation of Hogwarts. And then there was the One Ring.

As the drop of blood hit the model castle, in changed into a brilliant green light that suffused the statue. Likewise, green light began to outline every individual stone throughout the real Hogwarts. Dumbledore placed his Ring hand on the glowing representation. Then he began to speak.

"One Ring to rule them all."

Throughout the school, everyone both student and teacher alike came stopped what they were doing. Most of what they were doing was panicking at the changes being wrought on the school.

"One Ring to find them."

As his senses expanded, Dumbledore noticed that neither Potter nor that Umbridge woman was on the grounds. A number of Potter's friends were missing as well. Rifling through a number of minds, he discovered that they had all vanished into the Forbidden Forest.

"One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them."

There! The alternate version of his former student had entered the grounds. The binding spell of the Ring attempted to seize her, but she resisted successfully. That was expected. He sent her a greeting party.

***

In the void between worlds, Dawn frowned. Her view of her lesser self had just been filled with static. She couldn't see her anymore. But that couldn't have been Dumbledore's intention. It felt more like a side effect.

So what happened?

***

"Ah, you're back," the Watcher said sourly as the gang walked into the TARDIS. "And I see your number has grown by one. I noticed your grotesque display of power earlier. Are you finished with scaring everyone?"

"Yeah, we love you too," Xander replied sarcastically.

"We need you to get you to get us to these coordinates," Willow announced, waving her hand. Her hand trailed sparkly lights that arranged themselves into a series of arcane figures.

"How did you learn our coordinate system?" the Watcher asked. "And why should I take you?"

"What, do you think I was just making myself new clothes last night?" Willow asked.

"As for why you should take us," Buffy added, "we have to go and rescue a version of my sister from a couple of darker than dark witch and wizard."

"You sister," the Watcher echoed, not moving to help.

"My sister. The Key," Buffy clarified.

"The Key?" The Watcher blanched, realizing the implications.

As if in answer, a green pinpoint of light appeared above the central table. It hovered there, bobbing slightly.

"You guys might want to hurry," said the light in a familiar voice. "'Cuz something really weird is going on over there."

Everyone stared.

"Yes, definitely the Key," the Watcher murmured, after a glance at an open book.

"Dawn?" Spike asked.

"Yep, that's me," the light replied.

"Wait a minute," Xander said slowly. "What version of Dawn are you supposed to be?"

"Every version," Dawn the pinpoint replied.

***

As Willowmorte approached the Hogwarts, the castle began to glow. She could feel ripples of power radiating out. Dumbledore was doing something, but she couldn't tell what. Whatever it was certainly involved using the key.

It annoyed her to have to actually walk up to the castle. While Willowmorte was sure she could crack the castle's anti-apparition defense, she was also certain that it would take too long or too much energy to do so. She had to save as much time and power as possible. Willowmorte was certain that her goody-two-shoes twin was on her trail.

Willowmorte felt the power of the Ring reach out and attempt to command her. It failed. Part of her was Sauron, the being who had originally forged the Ring. She would not and could not be commanded by her own trinkets. It was odd that Dumbledore, normally the bastion of holier- than-thou, using the darker aspects of the Ring so soon. Willowmorte wondered how different this Dumbledore was from the one she had known.

Entering the courtyard, Willowmorte was greeted by what had to be the entire population of Hogwarts blocking her way. It was immediately obvious that they were under the power of the Ring. They also all had their wands drawn and pointed at her.

"Is this the best you have, Old Man?" Willowmorte shouted contemptuously. She was sure Dumbledore could hear her. "What are they going to do? Hex me with pimples? Walking warts maybe?"

"AVADA KEDAVRA!" the entire crowd chanted.

Willowmorte rocked back as her shields bore the brunt of hundreds of instances of the forbidden Death Curse. They all hung suspended in midair in front of her, like smoking green Christmas decorations. Mass mind control. Forbidden curses. This Dumbledore was beginning to look decidedly dark. She was actually starting to like him.

"Oh, very nice," Willowmorte laughed. "My turn now." She took a step forward and called power to her. All the death curses started collecting together in her hands. "Say goodbye to your." Her stomach lurched as reality seemed to shift around her.

Correction. Reality didn't seem to shift. It actually did shift. The courtyard was different now. The courtyard was empty now except for a red haired Willow Rosenberg busily snogging a girl that looked like one of Potter's friends. Willowmorte had accidentally stepped into an alternate reality.

So THAT was what Dumbledore had been doing with the Key.