Once again, thanks to all my reviewers! I really can't say how much your input means to me. Sorry if my grammar and spelling aren't perfect - I'm only human. And formatting...I've given up on it. Perhaps there will come a day when I can actually format my stories perfectly, so that everyone has a good chance at being able to read them. That day is a long, long way off. Keep reading, and remember...R/R!!!
To Wesley's slight surprise, Buffy and the rest laughed. "Hogwarts? Who came up with that name?"
Wesley blinked. "Hogwarts was named more than a thousand years ago by the four greatest witches and wizards of the time," he said, looking a bit confused. He'd heard a lot of opinions about Hogwarts before; no one had ever found it funny.
"They must have been pretty crazy," Dawn said, still chuckling.
"Well, I suppose they were," Wesley said, regaining his composure. "but they were still the greatest sorcerers of that time. They started Hogwarts to educate children in the ways of magic.
"I attended Hogwarts when I was eleven years old. Afterwards, I decided to join the Watcher's Council. Strangely, neither entity knows of the others existence,"
"So these Logquart people don't know about the Slayers?" Buffy asked.
"Hogwarts," Wesley corrected. "And no, they don't. I've always found it rather amusing that I'm the only person alive privy to information about both," he smiled at nothing in particular. Realizing that everyone was still watching him, Wesley cleared his throat and went back to his explanation.
"Hogwarts is constantly in search of new students. There are the children of known wizards, of course - most children with magical parents are magical themselves, with a few rare exceptions - and there are the children of mixed parentage. These are becoming more and more common now," he added.
"Why?" asked Willow.
"There are only so many all wizarding families, Willow," replied Wesley. "By now, they are all related to one and other. Too much inbreeding leads to -"
"Yes, we get the idea," Xander jumped in. No need to disgust the young Slayers.
"Anyway, half-bloods, as they are called, are fairly easy to monitor as well. The real challenge comes from those children whose parents have no magic. There is a magical...well, you would think of it as a machine, I suppose, that can determine which children have magical potential."
The Slayers took a moment to take this all in. "How can we get in touch with this place?" Buffy asked.
"Generally, one sends an owl with postage," Wesley replied. "Owls deliver the mail in the wizarding world."
"Owls?" Dawn asked.
Seeing the conversation turning in a direction that was not forward, Buffy jumped in. "Okay, we're in."
When no one reacted, Buffy said, "Well? What are you all waiting for?"
Giles leaned in. "They're waiting for you to tell them what to do."
"Oh," she replied. "Um - we need to talk to whoever runs this Hogwarts place."
"That would be Albus Dumbledore," Wesley said. "Headmaster."
"Right," Buffy said. She looked around, then focused again on Wesley. "Wesley, unless you have an owl lying around, is there any other way we can ask him about our...situation?"
Wesley considered this for a second. Then, the light bulb came on. "Floo powder!"
Blank stares abounded yet again. "It allows people to travel from fireplace to fireplace around the world," he explained.
This was getting more complicated by the second. Buffy wondered whether she would be able to handle all the new stuff they would need to remember. Floo powder? Give me a break.
"Where can we get some of this...uh...Floo powder?" asked Buffy.
"I have some, actually," Wesley said. "Its useful for other types of spells, too."
"Could we be so imposing as to borrow some?" Giles asked.
"Oh, yes, of course."
While Wesley hurried away to the storage compartments to find his Floo powder, Buffy turned to Angel, who had been silent for most of the meeting. "What do you think of all this?"
"What?" he replied.
"Oh, everything," Buffy said, looking at the casually chatting crowd of Slayers. "Hogwarts, hundreds of Slayers worldwide, no more Hellmouth. Its all so confusing,"
"Yes," Angel said. "But you'll get through it, Buffy. You've had your share of confusing, and you're still alive. Again."
"Thanks," Buffy said, in a dry sort of way. But Angel's words had been comforting, in there own way.
"Anytime," he replied, and grinned. Buffy was shocked. Angel never smiled.
Shaking it off, Buffy looked up as Wesley reentered the room with what looked like a bucket filled with powder.
"This is it," he announced. "All we need is a fire."
After a moment of bustling that accomplished nothing, Willow lit a fire.
Everyone gathered around the fireplace apprehensively. Wesley tossed in the powder, and immediately, the fire roared up, changing from a calm red to a brilliant, dazzling green.
Wesley winked at the crowd and stuck his head into the flames. Despite gasps from several of the Slayers, Wesley seemed unhurt.
"Hogwarts!" He yelled clearly.
A second later, a scream came through from the other end.
Harry awoke the next morning to hear screaming. For a second, he was sure that the screaming was simply part of the dream he'd been having; but then he was sure that it wasn't.
Leaping out of bed and running downstairs, Harry found Ginny leaning up against a wall, panting, and a man's head sticking out of the fire.
"What's going on?" he asked hurriedly.
"Is this Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?" the man's head asked.
"He just appeared out of no where...no warning..." Ginny seemed to be calming slightly, but Harry still placed himself between her and the fire, just to be safe.
"Who are you?" Harry asked the man.
"My name is Wesley Windham-Pryce," the head replied. "Is this Hogwarts?" he asked again.
At this point, Mrs. Weasley came rushing in. "Ginny, dear, what's the - my word! Wesley!" Mrs. Weasley fairly screeched.
"Molly!" the head, Wesley, replied, equally surprised.
"But - what are you doing here, Wesley? Why, I haven't heard from you in ages!" Mrs. Weasley said.
"I'm looking for Dumbledore - isn't this Hogwarts?" Wesley the disembodied head replied.
"No - the Floo Network still hasn't been restored," Mrs. Weasley said, drawing up a chair.
"Restored? What happened?" Wesley asked. Harry could distinctly hear other voices in back of Wesley, though what they were saying was impossible to tell.
"You haven't heard? Oh, Wesley, its terrible! The AWA - its gone. Destroyed. Only one of the students survived," Mrs. Weasley said.
Wesley's face fell. So did his head, in such a manner that Harry got the impression that his knee's had given out and he was now sitting, rather than kneeling.
"Gone?" he asked, thunderstruck.
"Yes. You-Know-Who attacked it just last week, the day before their term was to end -"
"Voldemort?" asked Wesley, and his voice seemed to go rather high pitched for a moment.
"Yes - took out the entire complex. The parents showed up the day after to pick up their children, and they found...they found..." Mrs. Weasley couldn't bring herself to say it.
"Voldemort is back?" Wesley asked, seeming faint.
"Yes," Mrs. Weasley said, recovering slightly. "Where have you been, Wesley?"
"Elsewhere," Wesley replied, and Harry could tell that, despite his stricken state, he was still concealing something.
"There's more, Wesley. The Sunnydale Hellmouth was closed," Mrs. Weasley added.
"I know," Wesley said.
"You heard about that?" Harry asked.
"Yes," Wesley said, and Harry could tell that he was withholding information again.
"Look, Molly, it is imperative, now more than ever, that I get in touch with Dumbledore," Wesley said.
"An owl would be the safest bet, Wesley," Mrs. Weasley told him. "Everything has been upset by these occurrences. Its almost as though the very essence of magic has been shifted,"
"It has," he said.
"What?" Mrs. Weasley asked, startled.
Harry leaned in closely to hear. Wesley knew something about the Hellmouth. Harry was sure, and he wanted to know more about what he'd been dreaming about.
"It would be far too complicated to explain here. I'll be in touch, Molly. I might even see you soon," he said, with the first and only trace of a weak smile.
"Bye," Mrs. Weasley said, still not quite recovered from his statement.
As soon as Wesley's head had withdrawn from the fire, Harry and Ginny, almost in unison, asked, "Who was that?"
"Wesley Windham-Pryce," Mrs. Weasley replied. "He graduated from Hogwarts three or four years before You-Know-Who fell. He joined the Order right after that. The original Order," she amended. "He wasn't particularly gifted magically, and he definitely had some maturity issues, but his heart was in the right place. He disappeared after You-Know-Who fell. I never expected to see him again."
"Why?" Ginny asked.
"Wesley was a forgettable kind of person. Or at least," she grinned. "a person one would like to forget. He hated the Dark Arts, all right, but he was so snobbish that there were very few people who wanted to work with him. Mind you, he was a smart boy - he just didn't know how to translate that into practical usage of magic."
"What do you think he wants with Dumbledore, Mrs. Weasley?" Harry asked.
"Oh - who knows? It must be important, though. I don't ever remember seeing him look that desperate about anything," Mrs. Weasley sighed. "Oh, well - nothing we can do about that, is there? Why don't you two go out and join Ron and Hermione? They're down in the field playing Quidditch."
As Mrs. Weasley left the room in the direction of Errol's perch, Harry's mind shifted away from Wesley Windham-Pryce and onto more teenage matters.
"Hermione?" he asked Ginny, questioningly.
"She arrived this morning," Ginny replied evenly. "You've slept until one in the afternoon."
"I have?" Harry asked, surprised.
"Yes," she said.
Something occurred to Harry. "Why aren't you out with them? You need to do some training if you want to make Chaser."
"Well - I was waiting for you, wasn't I?" she asked, and blushed slightly.
"Oh - thanks," Harry said.
"Do you always sleep like that?" Ginny asked as she and Harry walked upstairs to get their brooms.
"Hmm? Oh, no. I guess I was too distracted to get changed last night," Harry replied, as he looked down at his jeans and sweater.
"Distracted by what?" she asked. Harry kicked himself mentally.
"Oh, nothing in particular. Just he whole thing with the Hellmouth, and the AWA," he lied, so unconvincingly that Ginny halted on the stairs.
"Harry, you were fine last night until Dumbledore took you outside. Then, you were like a walking zombie. You didn't even eat dinner," she said.
Harry's mental kicking increased. "I...well...its personal," he concluded weakly.
"Harry, you don't have to lie to me," Ginny said, and her sincerity moved Harry ever so slightly.
I can't tell Ron about the prophesy - he'd have a cow. I can't tell Hermione, because she'd research me to death, and then she'd worry, too. Ginny - oh, what the hell. Its not like we have nothing in common.
"Ginny - what I'm going to tell you is very serious," Harry said, and so help him, she giggled.
"What?" he asked, slightly angry now.
"Its just that you sounded so much like Dumbledore just then," she replied, and her face straightened. Harry didn't know whether to feel complemented or not.
"Right. Anyway, Ginny, what's been going on, its - well - er...well, there's a prophesy, there's an equilibrium, and..." he trailed off. Ginny already looked lost.
"Why don't we talk somewhere with a bit more privacy?" Ginny suggested. Harry looked around. They were halfway between landings on the staircase.
"Er...good idea," he said.
"Here - my room is right here," Ginny said, motioning up the stairs to the next landing.
"Er...okay..." Ginny pushed open the door, and Harry entered behind her.
Harry had never been in Ginny's room before. Indeed, he'd never assumed that he ever would be in Ginny's room. He just never thought that he would have any business there.
"Why don't you start from the beginning," Ginny said, sitting down on the bed and motioning for Harry to sit down.
"Okay," Harry said. He was a little nervous - he'd never told anyone about the prophesy, after all.
So Harry told her. He started with the prophesy from last term - the one Trelawney had made before his birth. He explained how it could have been him or Neville. Then he explained the new prophesy, and how the war couldn't progress until he and Voldemort were through with their own conflict. Maybe it was Ginny's sympathetic expression, or maybe it was the emotion released when he retold the events of the past few weeks, but Harry broke down. He told Ginny everything - how he missed Sirius, how he'd been possessed by Voldemort, and how Dumbledore had told Harry of his great mistake.
Four hours later, Harry and Ginny were still talking. Once the dam had broken open, Harry simply couldn't close it. He couldn't stop himself; he needed to get so much off his shoulders. And Ginny was so understanding! They reminisced at length on possession and even talked about the incident with the Chamber from Ginny's first year.
Ginny admitted to having nightmares about it on a fairly regular schedule. Harry, whose nightmares seemed to include more horrors every day, could definitely sympathize with her on that. She talked about how close she had been with Tom Riddle's memory, and much she simply hadn't known him. Discovering that he was evil had hurt her more than the damn snake had.
By the time Ron and Hermione got back from Quidditch at ten o'clock, both Harry and Ginny were asleep on her bed, tear streaks evident, but already beginning to fade.
There's number four! Say "Bunker shorts" if you like H/G. I'm a fan of that pairing, but if you want to see something else, then I'd be more than willing. I know that this fic seems to be going nowhere fast, but that's because I've got it planned out to be enormous. If I can keep myself interested, it should be the biggest piece of writing I've ever done. Speaking of big, this blurb is getting too long. Better cut it off. Station!
To Wesley's slight surprise, Buffy and the rest laughed. "Hogwarts? Who came up with that name?"
Wesley blinked. "Hogwarts was named more than a thousand years ago by the four greatest witches and wizards of the time," he said, looking a bit confused. He'd heard a lot of opinions about Hogwarts before; no one had ever found it funny.
"They must have been pretty crazy," Dawn said, still chuckling.
"Well, I suppose they were," Wesley said, regaining his composure. "but they were still the greatest sorcerers of that time. They started Hogwarts to educate children in the ways of magic.
"I attended Hogwarts when I was eleven years old. Afterwards, I decided to join the Watcher's Council. Strangely, neither entity knows of the others existence,"
"So these Logquart people don't know about the Slayers?" Buffy asked.
"Hogwarts," Wesley corrected. "And no, they don't. I've always found it rather amusing that I'm the only person alive privy to information about both," he smiled at nothing in particular. Realizing that everyone was still watching him, Wesley cleared his throat and went back to his explanation.
"Hogwarts is constantly in search of new students. There are the children of known wizards, of course - most children with magical parents are magical themselves, with a few rare exceptions - and there are the children of mixed parentage. These are becoming more and more common now," he added.
"Why?" asked Willow.
"There are only so many all wizarding families, Willow," replied Wesley. "By now, they are all related to one and other. Too much inbreeding leads to -"
"Yes, we get the idea," Xander jumped in. No need to disgust the young Slayers.
"Anyway, half-bloods, as they are called, are fairly easy to monitor as well. The real challenge comes from those children whose parents have no magic. There is a magical...well, you would think of it as a machine, I suppose, that can determine which children have magical potential."
The Slayers took a moment to take this all in. "How can we get in touch with this place?" Buffy asked.
"Generally, one sends an owl with postage," Wesley replied. "Owls deliver the mail in the wizarding world."
"Owls?" Dawn asked.
Seeing the conversation turning in a direction that was not forward, Buffy jumped in. "Okay, we're in."
When no one reacted, Buffy said, "Well? What are you all waiting for?"
Giles leaned in. "They're waiting for you to tell them what to do."
"Oh," she replied. "Um - we need to talk to whoever runs this Hogwarts place."
"That would be Albus Dumbledore," Wesley said. "Headmaster."
"Right," Buffy said. She looked around, then focused again on Wesley. "Wesley, unless you have an owl lying around, is there any other way we can ask him about our...situation?"
Wesley considered this for a second. Then, the light bulb came on. "Floo powder!"
Blank stares abounded yet again. "It allows people to travel from fireplace to fireplace around the world," he explained.
This was getting more complicated by the second. Buffy wondered whether she would be able to handle all the new stuff they would need to remember. Floo powder? Give me a break.
"Where can we get some of this...uh...Floo powder?" asked Buffy.
"I have some, actually," Wesley said. "Its useful for other types of spells, too."
"Could we be so imposing as to borrow some?" Giles asked.
"Oh, yes, of course."
While Wesley hurried away to the storage compartments to find his Floo powder, Buffy turned to Angel, who had been silent for most of the meeting. "What do you think of all this?"
"What?" he replied.
"Oh, everything," Buffy said, looking at the casually chatting crowd of Slayers. "Hogwarts, hundreds of Slayers worldwide, no more Hellmouth. Its all so confusing,"
"Yes," Angel said. "But you'll get through it, Buffy. You've had your share of confusing, and you're still alive. Again."
"Thanks," Buffy said, in a dry sort of way. But Angel's words had been comforting, in there own way.
"Anytime," he replied, and grinned. Buffy was shocked. Angel never smiled.
Shaking it off, Buffy looked up as Wesley reentered the room with what looked like a bucket filled with powder.
"This is it," he announced. "All we need is a fire."
After a moment of bustling that accomplished nothing, Willow lit a fire.
Everyone gathered around the fireplace apprehensively. Wesley tossed in the powder, and immediately, the fire roared up, changing from a calm red to a brilliant, dazzling green.
Wesley winked at the crowd and stuck his head into the flames. Despite gasps from several of the Slayers, Wesley seemed unhurt.
"Hogwarts!" He yelled clearly.
A second later, a scream came through from the other end.
Harry awoke the next morning to hear screaming. For a second, he was sure that the screaming was simply part of the dream he'd been having; but then he was sure that it wasn't.
Leaping out of bed and running downstairs, Harry found Ginny leaning up against a wall, panting, and a man's head sticking out of the fire.
"What's going on?" he asked hurriedly.
"Is this Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?" the man's head asked.
"He just appeared out of no where...no warning..." Ginny seemed to be calming slightly, but Harry still placed himself between her and the fire, just to be safe.
"Who are you?" Harry asked the man.
"My name is Wesley Windham-Pryce," the head replied. "Is this Hogwarts?" he asked again.
At this point, Mrs. Weasley came rushing in. "Ginny, dear, what's the - my word! Wesley!" Mrs. Weasley fairly screeched.
"Molly!" the head, Wesley, replied, equally surprised.
"But - what are you doing here, Wesley? Why, I haven't heard from you in ages!" Mrs. Weasley said.
"I'm looking for Dumbledore - isn't this Hogwarts?" Wesley the disembodied head replied.
"No - the Floo Network still hasn't been restored," Mrs. Weasley said, drawing up a chair.
"Restored? What happened?" Wesley asked. Harry could distinctly hear other voices in back of Wesley, though what they were saying was impossible to tell.
"You haven't heard? Oh, Wesley, its terrible! The AWA - its gone. Destroyed. Only one of the students survived," Mrs. Weasley said.
Wesley's face fell. So did his head, in such a manner that Harry got the impression that his knee's had given out and he was now sitting, rather than kneeling.
"Gone?" he asked, thunderstruck.
"Yes. You-Know-Who attacked it just last week, the day before their term was to end -"
"Voldemort?" asked Wesley, and his voice seemed to go rather high pitched for a moment.
"Yes - took out the entire complex. The parents showed up the day after to pick up their children, and they found...they found..." Mrs. Weasley couldn't bring herself to say it.
"Voldemort is back?" Wesley asked, seeming faint.
"Yes," Mrs. Weasley said, recovering slightly. "Where have you been, Wesley?"
"Elsewhere," Wesley replied, and Harry could tell that, despite his stricken state, he was still concealing something.
"There's more, Wesley. The Sunnydale Hellmouth was closed," Mrs. Weasley added.
"I know," Wesley said.
"You heard about that?" Harry asked.
"Yes," Wesley said, and Harry could tell that he was withholding information again.
"Look, Molly, it is imperative, now more than ever, that I get in touch with Dumbledore," Wesley said.
"An owl would be the safest bet, Wesley," Mrs. Weasley told him. "Everything has been upset by these occurrences. Its almost as though the very essence of magic has been shifted,"
"It has," he said.
"What?" Mrs. Weasley asked, startled.
Harry leaned in closely to hear. Wesley knew something about the Hellmouth. Harry was sure, and he wanted to know more about what he'd been dreaming about.
"It would be far too complicated to explain here. I'll be in touch, Molly. I might even see you soon," he said, with the first and only trace of a weak smile.
"Bye," Mrs. Weasley said, still not quite recovered from his statement.
As soon as Wesley's head had withdrawn from the fire, Harry and Ginny, almost in unison, asked, "Who was that?"
"Wesley Windham-Pryce," Mrs. Weasley replied. "He graduated from Hogwarts three or four years before You-Know-Who fell. He joined the Order right after that. The original Order," she amended. "He wasn't particularly gifted magically, and he definitely had some maturity issues, but his heart was in the right place. He disappeared after You-Know-Who fell. I never expected to see him again."
"Why?" Ginny asked.
"Wesley was a forgettable kind of person. Or at least," she grinned. "a person one would like to forget. He hated the Dark Arts, all right, but he was so snobbish that there were very few people who wanted to work with him. Mind you, he was a smart boy - he just didn't know how to translate that into practical usage of magic."
"What do you think he wants with Dumbledore, Mrs. Weasley?" Harry asked.
"Oh - who knows? It must be important, though. I don't ever remember seeing him look that desperate about anything," Mrs. Weasley sighed. "Oh, well - nothing we can do about that, is there? Why don't you two go out and join Ron and Hermione? They're down in the field playing Quidditch."
As Mrs. Weasley left the room in the direction of Errol's perch, Harry's mind shifted away from Wesley Windham-Pryce and onto more teenage matters.
"Hermione?" he asked Ginny, questioningly.
"She arrived this morning," Ginny replied evenly. "You've slept until one in the afternoon."
"I have?" Harry asked, surprised.
"Yes," she said.
Something occurred to Harry. "Why aren't you out with them? You need to do some training if you want to make Chaser."
"Well - I was waiting for you, wasn't I?" she asked, and blushed slightly.
"Oh - thanks," Harry said.
"Do you always sleep like that?" Ginny asked as she and Harry walked upstairs to get their brooms.
"Hmm? Oh, no. I guess I was too distracted to get changed last night," Harry replied, as he looked down at his jeans and sweater.
"Distracted by what?" she asked. Harry kicked himself mentally.
"Oh, nothing in particular. Just he whole thing with the Hellmouth, and the AWA," he lied, so unconvincingly that Ginny halted on the stairs.
"Harry, you were fine last night until Dumbledore took you outside. Then, you were like a walking zombie. You didn't even eat dinner," she said.
Harry's mental kicking increased. "I...well...its personal," he concluded weakly.
"Harry, you don't have to lie to me," Ginny said, and her sincerity moved Harry ever so slightly.
I can't tell Ron about the prophesy - he'd have a cow. I can't tell Hermione, because she'd research me to death, and then she'd worry, too. Ginny - oh, what the hell. Its not like we have nothing in common.
"Ginny - what I'm going to tell you is very serious," Harry said, and so help him, she giggled.
"What?" he asked, slightly angry now.
"Its just that you sounded so much like Dumbledore just then," she replied, and her face straightened. Harry didn't know whether to feel complemented or not.
"Right. Anyway, Ginny, what's been going on, its - well - er...well, there's a prophesy, there's an equilibrium, and..." he trailed off. Ginny already looked lost.
"Why don't we talk somewhere with a bit more privacy?" Ginny suggested. Harry looked around. They were halfway between landings on the staircase.
"Er...good idea," he said.
"Here - my room is right here," Ginny said, motioning up the stairs to the next landing.
"Er...okay..." Ginny pushed open the door, and Harry entered behind her.
Harry had never been in Ginny's room before. Indeed, he'd never assumed that he ever would be in Ginny's room. He just never thought that he would have any business there.
"Why don't you start from the beginning," Ginny said, sitting down on the bed and motioning for Harry to sit down.
"Okay," Harry said. He was a little nervous - he'd never told anyone about the prophesy, after all.
So Harry told her. He started with the prophesy from last term - the one Trelawney had made before his birth. He explained how it could have been him or Neville. Then he explained the new prophesy, and how the war couldn't progress until he and Voldemort were through with their own conflict. Maybe it was Ginny's sympathetic expression, or maybe it was the emotion released when he retold the events of the past few weeks, but Harry broke down. He told Ginny everything - how he missed Sirius, how he'd been possessed by Voldemort, and how Dumbledore had told Harry of his great mistake.
Four hours later, Harry and Ginny were still talking. Once the dam had broken open, Harry simply couldn't close it. He couldn't stop himself; he needed to get so much off his shoulders. And Ginny was so understanding! They reminisced at length on possession and even talked about the incident with the Chamber from Ginny's first year.
Ginny admitted to having nightmares about it on a fairly regular schedule. Harry, whose nightmares seemed to include more horrors every day, could definitely sympathize with her on that. She talked about how close she had been with Tom Riddle's memory, and much she simply hadn't known him. Discovering that he was evil had hurt her more than the damn snake had.
By the time Ron and Hermione got back from Quidditch at ten o'clock, both Harry and Ginny were asleep on her bed, tear streaks evident, but already beginning to fade.
There's number four! Say "Bunker shorts" if you like H/G. I'm a fan of that pairing, but if you want to see something else, then I'd be more than willing. I know that this fic seems to be going nowhere fast, but that's because I've got it planned out to be enormous. If I can keep myself interested, it should be the biggest piece of writing I've ever done. Speaking of big, this blurb is getting too long. Better cut it off. Station!