My muse Bob decided to return to work today after a long lecture about why unfinished things are bad, so here is part 9, making this story a little bit closer to completion. I'm actually not too sure if I like this chapter, it gets a little bit too technical with the explanations for my taste, but Bob assures me it's all necessary.
So anyway, here we go.
Part 9
Spike growled at the officials now surrounding Willow's bed, placing himself in front of the man who had read the charge of arson, blocking his view of Willow.
'Will you step aside Sir, this doesn't need to be unpleasant.' The speakers' hand twitched inside his pocket giving away the fact that he was reaching for his wand.
'It's all right Spike,' Willow gently placed a calming hand on his arm, 'I can't possible go with these gentlemen at the moment anyway. You see I was badly burnt in the fire.' She held out her arms which were still wrapped in bandages at Madame Pomfreys insistence, knowing full well that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the skin beneath them. 'I won't be able to leave this bed for at least a few days yet.'
'Miss, we are under orders to detain you until your trial and I'm afraid that you will be coming with us.' He spoke firmly, pulling his wand out and pointing it at her, beginning to speak the spell that would conjure restraints only to find himself gasping for air as Spike's hand closed around his windpipe.
'I wouldn't finish those words if I were you mate,' Spike snarled and vamped out, acting purely from the instinct to save Willow.
The other four men had their wands out now and were pointing them at the blonde vampire. The situation would likely have ended in a massive body count if Albus Dumbledore hadn't chosen that moment to walk into the room.
'Little Allen Mills, I haven't seen you since you left Hogwarts,' Dumbledore addressed the man Spike was choking in a cheerful everyday voice, seemingly ignoring the current, volatile situation. 'How are you?' The question seemed ridiculous given that her was very obviously being slowly strangled by an enraged vampire, but the headmaster continued undeterred. 'What are you doing here? And I must say, you do seem to be in a bit of a predicament.' He reached a hand out to Spikes shoulder, getting his attention. 'Do you think it would be possible for you to release Mr. Mills for a moment so that we may talk?'
Spike looked towards Willow before answering and seeing her nod, reluctantly agreed, 'as long as he don't attack my Red, he'll be fine.'
'Don't worry,' Dumbledore reassured, 'no one will be injuring Miss Rosenberg while she is within the school grounds.'
But headmaster,' one of the other robed men broke his silence, 'we have orders for her arrest, she is to stand trial for arson in Hogsmeade.'
'Ah Mr. McKay, I almost didn't recognize you, I see you finally managed to remove the purple dye charm from your hair, I have to say, that took some getting used to. As for the young lady, the fire was the result of a Deatheater attack, my newest member of staff was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and you can see she was quite severely injured and should not be moved in any case. If you insist, her wand will be submitted for inspection, and I assure you that you will find no traces of any kind of spell which would lead to such a destruction of property.' Now that the Professor seemed to be focussing on the situation, he was resolving it quite nicely, definitely not telling the truth but not exactly lying either, it really depended on you interpretation of events.
Willow grinned at the old man, admiring the extraordinary display of manipulation she had just witnessed, she had definitely misjudged the man.
'Now if we could just leave Miss Rosenberg to rest…' Dumbledore made a sweeping gesture towards the door, almost herding the rather confused men from the room.
She heard a last ditch effort to regain control and authority from 'little Allen Mills' but it was dismissed by a promise of owling the Ministry and an inquiry about whether his mother was still baking those 'absolutely mouthwatering chocolate brownies'. Willow had no doubt that Allen Mills was a lot easier to deal with when he was being embarrassed by stories of his mothers cooking in front of his work colleagues.
Harry's voice pulled her from her dissection of Dumbledore's maneuverings, truthfully she had almost forgotten his presence entirely.
'I thought you said that Spike couldn't hurt people anymore?' As Harry spoke his eyes slid nervously to the blonde vampire who was pacing angrily around the room, distracted enough that h missed the quiet question.
'He can't, he has the chip…' Willow's voice faded away and she began to think over the situation furiously. 'Spike?' she called out quietly, but Spike was to agitated to notice.
'Spike?' The second call was louder and Spike came over to her bedside, looking worried.
'What is it luv, did they hurt you and I missed it, I'll tear them apart if they did.' He resumed his pacing but confined it to the area around her bed, his face a mask of rage.
'I don't suppose you have a headache at all?' The seemingly unrelated nature of the question brought Spike to a halt and he just shook his head. 'Didn't think so,' Willow began running the possible benefits of this situation through her mind. 'Your chip's stopped working, the magic must have shorted it out or something. Please let me be the first to congratulate you on your return to the world of mayhem, torture and murder.'
She watched as Spike sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, she was almost certain that he had changed enough for this to be a good thing instead of a 'lets go on an evil murdering rampage' thing. To tell the truth, she liked the idea of having a fully functional vampire at her beck and call, just because she loved him didn't mean she couldn't use him.
That thought brought her brought her scheming mind to a full stop. No. She did not love Spike, she was just using him, he was gorgeous and funny with over a century of sexual experience and he had just become extremely useful. There was no love involved. She was using him for sex, and to maybe terrify and injure people at her will. Nope, absolutely no love.
She was brought sharply back from Denial-ville by a soft question from the vampire beside her, his face and body unnaturally still, betraying no emotion. 'Do you want me to leave?' He may have been able to mask the emotions on his face but she could hear the trace of insecurity in his voice as he spoke.
'What? No! Why would you think that?' she looked him in the eye, trying to communicate her acceptance.
'I can kill again, and I will not promise not to, it's my nature, I don't have a soul to make me feel guilty. I will probably kill people, not anyone close to you, I can promise that, but I won't lie to you. If you want me to go, I'll go.' He turned his face away from her, refusing to look at her again, obviously feeling certain of her rejection.
'I think you're forgetting who you're talking to, I'm not the Willow you knew back in Sunnydale, I have no problem with seeing the people get what they deserve. Can you limit yourself to evil guys and maybe a bit of mental torture for goblins who take too much commission on currency exchanges?' she smiled reassuringly, hoping he could agree and stay here with her.
Spike reached up his hand to stroke her face lightly, 'I think I can live with that, I always was loves bitch.' He pulled his hand back, realizing what he had just let slip, 'um, I mean…' He trailed off as he tried to think of something to cover his indirect declaration of love. 'Bugger!' he said loudly and suddenly reached forward and pulled her towards him, kissing her violently, hoping it would be enough to distract her.
'Um, Willow,' Harry's voice came from the side as he fidgeted uncomfortably while the couple on the bed continued to kiss passionately, oblivious to his presence. 'I'm just going to leave now,' he walked quietly around the bed to the exit, his embarrassment increasing by the second and he rapidly closed the doors behind him, refusing to look as soft moans filled the room behind him.
To tell the truth, he wasn't all that sure about the new arrangement between his sister and Spike. He thought about it seriously as he walked to the rooms where he was staying for the next few days. At one point in his life he would have been against death for anyone, but now, when he thought about Voldemort and the Deatheaters and all the things they had done in the past and were capable of doing in the future, he couldn't help but think that they deserved any punishment Spike could devise.
He entered the same corridor that Willow and Spike were living in and said his password to the suit of armor that marked the entrance to his temporary rooms. He flopped down into one of the comfortable armchairs and looked around for something to do, desperate for anything to distract his mind from what Willow was doing at this moment. His eyes finally came to rest on his list of homework for the Summer, 'oh well,' he thought resignedly, 'may as well get it over with.' He picked up the parchment and the books he needed and made his way to the library, confident that this would probably be the best homework he had ever done because he wasn't stopping until the images of Willow and Spike were pushed out of his mind.
'Well my dear, are you feeling better today?' Professor McGonagle stood looking at the redhead who was casually sitting on the edge of one of the desks in her transfiguration classroom.
'I'm fine thanks,' it had been two days since the men from the Ministry had barged into the hospital wing intent on arresting her and Dumbledore had sent a letter detailing the highly edited rather creative interpretation of events along with her unused wand to the Minister of Magic himself. The warrant for her arrest had subsequently been dropped and her wand returned, although there were apparently discussions being held to determine whether anything should be done about the vampire resident at Hogwarts, but nothing had come of that so far.
'I still can't get this wand thing to work though, I did some investigating on wands in general and apparently it's the core that supplies the magic, the wood and length is simply a focus. With that considered, I really don't see how mine can possible work.' She looked at the woman in front of her, willing her to come up with an explanation.
'Well what is the core of your wand?' Minerva inquired, admittedly curious about why such a powerful witch was unable to use something every wizard needed.
Willow frowned, 'see, that's just the problem, the guy who sold me it said there is no core, and I would simply dismiss him as a fraud if I didn't feel some connection with the stupid bit of dragons' tooth.'
'Dragons' tooth? Oh my, did Mr. Ollivander say anything else,' the Professor's forehead creased as she tried to come up with a solution, the ancient wand-maker had never been wrong yet, and she had no reason to believe he would start now.
'Well, he said that he hadn't made the wand,' she turned her mind back, trying to remember the details of the conversation. 'The guy that did said, to put myself into it, or something like that.'
Minerva puzzled over this for a few minutes before speaking, 'you said that there is no core, does that meant he wand is hollow?' She paused, waiting for Willow's nod of agreement. 'Have you tried filling the space with your own power, not many wizards have enough power to do magic without the wand to focus it and the core to amplify it. It is possible that, with the amount of magic held within you, if a core tried to amplify your spells, the magic may become uncontrollable. If this works, it may simply act as a conduit to channel your energy and allow you to refine your magic and enable more subtle use.' As all the pieces of the puzzle came together, the woman felt immensely satisfied with her explanation and slightly impatient to discover whether it was correct or not.
'That would explain the dragons tooth, for my bigger spells an ordinary wooden wand might not be able to handle the pressure.' Willow mused over the hypothesis, examining it for flaws in the logic and finding none. 'Well, might as well try it, just give me a moment.'
Willow crossed her legs on top of the desk and settled down with her eyes closed, concentrating on nudging power gently towards the center of the wand until it would hold no more. 'Done.' Her eyes snapped open and she stood up, wanting to see if it had worked.
'Why don't you try it with one of the easy charms,' suggested Professor McGonagle helpfully, 'Accio feather!' a moment after she spoke the words and waved her wand a small feather cam racing into the room and dropped onto the table in front of her. 'Normally this would be Flitwick's area, but I think I'm capable of this small thing, just point at the feather with your wand, swish and flick it like this.' She gave a quick demonstration, watching as Willow copied it meticulously, 'and say, Wingardium leviosa.'
A look of concentration appeared on Willow's face as she copied both gesture and pronunciation exactly, looking pleased with herself, until she noticed that not only had the feather floated into the air, but so had the small portion of table directly underneath it. The piece of wood detached itself from the table, leaving a small, feather shaped hole in the desk.
'Well, I have to say, I've never seen that happen before, what do you think happened?' Minerva watched fascinated as the feather and wood hovered just above head height.
'Well I sort of concentrated on the area of the feather and thought that I wanted it to lift, I don't suppose I specified that it had to lift off of the table. Apparently this wand really does focus on exactly what it is directed to do, it's like the will be done spell all over again, although Spike better not want to marry Buffy or the hellmouth might be one slayer short.
Minerva ignored the odd reference, not at all sure she wanted to hear the story behind it, 'Do you want to try something else?' Willow nodded and she reached into a drawer and took out a sewing needle, 'right, we'll try a little transfiguration, change the needle into a match.'
Once again Willow followed the instructions carefully and looked down at the place where the needle had been, and found not one but two needles sitting together where there should have been a matchstick.
Willow looked from the needles to her confused instructor, 'well,' she said, her frustration coming through in her voice, 'at least they match.' She paused briefly, thinking about what she had said and groaned, she had created a matched pair, instead of a matchstick.
Apparently the same thought had crossed the Professor's mind, 'I suppose you'll have to try to be a little more specific but this is extremely strange, it's never happened before, that spell shouldn't even be able to do that.'
'Maybe I'm not using the spell, I've been able to do smaller magic without incantations for a while now and perhaps the wand is just focussing that, and twisting my intentions just for fun. I never thought a dragon's tooth would have an evil sense of humor.'
The lesson continued on for about an hour through trial and error, establishing that for the small things at least, she didn't need the spell words or gestures and after various mishaps Willow became better at defining her intentions to get the right results.
As the spells became consistently accurate Professor McGonagle decided to try something bigger, much bigger, as a test of the young teachers powers.
'You have told me you can watch magical power fluctuations, do you think you could duplicate something if I showed you?' Willow nodded, eager for a new challenge.
She used her magical senses to watch as the woman in front of her suddenly became a cat.
'Oh that was cool,' she said in awe as the woman returned to her normal shape. 'How does it work, I mean I saw the magic and all, but how do you approach it?'
'It is the animagus transformation, normally it requires, months or years of preparation and study to learn and not all wizards are capable of it. Each individual has an animal which expresses their personality best and they may eventually take its form at will.'
'So basically you are yourself but different, I think I can try that.' Willow closed her eyes concentrating mostly on remaining herself throughout the process, she didn't want her wand to actually give her an animal brain and things.
'Well dear, you changed your outfit, although you might want to change back before you leave,' the older witch looked over the new clothes with distaste. 'Don't worry, it is one of the most complex thing in the wizarding world, I don't think anyone has ever been successful first time and you really must see that outfit, there is a mirror in the corner.'
She looked down at herself as she moved to the mirror, recognizing the binding leather top and pants immediately. She looked in the mirror and all she saw was the wall behind her, she had no reflection.
'Um, Minerva, I'm a vampire.' The woman's' face paled as she moved behind Willow and saw only herself in the mirror.
'Oh dear.'
End Part 9
Dragonmage
