A bit of a longer chapter and hopefully worthy.
After all this dark stuff, you need to have fun, right? This is a tentative timeline, but I figure it'd help a bit. Look for Chapters 16/17 or 17/18 to provide a lighter atmosphere that was hinted at in Chapter 10. And the wedding will be about 2/3 the way through.
Two questions and we'll jump into it.
Why did Percy Weasley go to the US with the others?
There is a reason he did go. And he is NOT the one to die, mainly because there's no way I'm going to kill off a character I'm not liking. No, he has a lot to make up to Ron, who's been having a rough go at it. Look for a brothers' reconciliation before the wedding.
Where is Dawn's baby?
Good question. You'll find out soon enough.
- - - - -
Chapter 12
Lemon Drops and Sugar Plums
- - - - -
"So did we learn anything off of the newcomer who arrived at your office this afternoon?"
Angel turned toward Buffy, who was sitting in the Library conference room with Giles, Willow and Xander. Tara was with the Slayers at their evening astronomy class, and Harry Potter and his friends from England had already retired for the evening. The only person present from that English group was Draco, and it was only because of his irritating insistence that he'd been invited to the meeting in the first place.
"We didn't learn much more from him," Angel replied. "He just basically said that they can't find this Academy and he was... threatening us into telling him."
"Threatening a vampire," Willow chuckled. "That's a dangerous thing to do."
"Especially when they know we can't touch them," Spike growled from across the table. "He knows we have souls. And they know how to take them away."
"It's the perfect weapon against us," Buffy agreed. "We can't afford for either of you to lose your souls."
"So that takes Spike and Angel out of the game," Xander said, crossing his arms over his chest. "That just means we need a new line."
"You really have to stop watching ESPN," Willow winced.
"No, I just need more guy friends who understand me," Xander replied, turning his attention back to the Slayer. But before she could speak, Draco opened his mouth.
"What exactly happens if you two lose your souls?"
An odd shiver passed over the Slayer's face. "That's a question best left unanswered."
"It may be one he needs to hear, however," Giles replied, turning to Angel. "Why don't you tell him what happens when you lose your soul?"
Angel looked extremely uncomfortable. It was Spike who chose to answer as Angel squirmed in his chair. "We become reckless, ruthless, decisive monsters. We... lose our humanity, our compassion, any emotion, any light. We go to total darkness and there's nothing that can hold us back from killing anything and everything."
As he spoke, Draco's eyes widened. "Oh."
"There's something you need to understand about vampires," Angel said, still looking uneasy. "We have to use blood to survive, and it doesn't matter whose. If you or any of your pureblood magical friends were around when one of us lost our soul, it would tip the entire balance of power between the magic and non-magic worlds. Your world wouldn't be safe."
"What makes it different from the vampire attack on Hogwarts three years ago?" Draco asked in a hushed voice.
"They were ordinary vampires," Buffy replied softly. "They had only been turned that year or maybe a year before. Angel has been alive over two hundred and thirty years. Spike's nearly one hundred and forty. They were once one of the most feared forces on Earth. The massacres they caused, the pain they inflicted... it's too dangerous to even want to think about." She sighed heavily. "That puts the English bunch from the battle lines too. If those vampires could get their hands on them... the magical world would no longer be safe."
"We've lost two of our most powerful weapons and the only people around here who are legal to carry wands," Xander said, his voice low. "So that leaves..."
"The Slayers," Buffy sighed again. "It's not good, it's not a fun choice, but it's the only one we've got right now."
"Did he say what kind of force we'd be dealing with?" Willow asked softly.
"Vampires, demons, basically anything they can throw at us," Giles replied. "They're intent on getting Dawn and Dr. Cretin back. And I should think that..."
"We barter," Buffy said suddenly. "We'll give them Cretin back. He's no use to us anyway. After I have a little talk with him, I think it's time to get rid of him. In exchange, we'll secure Dawn's place here."
"If we make the call from here though, we'll be found," Giles reminded her.
Buffy turned to Angel. "Is there any way your lawyers could take care of this mess?"
Angel nodded. "I'll get them working on it right away."
"What else did you get from that guy?" Buffy asked.
"The American Ministry of Magic is as old as America itself. Apparently when the Salem Witch trials were going on, many witches and wizards traveled west and created a new community for themselves, electing a government council that later became the Ministry," Angel said. "Over the years and especially in the last decade, they've made otherworldly contacts and contracted hit demons to do their dirty work for them, including Dawn's disappearance. She's been in Colorado for over a year. She was returned to somewhere in England about a week before she returned here and we picked her up."
"What do we know of her flight back to America?" Buffy asked them.
"We know that two trained hit demons exchanged a large amount of... wizards gold, I think... for Dawn. They took her to Colorado immediately. We have learned that there was a trained Wizard overlooking the scene and the airport surveillance cameras have identified him to be Lucius Malfoy."
Draco's blood ran cold. "M-My F-Father?" he stammered. "W-Why would he d-do any of this?"
"He was protecting his pureblooded family," Willow said harshly. "It always comes back to blood."
"But Dawnie... she's not human."
"We know that," Buffy replied, her brow furrowing. "I think there must be another reason behind this. Did you thank your contact?"
"Spike pushed him out the window at the end of the hallway," Giles replied, looking tired. "Apparently our guest was also a vampire. He burned to death on his way down."
"I got nasty blisters in the deed," Spike grumbled. "Next time, I'm going to hire my own hit demons to do something so..."
"Thank you," Buffy said, interrupting him and he turned to see her genuine smile.
"You're welcome," he said slowly.
"Anyway," Angel said, breaking the tension that was starting to rise. "What do we do now?"
"Offer the exchange," Giles suggested. "And while we're on that, Spike... I think the time has come to tell the Slayer your idea to put Willow in the American Ministry."
"Me?" Willow asked, looking flattered.
"You're the only Witch around here that's capable of stuff like this," Xander said encouragingly.
"So is Tara," Willow said, the flattery turning to fear.
"Spike, the floor is yours," Giles said, standing up and walking to a large cabinet on the other side of an ancient-looking grandfather clock.
"What are you doing?" Buffy asked curiously.
"I need a drink," Giles replied, pulling a large bottle of scotch from the cabinet. "And I have a feeling the rest of us will too, if we have to listen to much more of this."
"Yeah," Buffy said, standing up to help him carry glasses and soda. "But at least now we're getting somewhere."
- - - - -
Unbeknownst to the others, Harry Potter and his friends were gathered in the larger boy's room discussing their first day in the country.
"They're scared," Ginny was saying as she leaned against a bed frame, crossing her legs in front of her. "They know something big is about to come down."
"But why send these things after the Slayer and her family?" Ron wondered aloud.
"Because they know they have to cover up whatever they did to Dawn," Hermione responded, sounding deep in thought. "Maybe... maybe it was because they didn't expect the Slayer to be there at all."
"Lupin sent her almost a year and a half earlier and she was captured probably between London and Los Angeles somewhere," Harry said, grabbing a stack of paper and a pen he'd found in a nightstand and beginning to write it down. "About two weeks after we left Hogwarts."
"Correct," Ginny said, peering over his shoulder as he set the pen down against the pad. "And then she disappears for nearly a year and a half."
Harry jotted that down. "Right... right..."
"Suddenly Dawn arrives from London," Hermione pointed out. "How did the Slayer know that her sister was arriving? Someone at the Ministry must have alerted her."
"Why would Dawn stay in England for so long?" Ron frowned next to her. "We all knew how homesick she was just before we all graduated."
"She was pregnant," Harry pointed out. "Not to mention how sick she got following commencement."
A silent shiver passed over Ron's face as he recalled that. "We can assume one thing. Dawn's second trip to the country must have prompted the Ministry or whatever to start looking for her."
"As far as I can tell, they're nothing like our Ministry," Hermione said, her gaze suddenly clearing. "They're working for the collective good to protect their own."
"That sounds exactly like our Ministry," Harry said bitterly, not willing to quite forgive them for the death of his godfather, over five years before.
The door suddenly creaked open and Draco appeared, looking visibly shaken. Ginny sat up from where she'd been leaning on Harry and gave him a concerned look. "Are you all right?"
Draco tried to nod and tried to speak, but no words came out. "I'll be... okay... eventually," he managed to choke out as he dropped next to the elder Weasley brother who hadn't yet spoken up.
"Do you know something about Dawn?" Harry asked suddenly and all eyes turned toward Draco, who shrugged uncomfortably under their gaze.
"My Father was the one that bartered for her exchange into the hands of the American Ministry the first time," Draco said softly, almost whispering. "My Father got a lot of gold from the deal... The Slayer thinks that my Father received a lot of gold by trading a former demon to them."
"That's it!" Hermione cried, suddenly jumping from her reverie, sending Percy Weasley next to her tumbling over in surprise from her motion. "I'm sorry, but I've been trying to connect the dots. Why would Lucius Malfoy trade Dawn to the American Ministry? I heard some of the Watchers discussing it at dinner and they said that Dawn used to be a ball of mystical green energy."
"If they could contain that energy," Ginny said, catching on, "it would give them significant power over our own Ministry."
"Our own Ministry never tried it because they were in league with the Slayer and Dawn was a pawn," Ron said, his eyes narrowing in thought. "The American Slayer could try and use that power for it's own reasons, whatever they are."
"Why would they do such a thing?" Harry asked. "It's so horrible to think about torturing a young woman... but a baby..."
"It is the baby," Hermione said, standing up. "Don't you see? The baby is a cross between mystical energy and pure-blooded magic. Lucius must've seen that this was a bad thing for our world so he brought it over here and made it theirs..."
"Except it didn't go the way they expected," Harry said slowly. "I mean, Dawn did escape."
"Maybe..." Ginny said, pausing for a moment. "Maybe they wanted her to escape. Maybe they want the Slayer to know what's going on. I mean, why now? Why are they sending people now to tell her all of this information? They have an ulterior motive, I know it. They know something."
"It'll be dangerous to get involved in this," Draco said quickly. "Apparently, it's so much of a danger our own world could be destroyed along with this one."
"There's nothing like a good apocalypse on the upside," Harry sighed, rolling his eyes.
Ginny smiled and dropped her head on his shoulder, scanning Harry's notes. "We should go to her, and let her tell us what's going on. We traveled halfway across the world to help Dawn."
"So what we need to know is..." Hermione said, summarizing their meeting in her brassy tone, "why did they leave Dawn in her sister's hands and come forward now, why did they let Dawn go in the first place, and where is your child..."
Draco hadn't thought much about that. As he watched the girls leave the room and the rest of the males get ready for bed, he moved toward his bed and sat down, squeezing his pillow tight.
He'd never even imagined Dawn would carry the child full-term. He had to assume the possibility that there was a child out there and that he was the Father.
He smiled slightly, his mind lost in a daydream. He was with Dawn in a pleasant little village. They had a daughter that was running about them, smiling and laughing as she ran into her mother's arms.
The image of a small girl in Dawn's arms brought a smile to his face.
"Are you okay?"
Draco shook his head as his daydream faded. "I'm not going to be until I know what happened to my Dawn. And what happened to our baby."
"You and me both," Harry said, returning to his bed on the other side of the room. "You and me both."
- - - - -
The first line of dawn was just creeping up on the horizon when Buffy stood up from a white porch swing she'd been draped across all night, staring at the woods in the distance.
"You doing all right?" a voice asked behind her.
"How long have you been there?" Buffy asked, stretching.
Angel stepped out of the darkness. "I've been... brooding."
"Didn't really expect anything else," Buffy replied, standing up.
"You really need to get some rest."
"I'm okay."
"No, you're not. We need a strong Buffy. A Buffy that can fight a new Ministry of Magic and lead an entire school of Slayers. Right now we have a Buffy who cries over reading books on maternity."
"You caught that, huh?"
"I heard Dawn spoke yesterday."
"She had a strong reaction to the Malfoy boy."
"He doesn't look much like a boy to me."
"I can tell he loves her."
"That's the reason he wasn't beaten to a bloody pulp."
"I think we're all so keen on protecting her we're missing the bigger picture."
"There's always the lemon with the sweet."
"What?"
"Just something we used to hear back in the golden days," Angel said, sitting next on the swing and inviting her to sit back down beside him.
She sat. "Something tells me it was on your mind too."
"I was recalling the forces at work behind Darla's pregnancy."
"What of them?"
"They threw everything they could at us, including an old enemy who took and raised Connor in hell. It drove Darla to the point that she staked herself during her delivery. I'm trying to figure out if that's what happened to Dawn and why she's in that state of catatonia and if that's the ultimate reason why she responded so well to Malfoy."
"You think a lot."
"Heh heh. Not much else to do with my time. I'm done torturing prison boy. You want a crack at the good Doctor?"
"I think he's been broken into enough."
"When did you talk with him?"
"Spike took me down earlier."
"Spike took you?"
"Angel, please... now is not the time for this."
"Do you..."
"I know what you're going to ask me," Buffy said, interrupting him. "And if you ask me that again, I'm going to send you to Disneyland in the sunlight."
Angel shut his mouth.
"I haven't made any decisions yet, in answer to your question. You'll be among the first to know."
"I feel like one of those idiots on those reality dating shows."
Buffy smiled in the dim horizon.
"Isn't that the point?"
- - - - -
To be continued...
See? A longer chapter as promised! I'm not going to bother explaining the title. It reminds me of how useless a title can be (like that new movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or whatever)
I really need a break from all of this really, really not-so-happy stuff soon. I'm moving the wedding date again, because it'll drive me crazy if all they do is think "unacceptable fate" all the time.
Things will get worse. Things get darker. Dawn recovers. And that's a good thing because we like Dawn. I especially like the way I've written an adultish Dawn to be. But with the return of Dawn's memory comes a horrid truth. And it's just been touched on. And I'm still going on with character death. I just wrote up there it won't be Percy.
I just read all the reviews tonight from my last chapter I posted and noticed questions. I hoped I answered as many as I could here. I'll answer more.
Thank you reviewers! :) Even without internet and just this lovely Notepad program to lighten my day, your words of encouragement and questions of confusion keep this blonde going. I'm so glad I have this to work on! Otherwise I'd be going stir crazy packing up my house.