Chapter 7
"Oh, What's This?"
by OldScout
"So there I was standing on the stairs leading into Hogwarts, my robes torn to shreds, all the hair on the top of my head burned off and Professor McGongall looks me up and down and all she says is" and Tonks switches to a proper old English accecnt. "'I suggest, Miss Tonks, that the next time you ride ON TOP of the broom.'".
With that Tonks and Buffy broken into laughter.
"You mean she didn't do anything about the feathers?"
Tonks shook her suppressing more laughter.
"Or the flying toilet seat?"
"Never a word."
"Or the exploding...."
"Nope."
"Oh my God, I would have been expelled again for sure for blowing up something that big."
--
Minister Fudge stared at the Observer glass and the two women laughing hysterically. "I see Auror Tonks has taken her task to heart."
"She's telling a muggle everything about our world and Hogwarts." Auror Dawlish complained. "It's going to take a pretty high level memory spell to wipe this from her."
"That's alright," Fudge said, "She's not really a muggle after all. Can you go see who's our senior person on staff in Magical Creatures and have them come up here immediately?"
"Yes, Sir." And Dawlish rushed out.
"What did the American have to say?" Director Bones asked knowing to wait until Dawlish was gone.
"They know her." Fudge put the old muggle picture on the desk. "They think she's The Chosen One."
Director Bones's head snapped up and she looked around the room to make sure nobody had just come in. "Not possible, she's a myth." She whispered.
"I just spent the last few minutes re-reading the Ministry's copy of the Tenets. And the Yank's right, I can't believe the laws would have been written and incorporated as tenets because of a myth."
"We can't let this get out." Bones said. "Who knows how people will react."
"First, we have to make sure she is The Chosen One." Fudge replied. "That's why I need somebody from Magical Creatures to do an identification spell."
"If she is, The Tenets are quite clear, we have to let her go. There's no choice."
"There's always a choice. Nobody else knows about the Tenets except the Wizengamot and if they don't know she's The Chosen One..."
Director Bones was holding her hands up to stop him. "I don't want to hear it, we could go to Azkaban."
"If we release her without a proper trial, at best, we'll become out casts among the pure blood....." Fudge seamed to ponder a bit. "What if it was a mock trial?"
"Everybody would have to be in on it, even her and the lawyers. We can't tell them, if she ever found out about her legal status in our community....how could we trust her?"
Just then Auror Dawlish returned with Amos Diggery, a senior member of the Department For the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. In recent years, he'd taken to working the later shifts when there were fewer people around.
"Auror Dawlish, thank you for your quick return, now please wait in the outer office." Fudge waited for Auror Dawlish to leave then cast a strong silencing charm over the room and turned to Amos. Mr. Diggory, thank you for coming so quickly."
The slightly heavy set man scratched at his scrubby gray and brown beard and replied "I'm going to dawdle when summoned by the Minister?"
"Of course not. Now, I'm going to ask you to perform a spell, and you must not mention it to anybody. In fact, I have considered asking you for a secrecy spell, but I'm sure I can trust a man like you." Fudge didn't like secrecy spells and he knew the spell he was going to ask Amos for required a lot of concentration and didn't want to make him nervous by insulting him."
"What manner of spell?" Amos asked perplexed.
"A locator spell." Fudge replied. "I want you to cast a spell that will identify if The Chosen One is within the Ministry Of Magic."
Diggory's eyes went wide. "You mean The Vampire Slayer? Do you think that mug.."
Fudge cut him off. "I don't want you speculating, I just want the spell done and done correctly so we can rule it out."
Amos thought for a second, "That's a complex spell using some pretty strong Earth Magic." He continued to ponder. "I can do it, but I'll need to gather some things and check a few resources."
"Then you had better get on it, we've got decisions to make."
Forty five minutes later, Amos Diggory returned with box full of supplies and began to setup on floor after they moved some desks out of the way.
--
As Amos Diggory was starting to set up his locator spell, far above them two women stood in the middle of a busy intersection.
"Looks like another stellar spell cast by the Magnificent Willow." Faith yelled as another car careened by wailing its horn.
"Hey, Kill First Ask Questions Later, this is exactly where Buffy is." She held up the map only to have it nearly ripped out of her hands by the back draft of a Triple Decker bus rushing past.
"So do you think she was on that bus?" Faith yelled back over the street noise, or in that taxi. She pointed to a cab that just slammed on its breaks and slid to a stop less then a meter from them.
Willow glanced at the taxi then pointed at the map again "Look, we're the bright yellow dots, and she's the dim white one right next to us."
Another taxi screeched to stop behind the first.
"If she's right next to us, why is her dot so dim, I thought you said it would brighten as we got closer?" Faith yelled over the increase noise from the growing number of horns and stopped vehicles.
"It is." Willow yelled back. "She must be somewhere." Willow looked up to the empty sky then back at Faith and they both looked down at the street below them. Willow and Faith looked back up at each other and grinned. "We'd better get going." She indicated a police car picking its way through the traffic jam.
Several minutes later, the two women stood on a street corner a couple blocks away staring at a classic old red English phone booth. "Are you sure this is it?" Faith asked.
"It's something." Willow replied as she walked a round the old contraption. "It definitely has a very complex magical signature."
"Now what?" Faith asked as Willow opened the door and stepped in.
After a couple of minutes Willow said "Faith come in here."
The Slayer grinned. "Hey, Red, I like you and all, but you know I only swing one way."
The red head's hand reached out and dragged the brunette into the box with her.
Faith watched Willow as she held her hand over the obviously broken phone. "What are you doing? I don't think its going to work." She said holding the severed wire for the missing receiver.
"Shh," Willow replied, trying to concentrate, "I'm trying to pick its lock."
"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic." An impatient female voice said out of the air around them. "Please state your names and your business."
The two looked at each other not knowing what to say. Finally Willow shrugged and said "Willow Rosenberg, and Faith.." she glanced at Faith not knowing what to say for the last name this month.
"Potter," Faith finally said. "Faith Potter."
Willow stared at Faith and silently mouthed the last name "Potter?"
Faith shrugged and motioned over Willow's shoulders to a faded old store front sign that read "Campbell Pottery".
There was a long pause.
Finally the voice came back. "And what is your business?"
Willow and Faith just looked at each other. Finally Faith grinned and said. "We're her to see Buffy Summers."
Willow had tried to clamp her hand around Faith's mouth but was too late, she said it.
There was another long pause. "Are you her Lawyers?"
This time Willow spoke before Faith could "We're his assistants."
After several minutes two silver badges dropped out the shattered bottom of the phone.
Faith caught them before they could fall to the floor. One read "Visitor – Faith Potter" and the other read "Visitor – Willow Rosenberg" and handed Willow hers. Willow immediately clipped hers to the lapel of the knee length thin cotton sweater jacket she wore and waited while Faith tied to find some place that wouldn't mark the leather jacket, lace top or tight leather pants she wore. As soon as she settled on the loose belt draped around her hips, the box started dropping.
Amos Diggory sat inside the circle of salt he had made on the floor and waived his wand over the maps of the Ministry. He had been chanting incantations from the book in his lap for several minutes finally he brought the wand down hard and touched the map which flashed a bright white then returned to normal and the five candles set evenly in around in the salt flared and went out.
"That's the best I can do." He said and looked at the maps. "Lets see..." He watched the maps a bright white light appeared. "The Chosen One appears to be in Interrogation room Delta Pi."
"I was afraid of that." Fudge said.
"At least we know." Bones added.
"Oh, what's this? This isn't possible." Amos said still looking at the maps. "The Chosen One is also in the Visitor Atrium on Level Eight."
To be continued.......