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CHAPTER 17- PLANS
"Rupert Giles speaking." Giles answered the especially charmed phone that Willow had given to everyone, his mind still on the recently uncovered prophecy. He was part way through marking third year essays on werewolves and was stunned at some of prejudices they had.
"Ripper, old fellow! It's been too long!" A too familiar voice cracked down the phone.
"Ethan Rayne." Giles acknowledged through gritted teeth. "And it hasn't been nearly long enough."
Ethan gave a bark of laughter on the other end of the line. "Still the same old Ripper! Seriously though, we should meet up some time."
Giles snorted. "The last time we 'met up' you turned me into a demon."
"An unfortunate accident, a very unfortunate accident." Ethan said dismissively.
"What did you want, Rayne." Giles asked coldly.
"Just to catch up...OK, ok, you got me! How's your slayer doing?" He enquired innocently.
"Buffy? Oh, I expect if she knew you had called she would hunt you down and break your legs."
"Ouch! Best not tell her then, eh?" He joked, a hint of being absolutely petrified in his voice. "Right," he continued, getting no response from Giles, "I was just wondering if you'd ever head of 'The Key'. No reason really; just curious, you know."
"What do you know about the Key?" Giles questioned sharply.
"Ahh; so you have heard of it. Now I heard a rumour that it's under the slayer's protection; that it meant enough to her to die for it; that it is rarely far from her side; that it was activated on the old hellmouth recently. I wonder who- or what, I might say- it is." He said smugly. "The witch? The army boy? One of the vampires? You?"
Giles stayed silent.
"Ah well; the Dark Lord will find out soon enough, you'll see." There was a click on the end of the line and the phone went dead, leaving a panicked Giles holding the other end of the receiver.
He was still holding the phone when Dawn and Buffy entered.
"Hiya, Giles. You ya' talking to?" Dawn asked chirpily.
"No-one." He said, placing the phone back on the hook.
"Is everything OK?" Buffy asked seeing the look on her watchers face.
Giles shot a meaningful look at Dawn who was thumbing through one of his spell books. "What are you looking for?"
"Nothing to worry about! Just a little accident in training!" The teenager replied cheerily.
Giles looked to Buffy for an explanation. "Dawnie let Jaden and Flick use their wands while they were sparring, and let's just say that Jade is stuck walking in circles until we figure out how to change her feet back."
"Ah-ha! Found it!" Dawn said triumphantly before dashing out the room clutching the book to her chest.
As soon as she was gone, Buffy turned back to Giles, all businesslike. "Spill." She commanded.
"Get everyone else here; I'd rather only have to do this once."
Buffy looked about to protest, but went and got Willow, Xander and Spike all the same. "Now, what's happening?"
Giles took a cloth out of his desk draw and started cleaning his glasses. Buffy clicked her tongue impatiently and Giles started to speak.
"I'm afraid it's bad news. I was contacted today by Ethan Rayne."
"The one who turned us into our Halloween costumes, turned all the adults into kids and made you all demon-y?" Xander inquired.
"Yes." Giles almost snapped
"Just making sure I got the right one of your 'friends'" Xander retorted, complete with air quotes.
Giles glared at him. "Yes, well he contacted me to ask for information. It seems he is a death eater now; I didn't even know he was a wizard, but it explained what his father was 'home teaching' him." Giles mused.
"Information on what?" Buffy asked, already knowing the answer.
"The key. All he knows is that it is something to do with Buffy and that she is...attached to it."
"Attached to it? She's my sister!" Buffy cried.
"Yes, but he doesn't know that, and we have to make sure he doesn't find out. We have to tell Dawn not to use her magic unless it is absolutely necessary, I don't know if it can be traced. I think he knows it is a person; he didn't guess Dawn, but he did try everyone else."
"So what do we do now?" Willow asked, sounding slightly fearful. If anything happened to Dawn, she didn't know what she'd do. Willow might have control over her everyday magic use, but could she cope if someone else she loved died?
"We keep her safe." Spike said, speaking for the first time. "We do everything we can to make sure they can't find Niblet."
A few days after 'we were screwed over by a prophecy' as Dawn put it, everything had settled down into some kind of equilibrium. The slayers, both old and new, had begun training again. This time without so much secrecy and, due to recent events, without using magic.
It seemed when it came to acting oblivious, the Hogwarts students were as good at it as the former Sunnydale civilians and the pupils were willing to overlook the fact that five girls helped to fight off death eaters without using magic and the aforementioned girls' mainly-muggle friends are now staying at Hogwarts after rescuing the hostages of the nearly forgotten battle.
Harry, Ron and Hermione had started working on their defence against the dark arts harder than ever and the Scooby's had all decided to stay at Hogwarts until further notice after receiving and invitation from Professor Dumbledore.
Dawn walked into the common room and saw Harry just finishing a game of wizarding chess with Ron. He lost. Badly.
"Oh Harry! It's time for training!" she said in a sing-song voice.
He groaned. "Not again! I just trained a couple of days ago!"
"Hey, it was your idea; not mine. Now move!" she prodded him in the back to get him to stand.
Ron was shaking with laughter. "Dawn; I never knew you were so bossy!"
"It's just one of the things I love about her." Harry smiled and kissed her soundly on the lips.
"You're so trying to distract me." Dawn said when they parted.
Harry smirked. "Is it working?"
Dawn fought hard to keep her face stern, but she couldn't stop the smile. "Maybe."
Hermione, Ginny and Flick entered the common room with Dean, one of the few people who saw what was truly happening in the school. "Hey Guys!"
"Have you spoken to Buffy?" Ginny asked, flopping down on the sofa.
"Yes; she didn't tell me anything." Dawn pouted.
They had all got the impression that there was something that they weren't being told. Giles had got a phone call, he wouldn't say from whom, and since then he had been all jittery and the rest of the Scooby's had been half worried and half scared. The 'scrappie's' as they had been fondly dubbed by Xander, had all tried to find out the big secret, but the Scooby's weren't talking.
"But I have an idea." Dawn continued. "Tonight, I overheard Giles saying the aurors were checking 'it' out in the forest. I think a couple of us should go and find out what 'it' is."
"I don't think it's a very good idea." Hermione said cautiously. "If we were to get caught..." she trailed off.
"What about the rest of you? Ron? Ginny? Flick?" She grinned and slid over to Harry. Wrapping her arms around him she murmured into his ear, "Harry?"
Harry's face heated up as he felt Dawn's breath against him. "I-I don't know, Dawn" he stuttered.
Ron couldn't contain himself, he started laughing full-force and had to walk away before he started rolling around on the floor. A moment later Dean joined him.
Dawn still didn't break away from Harry. She continued to gaze up at him with a shy smile on her face. "Please, Harry?" She pleaded. She pressed her lips lightly against his mouth. "Please, for me." Harry blushed.
Stammering he mumbled, "Sure, okay."
Nearby Ron and Dean went off into another fit of howling laughter. Dawn peeled herself off of Harry and excused herself. A moment later Ron exclaimed, "Hey, ow," followed shortly by Dean saying the exact same thing.
This time, it was Harry's turn to laugh.
That night, Harry and Dawn were walking soundlessly along the dark corridors. It had been decided that Flick and Ginny would go on patrol and meet up with Harry and Dawn, who would bring the invisibility coat with them.
"Professor Dumbledore isn't going to like this. Neither will your sister. We probably should have told them." Harry said in a low voice.
"Why would they mind? All we are doing is assisting the aurors in their enquiries." Dawn replied choosing her words very carefully.
"Do they know you're assisting them?" Professor Dumbledore who appeared behind a statue in that spooky way he does. "I think my line at this point is 'tell me what?'"
"Nothing." Dawn said a little too quickly, trying, and failing, to smile innocently.
"We were just going out on a patrol, sir." Harry said seeing Dumbledore's disbelieving look.
"Very well; be careful and tell Miss Weasly and Miss Newton the same." He vanished back behind the statue as mysteriously as he had appeared.
"Well that was weird." Dawn commented as they went on their way.
They met up with Ginny and Flick on the outskirts of the forest and followed them much deeper in to where the aurors were. They were outside the grounds of Hogwarts now, and Dawn heard a very familiar voice.
"...I tell you, he knows of the relationship the key has with the slayer!"
"Mr Giles, I can assure you that we are doing everything we can, but if you won't tell us who the key actually is, then how do you expect us to protect it?"
"I've already told you, I cannot disclose that sort of information. Ethan Rayne is an old associate of mine and he contacted me to find the whereabouts of the key! He will discover it soon." Giles ranted.
"And we will do everything we can to stop that, but you have to face reality, Mr Giles; if this death eater knows of the key's connection with the slayer and knows that it was in America until recently and further knows that it is currently residing at Hogwarts, then I'm afraid it is just a matter of time before he works it out. I'm sorry." The auror apperated out of the forest, the others close behind him.
"You can come out now." Giles said without turning around.
"How did you know we were there?" Flick asked.
"Dawn wasn't the only one who had her powers boosted by Willow's spell." Was his only explanation. "We'll talk about this back at the school."
"So Ethan Rayne, as in the one who turned you into a demon; knows that the key is one of us." Dawn stated when they were all seated in the Scooby common room. Giles nodded- would no-one ever forget about the demon thing? Dawn wasn't even invented then and even she wouldn't let it rest! "And he's a death eater?" Giles nodded again. "How long do we have?"
Giles cleaned his glasses, again. "A week at most, I should think. Ethan may not be the brightest person alive, but he's not stupid either."
"So we wait. And then we fight. And then someone dies. And we all live happily ever after." Dawn dead panned.
No-one corrected her.
"Well; it seems, for now, the best thing we can do is prepare and keep a very close eye on Dawn and Harry." Giles said.
"And wait for them to attack us?" Buffy asked.
Giles nodded slowly. "This isn't like with the First, Buffy; we don't know where the death eaters are going to be...and we don't have a magical scythe to help us."
"Well, we do; but I don't think it'll be much use." Flick pointed out.
"What we need is to stop them doing magic." Xander said thoughtfully.
"And that would help, how?" Buffy asked sarcastically.
"Because we can beat 'em hands down on the physical side of things. Shame the scythe only gives power not takes it away." He crammed a doughnut into his mouth, spraying crumbs as he finished speaking.
"Xander, that's genius!" Giles exclaimed.
"Well duh! ...What was?" Xander asked, totally clueless of his brilliant idea.
"If the scythe has the ability to grant power, then it must be able to take it away! Where else would it get its power if it kept on giving it away?" Several blank faces looked back at him. "Look at it this way; Buffy's hairdryer gives out the power to dry her hair, but it has to be powered by something to do that. The scythe gives out a tremendous amount of power, so it must be powered by something."
"So if we could find out what that power source was, and change it to magical energy, then we could take all the death eaters magical ability." Willow said understanding.
"Why would we use the death eaters' magic to power Buffy's hairdryer?" Xander asked, still confused.
"Not to power Buffy's hairdryer, to power the scythe." Willow explained affectionately.
"Oh...but won't that mean that the scythe is evil? 'Cause it'll be powered by evil energy." Faces dropped at Xander's words.
"It shouldn't be a problem if the wielder is good." Giles said, turning the idea over in his head, a slow smile creeping across his face. "Yes, I actually think it might work."
It's quite short, but I wanted to get something out and this is all I had time for, sorry! Please Review!