Author: Indarae
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: So far, none. Could be some Dawn/Harry or some Dawn/Draco, but I doubt anything permanent will come of it.
Summary: With Dawn's father absent after Buffy's death, care for the younger Summers falls to one Rupert Giles. However, even as life returns to normal, pieces of his past come back to threaten the future.
A/N: Thanks for the reviews! I'm glad to se people have been enjoying this. Hopefully it's different than the other hp/btvs crossovers around.
Part Three — Guilty Relief
August 2
Somehow, staying at Hogwarts hadn't been a part of Harry's summer plans, but his vision and the continued rise of Voldemort merited more protection than either the Dursleys or the Weasleys could give. Or so Dumbledore said. Harry wondered, from the defeated look on the Headmaster's face, just how much of the extra security was because of Snape's capture.
Following his arrival at the castle, Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall had questioned him about his dream and all the details thereof. Some of his dreams had been helpful in the past, and they'd hoped another would follow... but Harry woke on his first night back, tucked safely in the Gryffindor dormitory, to find only a memory of a girl and her father. She'd been very pretty, Harry thought, but she spoke very oddly. He wished Ron was there to help translate, but he was staying at home for the rest of the holiday.
Harry pulled on his Gryffindor robes over his pyjamas and headed down to the Great Hall in slippers, greeting various professors — all less than delighted to have such a target in their midst weeks early — before taking a seat at the Head Table next to Dumbledore. "I didn't dream about Professor Snape," he said, before the Headmaster could ask. "I dreamed about a girl and her father. Her father was afraid of Voldemort, but she didn't know who he is. I don't know if this was a real dream or not."
"More of your dreams may be prophetic than you realize," Dumbledore said, smiling kindly. The smile didn't quite reach his eyes, however — something was held back in a way Harry had never seen. He'd seen Dumbledore angry and ecstatic, somber and joyful, but never old. "If you dream of her again, let me know. She may be important."
"How are we going to get him back?" Harry asked quickly because as much as he didn't want Snape for Potions class anymore, he would feel bad if the man were killed because Harry had been unable to defeat the Dark Lord two months earlier.
Dumbledore's eyes narrowed. "We will not be doing anything. You will study Defense Against the Dark Arts with Professor Sinistra until our new teacher arrives. You're a student still, Harry, not a fully trained wizard. We will get him back."
He could feel how false the statement actually was just by looking in the old man's eyes — disturbing, when only a year previous, all of the Headmaster's thoughts seemed impenetrable. "I need to help, somehow. This is worse than meaningless chores at the Dursleys. I don't want to be useless."
"Find that girl, then," Dumbledore said. "If she's real, Voldemort believes she's important."
"Albus," Professor McGonagall broke in, leaning on the table from Dumbledore's other side, "I've some information on what Severus was working on... oh, good morning, Harry."
"Go ahead, Minerva," Dumbledore said, snagging a pastry nonchalantly.
McGonagall spared a suspicious look for Harry before continuing. "Severus was trying to find ex-Death Eaters... he had a list of twelve possible deserters. I took three names to track down: one is dead, but I've found evidence suggesting two are still alive. Rupert Giles and Ethan Rayne, both Slytherins." She spread out several pieces of parchment beside Dumbledore's plate, and Harry leaned over to get a good look at the pictures. "We may be too late for Rayne — he was supposed to be in Florence, Italy for a conference this weekend but did not show up. Giles, however -"
"That's the father from my dream," Harry put in abruptly, staring at a wizarding photo of a young man grinning in Hogwarts uniform. "He's much older now, but that's him."
McGonagall seemed upset at his interruption, but Dumbledore was delighted. "That's it," he said, poking at Giles' picture. "He's hiding to protect his daughter... we have to find him. If we promise to protect her, he may risk himself just enough to lead us to Voldemort — and Severus. What do you know, Minerva?"
"Not much," she muttered. "He went into the family business... but no one seems to know what that was. He left the country in '89, and the last record I have is from New York City. We've a dead end."
A dead end... but maybe his dreams would prove the key. Harry examined the photos carefully — hopefully, they'd find the girl before Voldemort did, because Snape's life hung in the balance.
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Rupert smiled at the latest customer and hoped it didn't seem too forced. "Thank you very much for shopping at the Magic Box, and I hope your purchase helps with that spell." He waited until the woman was gone before hurrying to the back room to find Anya. "What are you doing?" he demanded, noting the ex-demon sitting in front of an old laptop computer, which was hooked up to the wall. Good Lord, did he rue the day he'd introduced Anya to dialup internet access.
"Oh — nothing much," she said quickly, moving to slam the screen shut.
The Watcher, however, was faster. "Ebay?" he demanded, peering at the list of items visible as he held the screen open. "What in God's name do you need with a... Backstreet Boys lunchbox? Anya, do you know what they are?"
She beamed brightly, setting the computer aside. "Oh, yes! They're an offshoot of the Connemara demon — one brain in five bodies, but with such nice voices! Xander really wanted a lunchbox, and I know he has all their CDs -"
"No, no — I don't want to know," Rupert cut her off, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. She'd been awfully swift in shutting the computer. Usually she was just brimming with the news of her newest website find... Lord only knew what she'd come up with now that she'd discovered the joy of the online auction, but she was acting strangely like she was hiding something. Resolving to study the history function on the internet browser later — it was one bit of information he'd seen fit to keep from her — he merely shook his head. "I need you out front? We're supposed to be closing up right now, and I've got that parent meeting of Dawn's to go on the 6th, so I wanted to show you what needs to be done at opening?"
"I'll just go and do that cleaning up thing now!" Anya beamed, very pointedly unplugging the computer and packing it away in its carrying case. Yes... definitely up to something... "Why don't you let me finish this tonight? Xander said I should be more accommodating because you adopted Dawn. What's it like having a kid? I thought maybe someday Xander and I should have a kid, but when I said that, he turned sort of this greenish shade that didn't look very healthy -"
Rupert held back a laugh. "It's a bit different, having a grown-up child like Dawn to care for. You do realize you'd start out with a baby."
"Yes, well..." Anya sniffed and slung the computer case over her shoulder. "They're only smelly for so long, and then they learn to talk and all. Dawn can be rather a nice little girl sometimes, when she's not complaining about school or people not paying attention to her or how hot it is outside or something Buffy did." She stopped suddenly. He was very much aware of the look of pain flashing across his face, but he couldn't control it. "Is it — is it bad for me to say things about Buffy? She's been dead for months now. After Joyce died, people kept talking about her, but everyone freezes up like this when I talk about Buffy. Is it wrong for me to talk about her?"
"No, it's not," he replied. He reached up to pull off his glasses, but stopped. It was time to close up the shop, he could explain to Anya as they went. "We should be in the front of the store." He tried to pretend he wasn't attempting to change the subject.
Anya wasn't giving up on it, anyway. She followed Rupert to the front of the store and, after checking to make sure no one was left in the shop and locking the front door, slipped behind the counter to talk to him again. "Why can I talk about Joyce, but not Buffy?"
"Someday, I promise it will be alright to talk about them both... but I think we started to talk about Joyce again for Buffy. She needed to be reassured that it wasn't her fault. Joyce was very sick..." Rupert sighed, setting aside the special order forms he was counting. "We weren't ready for Joyce to die, even though it should've been obvious that the possibility was there. We were shocked. I think talking about her made us come to terms with losing her. It didn't make it easier... we just had to confront ourselves with the fact that she was gone." Or at least Rupert had. He liked to pretend that he hadn't been growing closer to Joyce over the danger Buffy and Dawn had been in, but to deny it would've been a lie. They'd gone on only a single date, the night before her death — Joyce had told Buffy and she was dating a man named Brian. She'd thought Buffy would be horrified by the mere thought of her mother and her Watcher dating.
He'd hoped for many more, but Fate had taken that path from him.
"We knew Buffy was going to die one of these days, though," Anya prompted.
Rupert winced. "Yes. We did. For me, it's much more painful than a sudden death like Joyce's. We knew all along that she'd be lost young. It's almost like losing someone to a long illness... that's how my father passed away. It was inevitable, but his life stretched on in pain. We tried to ease his passing, and when he finally went... it was almost a relief. That it was over, that he wasn't hurting anymore. That hint of relief — that she's gone on to her mother and her father, and no longer has these terrible responsibilities and fights — is... I feel guilt over it. The relief shouldn't be there, but at the same time..." He sighed and took up a stack of packing slips. "Have I helped at all, or only made it worse?"
Oddly enough, Anya had set aside a stack of money. Very few things could tear her away from her greed. "I was wondering what that emotion was. It's been a long time since I've felt guilty about anything. That's what is it, then? I'm sad she's dead, but I'm glad she's not out getting hurt all the time like when Adam kicked her around, but I feel bad that I'm glad because of all that. That's guilt?"
"That's guilt," Rupert whispered. Guilt over the relief that Buffy's pain was over... guilt over the deaths he'd caused... guilt over the joy he felt when he'd heard the Potters died to destroy the Dark Lord... it was all stacking up. Would Anya ever feel guilt over the deaths she'd orchestrated? Or Spike, guilt over the lives he'd ended? "Guilt is an essential part of being human," he admitted, unconsciously rubbing at the mark burned into his arm. "Perhaps... perhaps you'll become a better human than I am."
Anya pursed her lips and nodded. "I don't like the guilt. I'll think about it later," she pronounced, and went back to counting up the day's profits.
If only it could be that easy for Rupert.
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Dawn, back at the townhouse, was busy enjoying her evening alone. Willow and Tara had gone out for a romantic dinner, Giles and Anya were at work, Spike was patrolling with the Buffybot, and Xander was putting in overtime in order to pay for something he'd bought for Anya, though he wouldn't admit to Dawn what it was. She thought it was an engagement ring, and though she hadn't seen Anya wearing it yet, she certainly hoped her sister's friend said yes. A wedding would be a very happy thing, at this point — what had that old movie been? Four weddings and a funeral? Well they'd had three funerals; it was about time for a wedding to happen.
She'd found her guardian's collection of records hidden in a filing cabinet and had been shocked to learn he had taste. She'd grown tired of the 70's rock after a while, though, and settled on plugging her CD player into one of the kitchen sockets and singing at the top of her lungs to the Indigo Girls while digging through the kitchen cabinets to find her marshmallows. Giles wouldn't eat them, the weirdo — he thought they were "unnatural and against the world order" but Dawn supposed that was just because the Americans had thought them up and the British were all jealous. Dawn liked to blow them up in the microwave until they were all huge and gooey and then eat them while watching sappy movies.
Giles had a gas stove with open coily things on the top, though, which had an open flame when you turned them on. She could skewer the marshmallows, if she ever found them, onto a knife and then make s'mores... "Stupid Giles, hiding the marshmallows," she muttered under her breath. Mom and Buffy knew better. They always had the marshmallows right at the front of the cabinet so she could find them any time she needed comfort food.
"Finally!" They'd been tucked away in the junk drawer with the extra set of keys, Giles' address book, plastic silverware, various coins — both British and American — and a funny looking chopstick. "Bingo. Just like the roasting stick." Dawn grinned. One time, when she was little, her dad had taken her and Buffy camping. Buffy had hated it, but Dawn loved it, especially when her dad showed her how to make the marshmallows just gooey enough and had set his marshmallow-roasting stick on fire. That had been long before he'd gone off to Spain with his secretary and ended up dead in the Rhine.
But the funny looking chopstick would be perfect for roasting marshmallows, Dawn mused as she pushed unhappy thoughts aside. It was rather thick for a chopstick and had a built-in grip at the end, oddly enough. Dawn grabbed a marshmallow, turned on the gas for the stove and lit up a flame, and dug for the chopstick in the junk drawer.
When she picked it up, it sparked. "Woah," Dawn muttered, setting the marshmallow aside. "Okay, so maybe it's not a chopstick." It was a really pretty stick, in sort of a dark cherry finish, and much smoother than the chopsticks they got from the local Chinese take-out place. It was something less than a foot long and her fingers fit perfectly around the carved grip at the end — and it sent a spark out of the end as she thought about it.
Alarmed, she set the stick down on the counter. It sat there, as sticks are wont to do. Frowning, Dawn shut off the stove and popped the stray marshmallow into her mouth before hesitantly picking up the stick again. No, not a figment of her imagination — the stick very definitely sent a rainbow of pretty shimmers out the end when she touched it. It must be some Magic Box merchandise or something. Maybe she shouldn't burn it...
Instead, she stood and examined the length, the feel, and every imperfection of the wood, oblivious to the garage opening. "Dawn, I've brought Chinese..."
Unconsciously, the stick fit into her hand in a certain grip, as she turned around and smiled at Giles. "Hey, I was just gonna make some s'mores! And I found this cool stick!"
Giles froze, his face morphing into some sort of horror as he shoved the cartons of rice and General Tso's chicken on the counter. "Good Lord... Dawn, where did you find that?"
"It was in the junk drawer... sorry, I didn't mean to mess with your stuff, but when I picked it up, it did this really neat sparking thing. Is it for the Magic Box?" Dawn asked, setting the stick back on the counter.
His expression said otherwise. "It — it sparked? Good Lord... I should've known. With your origin... but that would mean Buffy..." He was babbling, gaze darting for the bookshelves as he ripped off his glasses and cleaned them almost desperately with the corner of his shirt.
Dawn frowned and shuffled toward her guardian. "C'mon Giles, spill — I can't understand if you won't explain it."
Shoving his glasses back on his face, Giles' gaze flickered back to Dawn. "Pick it up again, Dawn? Show me the sparks?"
Shrugging, Dawn complied. They were very pretty, all green and purple and gold. "See? All pretty. I want some blue sparks, though, that'd be cool."
"Sit- sit down please," Giles stuttered, inching toward the bookshelves. "I really have some explaining to do, I'm afraid. I should've told Buffy... too late now... just sit down?"
Dawn pursed her lips. "But the chicken's getting cold -"
"I'll warm it back up," Giles cut in, scurrying for the old and dusties. Dawn would've laughed, if she hadn't been so confused. However, when Giles was in one of his bookish explaining moods, there wasn't much she could do, so she took a seat and waited, snagging a few marshmallows on her way over to the table.
Giles joined her with a stack of books almost immediately, taking a very large one and presenting it to her. "Look at this," he commanded.
It didn't help. "Hogwarts, a History? I don't have to go back to school for a few weeks, can't I wait to do reading-type things until -"
"No, I don't want you to read it. Er — I suppose you wouldn't have heard of it... Alright, I have much to explain, so please bear with me. I don't... talk about my childhood, as I'm sure you've noticed," he began, taking back the book. He also slid the stick from Dawn's grasp, setting it delicately on the table as though it was some wildly important object, rather than a stick.
"Well, Buffy always thought it was because you didn't like your brother. Or didn't like your dad. Something like that?" Of course, Buffy had claimed Dawn was adopted from a circus act. She wasn't that far wrong, Dawn supposed, what with the whole Key-world-ending-fiasco, but Dawn vividly remembered at the age of five, being convinced that her biological parents were a clown and a trapeze artist. Dawn had a sudden mental image of Giles as the trapeze artist father — if Buffy had been there, she'd have dissolved into giggles and explained it... but Giles' face was far too serious for jokes.
He sighed. "While true, it's very little of the story. You see... my family are witches and wizards. Like Willow and Tara, but trained at a school in Scotland and associating with other wizards. There aren't many wizards living out on the West Coast here, because of the corrupting power of the Hellmouth. Being a wizard, in Britain, means something very special — we have a world entirely separate from that of non-wizards and we're not allowed to tell non-wizards about it." He was rubbing at that funky tattoo again. "You Americans are a little more lax about the rules."
"That sounds cool," Dawn said lamely. How else was she supposed to respond? Yeah, a world of wizards sounded very neat, but she didn't see what Giles was being so serious about.
"This is a wand. A magic wand." He touched the stick on the table. "Only a witch or wizard could make it spark like that. The day I bought this wand, the shop was filled with sparkles of green and silver and blue. It was lovely..." Giles smiled and lifted the wand with a practiced touch, as if he'd been born to use it. "If this was any other time, I'd drag you back to Scotland with me right now, so you could learn how to be a witch."
At that, Dawn gaped, dropping the marshmallows in her hands in shock. "Wait. Wait wait. I'm a witch? Like Willow and Tara? That's — woah. And — hey, why can't I go to Scotland? I mean... Buffy's... gone and since she's not here anymore, you're not her Watcher anymore. I want to go to Scotland." THAT would be cool. She'd miss everyone here, but she didn't have many close friends at the junior high, and her mom and sister were dead. She could do magic like Willow. She wanted to see Giles do something with the wand, it was all neat that magic wands really existed —
"I can't go back to England because my life is in danger," Giles said, and Dawn snapped back to reality. "Not all wizards and witches are good, Dawn," he reported. "I made some mistakes and ended up befriending one of the bad ones. If I go back, he'll kill me — he'll probably kill you too, just for being connected to me — and he intends to kill many, many more people. People like you, whose parents aren't wizards, because he thinks you're not as good as people whose parents are wizards. It — it doesn't make much sense, putting it that way, does it."
Of course it didn't make any sense, it was like that eugenics-y thing of Hitler's... but it sounded as though Giles had once meant it. "So the tattoo thing on your arm is a magical tattoo. And you do spells and stuff with a wand... and I can too... but I can't go and learn how because some psycho Big Bad wants to kill you for leaving England? Man, does this suck."
Giles sighed heavily and pursed his lips. "Yes, it rather does, doesn't it. Unfortunately, I was a stupid young man when I made choices out of my league." He flipped through the heavy history book and, turning it so that Dawn could see, pointed at a picture of a pretty castle on a hill with all sorts of turrets sticking out of it. "This was my secondary school."
"Woah," was all Dawn managed to reply. Since the high school was all blown up because of the Mayor's Ascension plans in Buffy's senior year, Dawn's classes had to take place at the Sunnydale Civic Center. Though the new high school was due to be complete in the following school year, she doubted there would be turrets. "You went to school there? I bet you didn't even have to ride in a stupid school bus."
He was beaming down at the picture with an expression usually reserved for stories about Buffy. "It's a boarding school. We lived in different Houses, rather like different dormitories at university here, but we were Sorted according to our traits. Students from every year banded together to compete for the House Cup annually. The competition was quite stiff... my House won four out of the seven years I attended."
"That's way cool," Dawn gushed. She pulled the book onto her lap and flipped to the front section, lined with pictures of two men and two women in long robes and fancy hair-dos. The Founders the caption read. "Can I borrow it and read it?"
"Of course." Giles reached over and smoothed down her hair in a fatherly gesture and for once, Dawn felt as important to him as Buffy. "There's a wizarding section of New York City called Nomin Alley. Once I'm a little more sure of our safety, we can take a trip there and find you a wand, and a new one for me." He picked up the wand reverently, running his fingers over the wood. "I've used it one too many times, I think... he might be able to track me if I use it again."
"You'll teach me to do magic?" Dawn whispered in awe. She'd done just a bit of magic before, right after Mom died, but she wasn't even sure that had worked right. And Willow always said she'd teach her a spell or two, but she'd never really gotten around to it, and then Buffy had died and everyone trod carefully around Dawn.
Giles nodded solemnly. "Real magic, just like all of my teachers taught me... and just like I should've taught Willow. I might be a little rusty, but I want you to know how. This is something I'm sharing only with you."
Maybe she was juvenile for wishing such a thing to happen, but here it was — Giles was offering her even more than her real dad had. She couldn't hide her grin.
"Good," Giles said, patting the open book. "Read this. That'll give you an idea what it was like for me there. If you still want to read after that, all of my old schoolbooks are on the first shelf, behind the Aramaic books and lexicons. Don't let the others see them, Dawn — the fewer people who know what we are, the safer we'll be from the man who's hunting me."
"Right," Dawn replied, grinning more broadly than she'd allowed herself since before Mom's death. "It's our secret."