All characters belong to their respective creators / film companies / etc. and are used without permission. This story may only be distributed on a non-profit-making basis.
Work in Progress. If you like this story, check out my other stories on the Fanfiction Net, Twisting the Hellmouth, and Fonts of Wisdom websites.
I'm British, so's my spelling. Live with it.
This chapter contains major spoilers for the final episodes of Buffy season 7 (about which I can only say WOW!) and Angel season 4.
"Think Dawn's after Harry?" asked Angel as he and Gunn headed out of the Hyperion.
"Looked to me like she's ready to jump the boy's bones."
"I worry about that girl sometimes."
"She's an adult, she seems to pick reasonably nice guys, and she doesn't have to worry about AIDS and the rest. She just doesn't want to settle down."
"Even so... I feel responsible for her. To Buffy."
"But you're not. Buffy knows that she can look after herself, and she wants her to have her own life."
"That's true, I guess, but Buffy told me that the real reason is that she doesn't want Dawn to see her die. Not again. You know the odds against Slayers, it's amazing she's lasted this long. Look what happened to Faith."
"The odds have changed," said Gunn, patting Angel's arm. "Faith was unlucky and she didn't call in backup fast enough. Look, Dawn isn't about to ruin her life over this, and she'll let Harry down gently before he decides she's the girl of his dreams. And she'll probably do a reasonable job of keeping him alive while we deal with this mess."
"I guess. Let's start dealing then."
"You're heading for Caritas, right?"
"Yeah, see if Lorne or anyone saw anything, see where that takes me."
"I'll see if any of the old gang are connected. Best you don't come with me."
"Right. See you later."
"...So let me get this right," said Angel. "You got the vision of Dawn being shot, and the Potter kid ran out before you could tell him that it was aimed at him."
"That's right, Angel-cakes," said Lorne.
"Sounds like the hit-man was waiting for him to come out... but how did they know he was here? Dawn said it was a drive-by."
"I guess someone must have tipped them off when he left."
"That's what I was thinking. Anyone here earlier on that might be connected?"
"Angel honey, about a third of my customers are connected to the underworld one way or another. Demon bar, remember?"
"Okay, wrong question. Anyone seem to be interested in him?"
"Not really. Dawn was singing, most of the customers seemed to be enjoying it. I was talking to Harry at the bar, until she came over to say goodnight I doubt that anyone was looking our way."
"So who was here that you did know?"
"Let's see... some of the Industrial Light and Magic people, they're still here. That's a birthday party, booked several days ago. Most of them have sung, and I didn't pick up anything unusual from them, so I'd say they aren't involved... A couple of Chinese vampires, they left twenty minutes ago. Didn't sing but you know those guys, it's a point of honour with them to use magic or swords, not guns... A couple of Dawn's friends from UCLA, they left about half an hour after she did, both of them sang and the most interesting thing there was what they were planning to do when they got back to his apartment... There was a werewolf I didn't know, he was thinking about rabbits while he was singing so I doubt he was organising a hit... Lilah was by, but of course she doesn't sing... Couple of V'pod demons, their wedding anniversary..."
"Wait a minute," interrupted Angel. "Lilah was here? Lilah Morgan?"
"You know any other undead evil lawyers who've had their heads cut off?"
"On her own?"
"Let me think... Yeah, for about three hours."
"When did she leave?"
"About... it's a good thing you're the detective, not me. About ten minutes after Harry."
"See her making any phone calls?"
"No, but I was busy calling you, she could have made a dozen calls when I wasn't looking."
"Okay. It's been a while, wonder what they do with her when she isn't doing their dirty work..."
"Yo, Gunn, my main man."
"Alphonse, how's it hanging?"
"Okay, man."
"Great. Okay if I come in?"
Alphonse stood back from the shabby apartment door and waited without inviting him, Gunn said "thanks" and strolled in.
"Can we drop the jive now?" asked Alphonse, once the door was closed. The interior of his apartment was nicely furnished and clean, and classic jazz was playing softly on the stereo.
"Sure. Been a while. Still studying for the law degree?"
"Got it, man, last month. Got my CV out to every law firm in LA right now."
"Including Wolfram and Hart? I told you about those guys..."
"Don't worry, I left them out. So, Angel still good?"
"Yeah."
"Give him my card and tell him I'll cut him a good deal if he needs representation."
"Thanks. Hear anything from the rest of the gang lately?"
"Some... what's this about?"
"Someone tried a hit near Caritas tonight. Friend of mine was in the line of fire."
"Damn! He okay?"
"She took three bullets meant for the target. Machine gun."
"Dead?"
"Not exactly."
"What does that mean? Another vampire?"
"No. It's a long story, and not mine to tell. Important point is that someone did a hit, and wasn't real careful who else was hurt."
"What can I do to help?"
"Spread the word around that a friend of mine has been shot, see if anyone has heard of a hit on a British college kid. The phone number is 555-0162 if you get anything."
"Got a name for the kid?"
"It's Harry Potter, but don't spread that around if you can avoid it, might muddy the waters."
"It's nearly midnight, but I'll see what I can do."
"That was fun," said Dawn the following morning as she was dressing.
"Was?" asked Harry
"Was. I told you it wasn't going to be a long-term relationship."
"Why not?" asked Harry a little sulkily.
"Think about it for a while," said Dawn. "Think about what I've told you." She pulled on a T-shirt and began to brush her hair.
"You're immortal. You'll be young and pretty forever. What's the problem?"
"I will, but you won't. I'm sorry, Harry, I like you, and you're cute enough that I wanted a one-night stand with you, but I don't think I love you enough to want to inflict the bad side of immortality on you."
"Bad side?"
"You're not an immortal, and you're not going to become one when you die. Nobody I know is, apart from Lorne's friends. The only reason I challenged you when we met is because I sensed your magic, and it feels a little like the buzz I get from another immortal."
"Oh."
"We don't look odd together right now, but do you fancy the idea of being with a girl who looks and feels young enough to be your daughter... or your grand-daughter... when you're old and grey? Think you could handle the jealousy? Even if you could, I'm not sure I could take seeing someone I loved die of old age."
"Umm... I see what you mean, I suppose."
"There's another reason, which is that immortal doesn't necessarily mean that I'll live forever. I've died, Harry, not just once or twice but five times in a little over three years. Sooner or later it'll be permanent if I'm careless or unlucky. There's lots of ways to die that an immortal can't survive. If that happened I'd rather not have someone I love die with me."
"Why? Why do you keep getting killed?" asked Harry, puzzled.
"What good is an immortal? How does immortality benefit the human race?"
"Err... it's a good thing if people live longer?"
"Good for me, maybe, but it doesn't benefit anyone else."
"You could have immortal children, spread the genes."
"No I can't," she said flatly, "natural immortals are an evolutionary dead-end. We're sterile."
"Oh."
"We also seem to be violence-prone, not just through the stupid Game but in our lives, sheer random fate. So the conclusion I've come to is that immortals were originally mystic warriors, kinda like the Slayers but less powerful, with better healing to make up for it, and some sort of mojo to make sure that we went where there was trouble. When the real bad-ass monsters were out of the picture we kinda lost our way. Some of us became monsters ourselves, warlords and murderers and worse. A few just went to ground and tried to keep out of trouble. And the best of us became champions. I'm not a monster, and I'm pretty sure I won't be able to stay out of trouble, so I've set my sights on being a champion like my sister. Damn, that sounds really conceited."
Harry grinned, and said "There are worse ambitions."
"Yeah. Ready for breakfast?"
"I need to shower and change my clothes, I'll have to summon my bag to my room. Be down in twenty minutes."
"Right. Oh, here's your shirt back."
"Keep it, souvenir of my team."
"Thanks, don't mind if I do. The lion is kinda cute. Oh, we'll be having breakfast in the kitchen behind the lobby. Just follow the smell of burning."
Harry followed the smell of bacon and a faint murmer of voices that gradually became understandable.
"...so she started singing the Hedgehog Song and that was it," said Willow, "they gave her the Talent prize to shut her up. She got Best Wart too."
"Leaving you to win Fairest of Them All," said Kennedy, "which on the whole I prefer, honey."
"It lacks witch-cred." said Willow. "Much more Buffy's style." She looked up, smiled, and said "Here's Harry."
Harry walked into the kitchens and smiled a little nervously at everyone. Angel was cooking bacon, eggs, hash-browns and fried tomatoes, Willow, Kennedy, and Dawn were eating them.
"How do you like your eggs?" asked Angel.
"Fried would be great. I could make my own if you like."
"No, I'm good. There's cereal and juice on the counter, make your own toast. Coffee's on the table."
"Angel likes to cook," said Dawn, "which is odd considering he doesn't eat."
"I can eat," said Angel, "I just don't get much from it. Cooking is okay though, I like the smells."
Harry helped himself to Weetabix and milk, put some rye bread in one of the toasters, and sat down to eat.
"What is it with Brits and Weetabix?" said Dawn. "That was always Spike's favourite. Except he has his with blood on them."
"There's a nice image while we're eating," said Kennedy.
"Says the girl who kills vampires for a hobby."
"Kills..." Harry began, then realised. "You're a Slayer?"
"Sorry," said Kennedy, "thought someone would have told you."
"I've never met one before. It's an honour."
Kennedy smiled and said "Damn right."
"Now that you're here," said Angel, bringing over a plate of food for Harry and a mug of blood for himself, "we should talk."
"Did you learn anything last night?" asked Harry.
"A little. Gunn's not down yet, but he left a message on my desk. He says that his contacts have heard that there's a contract on you."
"A contract? To kill me?"
"Sounds like it, though they didn't have a name. They just know that there's a contractor in from the east coast. New York, New Jersey, he's not sure exactly where."
"Not a wizard? A muggle?"
"Sounds like it," said Willow. "But you might want to avoid using that word, it's not exactly polite even if most people have no idea what it means."
"I didn't mean to be offensive, I'm just trying to understand why they'd use a non-wizard."
"To catch you off-guard," said Dawn. "You're ready for magic, but you came within inches of being shot last night."
"I could have stopped them, I think."
"If you saw the attack coming," said Willow, "but did you?"
"No, Dawn spotted them. I see what you mean."
"Ever hear of some lawyers called Wolfram and Hart?" asked Angel.
"No.. wait a minute, yes, I think I've seen their advertising in the Daily Prophet. Office in the Gringrott's Bank building in Diagon Alley."
"The wizard's market in London?" asked Willow.
"That's right. Gringrotts handle most of the banking for the wizarding world in Britain, there's a few other companies with offices in their building."
"Well," said Angel, "Wolfram and Hart are basically evil lawyers. Conscienceless anyway, and most of them are pretty much soulless. They have a finger in every crooked and unethical pie you can imagine. I didn't know they had a wizarding branch but it doesn't surprise me. Once they turned out to be running the priesthood in a demon dimension I visited."
"Wow. And you think they're involved?"
"One of the clients at Caritas last night was Lilah Morgan. She's a lawyer, used to work for them until she was killed a few years ago. Except that the contract she'd signed didn't end when she died, and they reanimated her. She was at Caritas for a couple of hours last night, and since she only does what the company wants it's a safe bet that she was there on business. My guess is that she was looking for you, and alerted the hit-man when you left Caritas."
"How would they know I was going to be there?" asked Harry.
"They could have used a psychic," said Angel, "but I think you're asking the wrong question. I'm wondering how you came to be at Caritas."
"I.. I'm not sure. I wanted to get out for a walk, take a break from the conference and see a bit of the city. I wasn't looking for Caritas but I remembered the name from advertisements in the programme, thought it sounded interesting, and saw the sign for the place."
"So you went out into a city you didn't know, on your own, and just happened to end up at a bar nearly five miles from UCLA. By pure chance."
"Now that you mention it, it does seem a little odd."
"I'll bet," said Willow. "Okay, this is the same jacket you were wearing yesterday?"
Harry nodded.
"Same shoes and trousers?"
"Yes."
"Stand up, hold your arms away from your sides, and relax."
"Okay. Is this going to hurt?"
"Shouldn't."
Willow thought for a second then said "Acclaro!" and clicked her fingers. A shimmering green aura appeared around Harry, glowing red over his wand and three pockets of his jacket. "Let's assume for now that the wand is all right. Don't put your hands in your pockets. Take your jacket off and shake out whatever's in those three pockets without touching them." Harry complied; his breast pocket produced his membership badge for the conference and an Ever-Inked quill, the inner pocket a kit of small potion bottles, and the left pocket a device like a pocket watch. "Any of them unfamiliar?"
"No, it's all the stuff I normally carry."
"What's the watch thingy?"
"A couple of portkeys, one to Hogsmeade and one to the Burrow."
"Hogsmeade I know, what's this 'burrow'?"
"It's the name of a house, several friends live there."
"You haven't used either in the last few days, I suppose?"
"No."
"Okay, we'll leave them for now. Anything changed in the potions kit?"
"No, looks the same as usual."
"Your usual quill?"
"Yes."
"Right. Now name badges are interesting, magically speaking. They're mass-produced but every one is an individual. And if there's something more than a name badge, you can be sure it'll get to the right person. Kennedy, put yours on the table next to mine." Kennedy did as she was asked. "That's good. Commetior!"
The two badges glowed, one blue and the other yellow. Between them was a composite image, glowing green apart from the names written on the badges, which were green where the letters overlapped but the colour the original badge was glowing where they differed.
"Now that's about what I'd expect to see; there's a difference in the names, otherwise they're identical. Let's try that with Harry's badge and mine." She repeated the process; this time the composite image was a swirl of yellow and blue with no green.
"Hmm.. that certainly isn't standard issue. Anyone want to volunteer to touch it?"
There was an awkward silence, then Angel said "I'll give it a try," and put a finger on the surface. He shrugged, finished his blood, and said "You know, I could do with a real drink. I wonder if Lorne has opened yet."
"Low level compulsion," said Willow, and clicked her fingers in front of Angel's eyes, "the sort of thing that takes hours to work, especially if you have magical defences. It's insidious because it builds up very slowly. Most people don't notice, so it doesn't trip their alarms the way a curse would."
"Hey, I've got defences," said Angel.
"Sure you do," said Willow, "I kinda negated them as you touched it, then raised them again once I was sure what it was. Don't worry, it's pretty much what I expected. Harry's badge is rigged with a compulsion spell on top of the pass spell that lets him into the conference. Someone either made an outright fake or put a spell on the real badge, I'm leaning towards a complete fake but I'll have to run more tests after breakfast. Whichever it is, someone must have got it into his membership pack. Could have been someone at the conference, maybe someone stuffing the packs or handing them out, even the guy who operated the badge machine. You could do the whole thing with teleportation, or a small familiar or animagus form to get you access to the stored packs."
"Any way to trace who did it?" asked Angel.
"I doubt it; they must have used a few tricks to cover themselves, but I'll try. After breakfast."
Angel finally got the hint. "You want something more to eat, Willow?"
"Thought you'd never ask. More bacon please."
"Anyone else? Okay, more bacon coming up."
"So what do we do now?" asked Dawn.
"I'll run the tests and cancel that spell so you can wear the badge," said Willow, "then I'll have to get to the conference for my talk. Harry, my guess is that you'll be safer there than anywhere else, especially if you take Dawn along for company. I'll arrange to have you comped membership for the rest of the conference, Dawn. After that I don't know."
"I do," said Angel. "In a couple of hours I'll call Lilah Morgan and arrange a meet, see what she has to say for herself. I would have talked to her last night, but they've rented her apartment to someone living and I'm not sure where they keep her when she isn't working."
"Do you think she'll tell you?" asked Harry.
"If I get the questions right she'd better. We own the company."
"You own... Wolfram and Hart?"
"Me, Fred, Gunn, and Lorne. It's a long and very weird story. Short version is that a few years ago, round the time Kennedy became a Slayer, they tricked us into signing a contract that gave us ownership of the LA branch of the company, without being able to control what they do in any way. The spell that bound us to them also blocks us from interfering. But if they lie to any of us the rules change."
"Sounds like we have a plan," said Gunn, coming into the kitchen with Fred and Alonna. "Let's eat, then you guys can get to the conference and bloodsucking fiend and I can go visit the evil undead."
TBC
