Disclaimers, etc, see part one.

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Willow stood stock-still. She could feel the magic in this place. It was in everything, the paintings moved, the pillars were confident of their ability to hold the ceiling. The magic knew what it was doing, and was glad to be doing it. She felt very small by comparison. All right, she'd done some amazing things, but it hadn't felt comfortable the way this magic did. It was all she could do not to drown herself in it, but at the same time it didn't want her. It was quite all right with her interference, thank you very much. She could feel the wand in her pocket, and its connection to the world around her. That would make for some very interesting studies. She should probably talk to Mr Ollivander.

Buffy was staring at the ceiling, turning in a slow circle. The air felt as if she could lean against it and it would support her weight. There was sense that everything was in control. The building took responsibility, even for the bad things that happened here. Instead of the badness being a part of the nature of the place, like at the Hellmouth, it was a small part of the openings that allowed the greatness and grandeur. It was enough to keep to her occupied, and the Slayer muscles stretched, but not overwhelming. And Dawn looked ecstatic.

Xander looked shell-shocked. He was surprised at how surprised he didn't feel. Part of him really, really liked it here, even though he had no real idea where here was.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," a man said.

As one the group turned to face their host. They stumbled a bit around their luggage, but eventually managed to present themselves.

"For those who don't know me, my name is Albus Dumbledore," the elderly man said. "I apologise for the superfluous introduction, Mr Giles, Spike," he said, nodding at the two men.

Spike got a couple of odd looks from the group. But they were mostly interested in the old man. Albus Dumbledore seemed to be extremely interesting. Buffy decided that he was probably the only person in the world who could make that combination of orange and green look good.

"It is a pleasure to back at Hogwarts, Headmaster," Giles said.

Spike nodded his greeting. He was staring suspiciously at the woman standing next to the headmaster.

"Other introductions, of course," Dumbledore said.

"May I introduce, Minerva McGonagall, deputy Headmistress and Transfiguration Professor."

Minerva stepped between Dumbledore and the other woman, who looked extremely put out.

"A pleasure, Ripper. Welcome to Hogwarts, all of you."

"And this is Dolores Umbridge, undersecretary to the Minister of Magic and our current Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor."

Giles held his hand out to her. She shook it stiffly.

"It's a great honour to meet you, ma'am," he said, earning odd looks from everyone else in the room, and a thoughtful gleam from Dumbledore.

Umbridge seemed pleased, if unsurprised, by the comment. She flashed her teeth at the rest of the group.

Giles made quick introductions. He gave Anya's surname as Jenkins, and offered no explanation as to why Spike didn't really have a name at all.

Dumbledore nodded gravely when he introduced Xander as a Harris.

"In the Wizarding world, Mr Harris, you will still go legally by your father's name. But we shouldn't draw too much attention to that," he said.

Umbridge obvious thought everything was very suspicious. McGonagall thought the same, but she more pleased that the pink cardigan was upset. Besides, Albus was obviously enjoying the company, and Rupert or Albus would explain everything later, so who was she to complain.

Introductions and small talk completed, Dumbledore addressed his guests at large.

"If you'd like to follow me," he said, "I'll show you to your rooms. The feast begins in about twenty minutes, you'll want to change, I'm sure. Leave the luggage, it will be delivered."

Dumbledore lead them across the entrance hall and down a fairly main corridor. A door appeared in the wall suddenly and he opened it. The room they stepped into was large and contained one small table and two chairs. There were eight doors, spaced too close together to have anything but more corridors behind them. Each had a painting on it.

"These are your rooms," Dumbledore announced, waving to the walls. He pointed to the two doors opposite where they were, "they are the bathrooms. I'll leave to work out which is which."

He smiled and walked serenely away.

"Okay, so we'll start here?" Buffy said, looking at the first door. The painting showed a snow-covered tree in sunlight, and a fawn. The fawn was currently enjoying the light and eating grass.

"I think we have to open our own door," Giles said, from the other side of the room. "I think this is mine," he added.

His painting was of two men arguing with each other, standing over a table in the middle of a library.

"This'll be me," Spike announced, staring at the painting next to it.

Buffy looked over at the picture, but she couldn't see it clearly, beyond that it was obviously a man, in a cloak. Spike pulled the door open and marched inside. Giles shrugged and open his own door.

Willow and Tara came up to Buffy to look at her painting, to see if they liked it any better than the others. Willow looked at the fawn sadly.

"He's so sweet," she murmured.

Buffy and Tara both noticed her concern, but said nothing.

"Do you want this room?" Tara asked.

Willow nodded firmly, once, then looked horrified and glanced at Tara.

"If you do," she said.

Tara smiled. She opened the door and pushed Willow inside.

Buffy's quiet thoughts were interrupted by a shriek from Anya.

"A rabbit!" she squealed, pointing to the painting on the other side of Giles's from Spike.

"Don't fear, gentle madam," one of the riders proclaimed.

He lifted his gun. There were two faint popping noises and the painted rabbit fell dead. Anya's eyes widened in delight.

"Can you shoot some more?" she asked.

Xander raised a faintly apologetic eyebrow at Buffy. But he also smiled fondly at Anya.

"What have you got, Dawn?"

"Fairies," Dawn said, awed. "Or nymphs, or something. They're beautiful."

"What's the next one?" Buffy asked. It would be her room.

"Oh, you'll like," Dawn said. "You've got figure skaters."

Buffy grinned and walked over to her door. It seemed Torvill and Dean had had an influence on the Wizarding world, too. They waved at her as they performed a series of simple leaps. Buffy smiled back at them and opened the door.

The room was gorgeous. Their little wing must have stuck out into the grounds because there was fantastic view of the moon-lit grounds out her windows. The window ledges were deep enough to sit in, and ever had padded seats and curtains like in the film of Jane Eyre. The bed was huge, four poster, and hang with silver curtains. She took off her shoes so she could feel the carpet. There was a fire in the fire place. This castle, this world was fantastic. And Xander, more than anyone belonged here. He deserved it, but she was going to enjoying while she was here. It was the place to get used to living again.

Buffy couldn't see her bags anywhere, but when she crossed the room and opened the wardrobe she was confronted by her new robes. She took the dark blue ones off their hanger and threw them across the bed. Grabbing a towel from the table between the windows she crossed back to the other door next to the fire and knocked.

"Dawn! Is that you?"

The door was yanked opened. Dawn stepped into Buffy's room.

"It's just as fabulous as mine!" she declared. "Are you going to have a shower. You'll have to be quick. Professor Dumbledore said we had twenty minutes."

"I'm sure there's room for us both, come on," Buffy said.

They stepped back out into the foyer area, where everyone else already was, also holding their towels.

"There will, I assure you," Giles was saying, "be room for everyone who wants to shower. However, will still only have fifteen minutes, so be reasonably hasty."

No one needed telling twice. If the bathrooms were half as opulent as their room, Xander was more than happy. He was even prepared to overlook having to share a bathroom with Spike and Giles. The merman on the door shook his trident at them as he pushed the door open.

The bathroom was all chrome and dark blue tiles. The shower cubicles were large enough to party in.

"This is a bathroom to get clean in," Xander said.

"You need it, whelp," Spike said.

"Not as badly as you," Xander retorted automatically.

Spike considered that a second. "I walked into that one," he admitted. "Still, I'm not going to waste time chatting to you two."

They each took a cubicle and closed the door. Xander stared at the array of taps. He stripped carefully, even hanging his clothes up and putting his new wand in the rack next to the door.

He turned one the taps gingerly. Warm foamy water poured out. He turned a tap marked with a red jewel and the water got warmer. It took a few moments' experimenting to come up with the right combination of heat, foam and pressure. But he felt that he could have stayed there all evening.

It was too soon that he had to turn off the shower, dry and hurry back to his room to get changed.

The robes still felt strange to wear. Getting them to sit right was enough to distract him from Anya's ideas of what they could do with the baths in the girls' bathroom.

"I was thinking we could try the bed, first, honey," he said.

Anya smiled coyly. Xander chuckled. He held out arm to her and they walked out together to meet the others before finally heading to the Great Hall.