Disclaimers, etc, see part one.

… … …

Dawn spent the day with Ron, Hermione and Harry again. She passed notes to Ron in history, which at least kept him awake. Snape was being his usual snarky self in Potions, although he seemed excited about something. Draco did, and said, nothing during the class and the day seemed like it might be good.

But then, during Divination, Dawn remembered that they had to go to Defence Against the Dark Arts. She still wasn't sure how to relate to Giles and hadn't turned up in any of his classes yet.

Giles didn't register her appearance. He simply gave the class a chapter and stood in front of his desk and watched them read.

Hermione sighed and pulled her book out. She also pulled out the copy of the History and handed it to Dawn.

"What are you reading, Miss Summers?" Giles demanded.

Dawn closed the book to let him read the title. Giles swallowed hastily.

"Okay," he said, stiffly.

Dawn knew that he understood and went back to reading the chapter on "William 'the Bloody': Spike." It talked about 'the Slayer' as if there had only been one, ever, she simply looked different each time you saw her. There was a description of the Slayers Spike had killed, and then it went on to describe his return to Sunnydale and the resurrection of Akathla.

The account stopped there. There was a fanciful, but fairly accurate, engraving of Spike and Buffy fighting, to show that she beat him and he left. But nowhere was there any talk about the Watcher, and his relationship to the Slayer.

Dawn looked up at Giles, now sitting behind his desk at the front of the classroom, and wondered if he remembered that Watchers also had a sacred duty.

Defence classes put Dawn in a bad mood for the rest of the day. Hermione said that Giles was much better than Umbridge because he let the class discuss the theory, but it didn't help Dawn much.

She sat petulantly in their sitting room as Willow and Tara helped Xander and Spike with their spells. Buffy didn't seem to care either; she just went through a series of training exercises.

Eventually Spike gave up trying to Silence things and joined Buffy. They sparred across one end of the room while Xander watched suspiciously. Dawn smiled though; if Buffy and Spike were getting on, things were getting better.

Eventually they were interrupted by a knock on the door and Dawn opened it to let Ron and Ginny into the room.

"What are doing?" Ginny asked.

"Waiting for you," Spike said, ducking under a blow from Buffy and aiming a grin at Ginny.

Ginny blushed.

Ron offered Dawn a gallant hand, and she accepted with a grateful smiled. As the Americans followed their redhead guides through the school, Xander stepped beside Buffy and nodded to Dawn and Ron.

Buffy glowered at their still joined hands, but there was more good humour in the looked than anything else.

Ron stopped in the middle of an empty corridor. Xander raised a suspicious eyebrow, and then a curious one when Ron started to pace along the corridor.

"Do you agree never to talk about this where someone might hear?" Ginny asked.

They all nodded. Suddenly a doorway appeared in the wall beside Ron. He looked up delighted.

"Nifty," Willow said.

She stepped forward to run a hand over the doorjamb. Tara shook her head in response the questioning look Willow threw over her shoulder. She had no more idea how it worked than 'magic.' Willow sighed, but let Ron open the door and lead them into the room.

Harry looked up from his position at the front of the room when the door opened. He was very glad to see everyone arrive. The rest of the D.A looked up surprised at the new people.

"Who are they?" Terry asked.

"You were introduced to them last week," Hermione answered.

"And why are they here? Didn't they come with the new Defence Professor?"

There was sudden hostility in the room as the other students realised that Terry was right, and the visitors suddenly shut themselves off. Dawn stepped forward, but it was Anya who spoke.

"Giles is evil and we don't like him any more. If you want to fight the bad guy, we're here to help."

"I invited them tonight," Harry said. "And Dumbledore invited them to Hogwarts."

Both comments calmed the room of students and Willow was impressed by Harry's understanding of his crowd.

"You'll have to put your names on the list," Hermione said. "It's for all members. And you agree not to tell anyone about this. We're called Dumbledore's Army, because that's what Fudge and You-Know-Who are afraid of."

"We're not going against You-Know-Who, are we?" someone asked.

"He might come after us," Harry said, bluntly as their visitors lined up to sign Hermione's piece of paper.

Tara paused as she bent to sign her name and ran her hands over the page. She looked back up at Hermione.

"Useful spell," she said, clearly. "What does it do?"

The attention of the whole room suddenly focused on Hermione, who blushed darkly. Willow was examining the paper now. She turned the face the rest of the room who were staring suspiciously at Hermione.

"When you wrote your name of this piece of paper you agreed never to give the D.A's existence or purpose away?" Willow asked.

There were nods.

"The spell will simply make it very clear who the betrayer is, if the group is betrayed. You have not been coerced, but if it all falls apart, you can know that you had no choice. You would not exist if you didn't all want to be here at the moment," Willow explained, her voice firm and insistent.

Several students looked quite uncomfortable and shifted uneasily. But others looked around the room with something akin to disgust, daring anyone to say they wanted to freedom to betray the others.

"If nobody says anything, you're all safe," Willow said. "Okay?"

Eventually everyone nodded and Hermione sat down with relief.

Harry stepped forward to continue the meeting. He explained that Dawn and her friends had some unusual skills and might teach them. The Scooby gang shared startled looks. Xander passed any responsibility to Buffy, who looked out over the seated students with a faint grin.

"I can teach you how to fall," Buffy offered.

There was silence for a moment.

"How will that help?" Neville asked.

"Stun me," Buffy said, walking out to the middle of the empty space at the front of the room.

When no one raised their wand, Harry did.

"Stupefy," he said.

A red spark shot out of his wand. Buffy dropped onto the floor, her hands in front of her to break her fall, and was on her feet again, ready to meet the next attack. Suddenly three people raised their wands and shouted the spell. Buffy dodged all three, and then the next five.

"Okay, stop," Harry yelled. He blew his whistle and was rewarded by silence interrupted only by the occasional awed, 'wow.'

"Now, Spike and I are the only ones who can move that fast," Buffy said. "But I can teach you enough to escape, or regain your wand. Do you know what the first rule is?"

No one moved.

"Don't die," she said.

The room broke into applause.