Disclaimers, etc, see part one.

Author's Notes: I'm writing a novel this month. And next months I'm going to Europe. So this is the last chapter for a while, my apologies. I had hoped to write more to have a back log, but it didn't work out.

New Challenge from CapriceAnn Hedican-Kocur: Giles/Tonks.

Challenges met this chapter:

Anya, upset by the books from Flourish and Blotts decides to write her own book on vengeance demons to set the record straight. Xander is weirded out, but supportive.

Challenges for the next couple of chapters:

Willow and Tara build a wand.

Snape gives Buffy Veritaserum, but doesn't learn more than that she was in heaven.

There are problems from the black family about Xander marrying Anya.

* * *

* * *

Buffy spent lunch ignoring Spike's questions about when she would go to see Giles. In order to alleviate some of the guilt she felt for that, she decided to make good on her other promise, and got up from the table early to speak to Dawn. Anya hurried past her as she walked towards the Gryffindor table, and waved to Dawn on her way.

Dawn waved back, a little perplexed, then smiled at her sister.

"Hi all," Buffy said, aiming for bright and cheerful.

Harry, Ron and Hermione all smiled at her in greeting as well, and Buffy smiled slightly in return. They seemed liked good kids, and she was glad the Dawn had made friends here, but she didn't have much energy for other people.

"You said we could talk," Buffy reminded Dawn.

Dawn grimaced, but she didn't make an excuse.

She said, "I'll see you guys later," to her friends, and kissed Ron lightly before following her sister out of the Hall.

They walked in silence almost all the way to back to their rooms, along the ground floor corridor, until Dawn stopped suddenly and Buffy turned around to face her.

"This talk," Dawn said, "It's not The Talk, is it? Because I got that from mom years ago."

"Years ago?" Buffy repeated, distracted by absurdity.

"Yeah. You know, when you and Angel, and Angel…"

"Right," Buffy said. "Okay. No, it's not that talk. Do you think we'll need chocolate?"

Dawn just looked blank for a moment.

"I still don't really know what we're talking about," she said. "But Harry told me how to get to the kitchens."

"Lead on, MacDuff," Buffy said, waving her arms in a magnanimous gesture.

Dawn turned and led the way back through the castle towards the Hufflepuff corridor.

"You're in an odd mood today," she said.

Buffy just shrugged.

"What happened on the Quidditch pitch?"

Buffy shrugged again. "I don't know," she said. "Slayer-like stuff really. I told Spike I'd go to see Giles."

"You don't think you should?" Dawn asked.

She was surprised, because surely everyone always wanted to talk to Giles when something was going wrong.

"He's got that whole 'don't talk to me, I'm evil' plan going on," Buffy said.

She hated how petulant she sounded, but she couldn't think of a way to successfully change the topic. Dawn shrugged.

"I wouldn't care about that. He's an okay teacher. Maybe you could pretend that you were worried about him teaching about things I'm not ready to know."

Buffy snorted at that. Dawn grinned over her shoulder. They had reached the dark corridor underneath the Great Hall and Buffy looked around nervously. Dawn marched along until she came to the painting of the fruit and the ticklish pear.

"That's just creepy," Buffy said.

"I think it's cute," Dawn said, looking at it for a moment.

She opened the door and led Buffy into the brightly lit and crowded kitchen.

"Hello, young Misses, how can we be helping you?" a bright, little voice said from somewhere waist high.

Buffy raised her eyes at the small, demon looking creature, who seemed to be wearing a tea towel. Dawn took the appearance of the creature more in stride.

"Do you have chocolate?" Dawn asked.

"Which sort of chocolate would you like, Miss?" the House-elf asked. "We is making chocolate mouse and chocolate cakes and chocolate biscuits and chocolates."

Dawn looked at Buffy, but Buffy was looking around the busily working little creatures and didn't respond.

"Ah, can we have a little of everything?" Dawn asked.

"Certainly Miss, in a minute Perry will have that for you," the House-elf said.

He bowed before hurrying off to make up a basket of food. Buffy watched him go with a bemused expression.

"Is something wrong, Miss?" another elf asked.

"You're all happy here?" Buffy asked.

The House-elf look mildly suspicious, and also a little scandalised.

"I is working, Miss. Of course I is happy."

Most of the kitchen was involved in clearing away the remnants of lunch and washing the dishes. Others were beginning to prepare parts of what would become dinner — carving large pieces of meet, washing potatoes, laying out the vegetables for the soups.

"You wouldn't rather be… outside?" Buffy asked.

She glanced uneasily at the ceiling.

"We is going outside sometimes to collect the vegetables, Miss," the elf replied. "We is going outside when we is needing to, Miss."

"Don't you do anything you want to?"

The House-elf definitely looked scandalised now, and also little angry. "We is working, Miss, that is what we want to do."

Buffy looked around at the efficient organization of such a large group of beings. Each was working on some task, and could worry about that particular thing, because that's what needed doing.

"Must be nice," Buffy said.

The House-elf beamed. "It is, Miss. Headmaster Dumbledore is a very good master."

Buffy nodded politely. Perry returned with a basket full of chocolate things and handed it to Dawn.

"Here you are, Misses, enjoy your snack."

"We will, thank you, Perry," Dawn said.

Perry beamed as he waved to Dawn and Buffy and they escaped the kitchen to head once more towards their rooms. Buffy stretched her shoulders as they reached above ground again.

"How are you finding school?" she asked.

Dawn looked at her suspiciously.

"It's good," she said. "I'm learning heaps."

"You should probably be going to a normal school," Buffy told her.

"No I shouldn't," Dawn said. "I'm hardly normal, am I? Willow and Tara think I could do magic. And I'm learning some here. And Willow's translating the classes for me; Transfiguration into Physics, Potions into Chemistry."

"Alright, I won't send you home," Buffy said, knowing full well that she would never have gotten away with the idea in the first place. "You don't miss television?"

Dawn actually looked confused for a moment.

"No," she said, and chuckled. "I can't even remember what was on. What about you, though? Do you like it here?"

Buffy nodded. "I do," she assured Dawn. "The air's good, if a bit cold. And Hagrid is a bit crazy. Spike's behaving himself. You're happy, Willow's finally learning magic properly, Xander has a good family."

"What about you, though?" Dawn insisted. "You're happy, aren't you?"

Buffy smiled in what she hoped was a convincing manner. It didn't hurt as much to be 'back' as it had, but she wasn't up to singing about the world just yet.

"We were going to talk about you and Ron," she said.

Dawn scowled. "I don't see what there is to say," Dawn said.

"You were much more willing to talk earlier today," Buffy reminded her.

"I thought you'd forget if I didn't make a fuss," Dawn said, sullenly.

Buffy laughed out loud.

"Your room or mine?" she asked, when they made it back to their common area.

"Mine," Dawn decided.

She pushed the door open and walked across the room to deposit the basket of chocolate goods on her desk. Then she removed her shoes so she could walk on the carpet. Hunting through the basket she found two little bowls of chocolate mousse, and threw one to Buffy. She took the second one, and two spoons over to the bed and climbed up to sit against the headboard. Buffy took a spoon, and joined Dawn on the bed, leaning against one of the foot posts. She looked at her dessert as if she didn't know what to do with it.

"So talk," Dawn said.

"How's Harry?" Buffy asked.

Dawn wanted to roll her eyes. But she thought that maybe Buffy deserved a bit of a break for being interested, not embarrassing, and for not making her take real school classes.

They chatted for a while about general things — how Harry was, how the D.A was going, how smart Hermione was, what a brilliant game Quidditch was, and whether Ginny really did still like Harry — while they ate their way through the picnic basket.

"Hermione told me she did, but now she's got a real boyfriend," Dawn said. "She watched him all through Quidditch, though," Dawn added, in an authoritative tone.

Buffy, mulled by the copious amounts of chocolate, raised a sceptical eyebrow.

"I'm surprised you noticed," she said.

Dawn blushed.

"So you do really like him?" Buffy pressed.

"I thought you said this wasn't the Talk," Dawn said.

"It's not," Buffy sighed. "It's the other talk."

Dawn thought for a moment, and when she worked out what Buffy meant, she was mildly surprised.

"I like him. He likes me. We've been together for half a day, and it's good so far. There's not much more to it than that."

Buffy waited.

"That's what you want me to say, isn't it? I don't expect more from it, Buffy. I'm fourteen and a half, he's almost a year older than me. It's not some grand romance, we're not old enough. And he's not a vampire," she added.

Buffy threw her spoon across the bed, for lack of anything more appropriate.

"Promise me you won't get hurt."

Dawn sighed dramatically. She pressed one hand over her heart. "I promise I won't get hurt."

"He's still your first boyfriend," Buffy said.

"I think he'll be a good one," Dawn declared.

Buffy smiled, then, glad that Dawn had assumed that Ron wouldn't be her only boyfriend.

"Speaking of boyfriends and vampires," Dawn went on.

"Don't," Buffy said.

Dawn pouted. "But you mentioned him in the list of good things."

"I said he was behaving himself," Buffy said. "He only came along because… well."

Dawn raised a very suggestive eyebrow. Buffy glared. She had accepted Spike insisting on his own coming because he was the only she had been able to tell about where she'd been. And she'd only been able to tell him because she didn't care what he thought, or how she treated him.

"Anyway, aren't we forgetting the disaster that is my love life, or the soulless monster that is Spike?"

"He really likes you," Dawn said.

"Angelus spent a lot of time thinking about me, too," Buffy said. "And Riley loved me."

"Now you've gone all bitter."

"Well, you shouldn't have brought it up, should you?" Buffy said.

Dawn waved that criticism away airily.

"You need more chocolate," she declared.

"I honestly don't think I could eat anymore," Buffy said.

"Weakling," Dawn said.

But Buffy ignored her to lie down and stretch herself across the bed. Dawn carefully packed the cutlery and crockery back into the basket and put in on the floor before following suit.

Anya leapt up almost immediately after Buffy left the teachers' table, and as if she had been burned with a poker.

"Anya?" Xander asked.

Anya shook her head, too excited to say that she was too excited to speak. She grin and dashed across the Hall waving to Dawn and her friends with a conspiratorial style wave. Xander shook his own head, giving up once again on trying to puzzle Anya-moments out.

"Bit strange, your bird," Spike said from his right.

Xander sighed. The comment hadn't been ill intended, but Spike's continuing presence, and non-stakeability, still grated on his nerves.

"Why aren't you out killing something?" Xander asked, politely interested. "Is because you've been neutered?"

"Well, it's just no fun anymore," Spike said with a shrug.

He rose gracefully from his seat and sauntered outside. Xander felt a thrill of petty satisfaction at having gotten Spike to leave, despite the trail of ardent gazes the vampire attracted. The lack of any real explanation of who, or what, Spike was had really only added to his allure.

But Xander was really only waiting for Willow to finished her animated discussion with Professor McGonagall. The older witch was taking Willow's babbled comments in stride, and even allowing Tara to have her say in occasional lulls. Xander finally stood up too, and walked over to them.

"So is it enough to convert the fur to feathers?" Willow asked. "Because it seems that if the skin is the same, and the animals are the same size, who will know?"

McGonagall smiled faintly.

"The animal itself knows very well how it is supposed to be. You should be careful, Mr Harris," she added. "Your father tried just the same trick at the end of his third year. You haven't seen a creature try to eat a piece of lettuce when it has wings."

Xander tried to imagine what that would look like. In the end he decided that when he had learnt enough transfiguration he would have to try it just to see. McGonagall seemed to read his thoughts and sniffed disapprovingly as she turned away. But the amusement of the memory detracted a bit from her stern expression.

"You do know you don't have to learn everything at once, Will?" Xander asked, as the three of them started walking towards their rooms.

Willow nodded automatically and Tara grinned fondly.

"Have either of you spoken to Buffy?" Tara asked suddenly.

"What about?" Xander asked.

"Where she was," Tara said.

Both Willow and Xander stopped to look at her. Tara blushed under the scrutiny.

"Something's wrong," she said. "Her aura isn't behaving properly. It's not as connected to here as it should be, especially given who she is. I thought it was just that we brought her back, you know." She shivered at the memory, but went on firmly. "After the Quidditch game, when she almost hit Harry? Something almost had her then. Something was feeding her reactions. The castle should be protecting her from those sorts of intrusions."

"But do you think we can talk to her about it?" Willow asked, dropping her voice as others began to pass them. "I mean it's not an easy thing to bring up in conversation, either 'how horrible was hell?' or 'why did you try to hit the person were supposed to protect?'"

Tara sighed in agreement.

"Spike made her promise that she would go and see Giles," Xander said.

Willow grimaced. "How much is he going to be able to help?" she asked.

It was Xander's turn to sigh. Something strange had happened to Giles, and if it was hurting Buffy when he should have been helping her, then things here were worse than he, Xander, had thought.

They walked the last little way in silence. There was nothing left to say on that topic at least until one of them saw Buffy again, so Willow offered Xander help with his switching spells. Xander narrowed his eyes.

"And just what are switching here?" he asked.

Willow blushed faintly and shot Tara a desperate look. But Tara, for once, was unflustered. She held the door to their room open for both Willow and Xander to enter. The girls' room was an almost exact replica of Xander and Anya's; except that it was green, and had some obviously Willow and Tara touches; like the string of lights around the bed and collection of crystals on one of the bedside tables.

Tara took a spot cross-legged on the floor. Xander leant against the bottom of the window seat.

"So teach me," he said.

Willow rolled her eyes, and shared another exasperated look with her girlfriend. But Tara's look seemed to say that Willow had taken on the task of training Xander, and it was therefore her own fault.

Willow sat down in one movement.

"Now what do you remember?" she asked.

Willow always insisted on lessons being an hour and half, at least. Because that's how long real classes were, and you were supposed to study as long as you had learnt, or some such nonsense. Xander didn't really mind, though. He was good at this, and Willow was a very good teacher. It reminded of him some of the good times they'd had at school. And when he successfully switched the ears off the mouse Willow transfigured and onto a bar of soap he began to feel that he might actually be able to help in this fight.

Willow giggled at the ears wiggling at the end of the pink, lavender scented soap. Xander had a silly grin on his face, too. Tara patted the bald looking mouse. She switched the ears back and the mouse immediately looked happier.

Xander pulled himself to his feet.

"Thanks, Willow," he said.

Willow waved him away with a grin.

"If you studied more, you wouldn't so much help," she called his retreating back.

Xander turned around long enough to shrug in response to the idea as he pushed the door open. He crossed the empty Common Room and pushed the door open, still wearing his silly grin. He was greeted by the astonishing site of Anya sitting in the middle of their bed surrounded by sheets of parchment. She was writing from an inkbottle carefully nestled in the folds of the blankets.

"Ahn, honey?" Xander asked.

Anya finished writing the sentence she was on and looked up at him, grinning broadly.

"I'm writing a book Xander," she said. "About Vengeance demons, and how people really did make those wishes. And about our culture, and society, and how wonderful D'Hoffryn is."

Xander stood blinking stupidly. He couldn't really conceive what such a book would be like, or who might read it, or how bored Anya had been to take up the idea in the first place.

"D'Hoffryn's a demon," he said.

Anya shrugged. "So was I. So are most of who I'll be talking to about this. Hallie is usually in England this time of year. I think we should visit your father. You can spend the day with him, and I will meet with Hallie, I think we should go in the next few days, maybe Monday. Certainly before school finished."

"Okay," Xander said.

He tried to read one of the pages, but Anya leapt across the bed to snatch it away from him.

"You don't get to read it till it's finished," she said. "And you don't get to say anything about it either!"

"I wasn't going to," Xander assured her.

"Well, that's okay then," Anya said. She eyed him suspiciously. "Weren't you doing some sexy magic practice with Willow and Tara."

Xander tried not to choke at her choice of words. "I though I could spend some time with you instead," he said.

Anya very carefully cleaned her quill on a scrap of parchment and stoppered the inkbottle before dumping everything unceremoniously onto the floor. She grinned impishly at Xander, who tried out a rakish grin in response.

"How long do we have until dinner?" she asked.

"Hours," Xander said, pretty much failing to achieve nonchalance.

Snape tended to billow along corridors, just out of habit. It did tend to intimidate people, at least the first years, and hide any other emotions his carriage might betray. He swept through the halls after lunch towards his private rooms and slammed the door once he was inside.

The Veritaserum was bubbling along nicely. If the girl's own friends were worried about the secrets she was keeping, and if she was a danger to Potter, then it was his duty to find out what was going on. And what her relationship to Rupert Giles might be.

Snape had met Ripper once, when he and an even shiftier friend had arrived at his father's house for a 'meeting.' Snape, at ten, had been aware enough of what was going on to be wary and contemptuous of the strange young men in Muggle clothes.

What he was doing here, now, working for the Ministry and in the company of William the Bloody, was another question Snape felt he would like an answer to. Snape was quite adept at getting answers; and the girl was the weak link between them.

He worked his way through a pile of third year essay and a jar of red ink while he mulled over what he had learnt in the previous few days.

His thought processes were interrupted after several hours by a tentative knock on the door.

"Come," he said tersely.

The door opened slowly and silently. Snape looked up from the essays, surprised to see Draco standing nervously at his threshold. Students rarely came near his private quarters, but Draco had never been so wary.

"Mr Malfoy," Snape drawled.

Draco stepped across the cold floor and sat on the edge of the visitors' chair.

"Did you have a particular question, Mr Malfoy?"

"Do you know Professor Giles, sir?"

"He has been on the staff for almost two weeks," Snape said.

'Really only that long?' he thought to himself. Hopefully the rest of he term would be easier than the last week had been. He watched the boy carefully. Draco can't have come for the answer he had just received.

"Before he arrived now," Draco said. "I know a little about the others. They are in some classes, but Professor Giles is even less approachable than you."

Snape allowed the jest a blank look.

"I met him once, many years ago. I met 'Spike' as well. Both at my father's house."

Draco understood the code as referring to an 'official' meeting, and nodded. Snape saw the boy take all the evidence on board, add it together and reach a resolution.

"Thank you, Professor," Draco said.

"Is there are reason you wished to know specifically?" Snape asked, making sure he sounded annoyed rather than curious.;

"My father has been asking, sir."

"Of course," Snape said. "Anything else?"

"No, sir," Draco said.

He nodded briefly as he stood to leave. Snape had already turned back to the papers on his desk. Draco closed the door carefully and walked along the dark corridor alone. Gregory and Vin had stayed in the Common Room to study rather than go anywhere near Snape's office.

So both Giles and Spike had had association with the Death Eaters. That explained why Giles, who had newly returned to the Wizarding world, had severed ties with the people he had known. Which meant that either Spike had changed more than the Professor, or was working as a spy. Unless there was something more complicated going on, Draco reminded himself. Unless there was more of a connection between Dawn, and therefore Potter, and the new Professor than the fact that they had know each other in a small town in America.

Draco punched the wall. He cursed Potter. If it weren't for his bloody parents' bloody stupid sacrifice, Draco would have had a very comfortable life as a Slytherin. Instead he was reduced to worrying about his enemies and their strange friends.