The next day, there was a paper in the Wizarding Times by a Rita Skeeter lady. She was new, and they hated her immediately, before they even saw what one of the top stories was about. It was about them, and it was a total bogus. It had a few things down that had actually come true, but they had been twisted to fit her devilish mind.
2 days later, Carl and Amelia Winters decided to get their daughter their wands. Faith and Buffy were excited. Their first wands... It was special. They were going to Diagon Alley that day. Their parents let them skip school on Friday because of the intrusion, and it was Saturday now.
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January 23rd
Carl and Ame took off work for a few days, and decided to get their children to Diagon Alley. The two girls were excited. It was a big thing to get your first wand. They discussed what they wanted to be in theirs. The only thing they could agree on was that they wanted something with a griffin and phoenix in it.
First though, they went to Gringotts, the wizarding bank. They were let in. The vault was almost full, and the money was pile up. They were one of the richest families in the whole wizarding system. They were also full blooded wizards. Their families came down a long line of them.
But Buffy and Faith didn't care what family they belonged to or who was 'mudblood' as some rude people called it. Or who was only half or anything. They weren't prejudice.
They both had the same idea. They never would know how much they would need, so they just grabbed two handfuls and put it in their bags.
The bags were enchanted to be weightless and never full, so they were fine with that amount. Carl was downstairs waiting, while their mother grabbed a handful as well.
They made it out and collected their keys to the vault. They got Buffy's and Faith's keys to fit in the lockets they got for Christmas.
There was no debate on where they would go first. Olivander's wand shop. His family had been making wands since anyone could remember.
The four of them entered, and he greeted them when he showed himself coming out of a back room.
The two girls smiled at him, and he smiled back. His smile faded though as he studied them. There was something there that was not in anyone else he had ever seen. It was strange. It was as if they were older souls then they knew.
Faith came up first. He tried the first wand. "Phoenix feather and Pegasus wing." She didn't do anything until he said, "Well, give it a swish."
When she swished it two pots across from the point exploded. It was taken from her before she had time to react. "Hmmm... yes. That won't do. Here." He gave her another. "Snake scale and griffin breathe." She swished it and he went bald.
Buffy and Faith held back their laughter as Olivander grabbed it from her and stared at her a moment. "Hmmm... interesting."
It was another moment before another wand was in her hand. She swished it when Olivander didn't tell her what it was. Red Purple and Blue fireworks came out of her wand and a beautiful comforting mist inhaled them for a moment.
Olivander then told them what it was. "Griffin feather, slayer's blood, phoenix feather, destiny and a feeling of faith." All of them raised their eyebrows, including the shop owner.
'Since when can you put feelings into wands?' both girls thought.
Faith shook her oddness off for now though, and let her older sister step up. Buffy gave him one of her sweeter smiles, and he gave her a small one back as he studied her.
'Her soul looks a little older then her sister's.' he thought. 'She has great power as well.'
He put a wand in her hand. "Slayer blood, daffodil, and honey bloom." He said. She swished it and the pots that did not explode when Faith first swished exploded.
It was quickly taken from her, and a new one replaced it. "Griffin hair, slayer blood, and mandrake root."
She swished, and any paper on the desk caught on fire. It was quickly put out though, and Buffy blushed and laughed to herself.
"It's okay. These places are enchanted to clean up that type of stuff." He took the wand from her, and studied her for a moment. He picked up another wand and gave it to her.
When he didn't say what was in it, she swished it, and a red purple and blues bunch of fireworks/mist came out. It was the exact same reaction as Faith's.
"Slayer blood, soulmate aura, phoenix feather, griffin feather, and a bit of destiny," He said.
Buffy and Faith walked out after their parents and thanked him. But before they could actually leave, he told the two of them, "The wood is an ancient petrified wood of Willow grown with a very rare herb called Kiendrae."
(Get it? Kendra.)
"It is soft, smoothe, and unbreakable. It also remains alive no matter what, and does not need anything to survive on except the use of magic."
Both girls blinked. First he used the word 'unbreakable' with their wands. Then he used words like 'petrified' and 'Kiendrae.' They were confused and a little in awe.
'How could a wand live?' both girls kept thinking together through their minds and link.
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Lorne had told Angel what he knew about what he saw. Angel couldn't believe that Buffy had a past that none of them knew about. Okay, so it was when she had officially been a runaway.
They had never really talked about what she had done then. It was like talking about hell.
It was too painful.
He had known that she had runaway from one of Xander's many harassments. Angel had mentioned it once, and Buffy had shut off for a moment. It was never talked of or mentioned again between them.
He knew she had secrets. But he never realized that they could be this big.
She had only told him that she had gone away from Sunnydale to regroup herself.
"I left because I couldn't stand being here with so many memories. Of you. Of Angelus. Of, everything. My memories of him are fuzzy at best. It's the ones with you that were haunting me."
"I took a bus out of here and, learned to accept myself, what I had done."
There was a pause for a moment. "I probably wouldn't have even returned if I hadn't seen the report on the news that Sunnydale death rates had risen to a height again." There was another small pause until Buffy had shut that part of herself off.
" So, how many vamps do you think we'll get tonight?" she had asked.
That was the farthest Angel had ever felt from her; when she talked about running away, and shut the memories that he just knew were going through her head away.
Now he knew what had happened along the way.
He had never known that Joyce had kicked Buffy out, although he knew that she hadn't meant it.
He had never known that Xander had known that Willow was going to retry to recurse him, and promised to tell her. But he had broken his promise to Willow, and lied.
Angel thought about some 'what ifs', and if any of them had known about his hidden secret. Angel wondered if Buffy had realized what he had done. He had taken back the day.
He was still astounded, as were the others. Cordy was kind of in a stupor. She had been in Sunnydale thinking that Buffy was ignoring her 'calling' and runaway, and she had been jealous and mad at her. She knew what had really happened now.
Buffy had spent exactly one year in a hell dimension with three friends. Those friends had been the girl that had given them the video of the concert a few hours ago, Gunn, and Gunn's sister (I can't remember her name for some reason, so I'll make one up quick.). Lily had birthed Buffy's babies, and they had tried to get them back, with Buffy.
But they had been frozen with a spell by a sorceress that Buffy had killed because of it. And the only way to unfreeze them was the blood of a close family member. But it could not be them or their parents. It had to be someone connected to them. Connected by blood.
Cordy asked the next question. "So, why didn't Buffy just get Dawn to spill some of her blood?"
Lorne sighed. "Buffy's memories were... and I strain to say edited... do to the portal thing they entered and exited through. Whenever anything like that would come up, she would not ever remember her sister, or come up with her mother as a viable candidate. I guess it's because of the 'Key' heritage or something. I dunno. But she was unable to do so." Silence was all that sounded for a moment.
Angel was just kind of in awe and guffawed at the same time. He was numb.
He blinked. Could this really be happening?
He was too shocked to do anything. His demon and him had no ability to cry out like before. They just weren't able to. Angel was running on pure curiosity from what Lorne had just told him before. Angel and Angelus had not really been hit with the fact that Buffy had died, again. And there was no way that she would be coming back again. She had already escaped death twice, seven times if what Lorne said was true. Which he doubted it wasn't (Seven times: Master, When she sent angel to hell, Once in Quartoth, When Angel left, Glory's portal thingy, warren shot her, and now.) She wouldn't be getting an eighth chance.
He wasn't in denial, it had just not hit him yet. If she was dead, she would be back. Kept going through his mind.
And now he knew that Faith was dead as well. He inwardly wondered for a moment of how she died, or if the two slayer's deaths were somehow connected. But those quickly fell away when he thought of something else.
The others were to busy to wonder about the coincidence of Buffy's and Faith's on the same day and under the same mysterious consequence: Unknown.
Then, he inwardly smiled for a moment. He had children.
That's when he asked the question that had been bugging him since he learned of his children. "Lorne. How exactly was I able to, create children?"
Doyle waited for the answer, as did Wesley. He was in serious watcher-mode. Fred looked interested. Gunn had not yet returned. Cordy looked ready to sponge up the information. Angel. Well, he looked like he was about to get the answers to open up heavens doors.
Angel was also thinking something else though. If Buffy was dead, then why could he still feel her at times?
Lorne sighed.
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Gunn and Lily
They were in the large room they had refurbished for the four of them in the homeless shelter. It was nice and big. They had a small setup for the four of them with a kitchen, a weapon/training room, a bedroom with four beds, and another space they used for storage.
The storage was an invisible shield/wall hiding a ton of artifacts they had gathered in Quartoth that they were going to eventually pon off for money and goods. They had done enough to get the shelter going, and to give themselves enough things to be happy in a way with their home.
They were both in the large room that seemed almost empty without Allison and Anne, who Gunn now knew was Buffy.
He remembered in an eerie way that it felt a lot like this when they had fixed it up
Buffy had lost her twins to a spell that they couldn't combat, and was hopeless, in her own way. She looked haunted to all of them.
2 weeks later, they were officially a band, and were at a rage half an hour away. They had poured their feelings out through music. Buffy had been hopeful again, but still empty. They had decided that she should go home two weeks after that. She had done so, but kept in touch.
She had come to meet with them when she heard that Allison had been turned. She was willing to stake her for his closure, but had found Angel there instead, and gotten Gunn to accept him.
Gunn had never found her real name, or that she was the lady-love Angel had always brooded over, or Cordy had always judged badly
They comforted each other, and eventually, had admitted their feeling for each other. Lily told him that Buffy had told her to go for it. Gunn had admitted the same thing.
Things got heavier eventually...
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