Yay maths exam over and I maybe passed, you know that feeling when you don't know whether the fact that you didn't find a paper hard means you did really well or missed something really stupid? That's exactly how I'm feeling now. Oh well 1 down 8 to go.
Thank you to everyone who reviews!!!!!
Silver Warrior: Scoobies will be coming soon just not quite yet.
Tanydwr: I know slayers are generally good, it's not really a huge part of the story but there will be a little more explanation. How're the GCSE's going?
Raven: I reckon Snape is the kind of person to forget that other people deserve second chances and would be very likely to send someone to Azkaban if he felt threatened. Just my personal opinion. There will be more on what Dumbledore knows about slayers but briefly its not a whole lot. He found out a little when curious about Voldemort's Mum but in this story the wizarding world has almost no connection with slayers so he would not have been able to find much.
Lizagirl: Buffy didn't get sorted the hat was just reading her character. Hope you're less confused! J
JoeHundredaire: Frankly I'm amazed you read on when you have such an aversion to grammatically incorrect stories.
A/N Apologies for mistakes I am very bad at typing and I hate checking things. Hope you like.
Past and futureThere was a stunned silence as all the occupants of Dumbledore's office tried to let what had just passed penetrate the wall of rejection in their minds. Dawn was struggling to come to terms with the depth of her sister's calling and the importance of her choices, never before had she fully realised how much the world relied on her sister. Snape was struggling to accept that a girl who he vehemently disliked after only moments could be so influential in the fight against evil, surprised that all he knew of a slayer's evil was turned on its head by two American girls, one not even out of school. Buffy was struggling to deal with yet more responsibility, a responsibility for the magical world as well as the muggle one for she could not imagine that her calling would not be put to use. Professor Dumbledore however smiled faintly and the sun glinted off his half moon spectacles as he said calmly,
"I suppose arrangements should be made for you to visit your mother now."
"What?" Buffy said in immediate response to such an unexpected statement.
"I believe you would like to visit your mother."
"That's it? You just judge me on what a hat said? I know accessories can make an outfit but not a person…definitely not a hat anyway…maybe shoes…" Buffy drifted off into a moment of reflection, as Dumbledore's unwavering gaze never left her face.
"You do not accept what the sorting hat said? That is a shame. It was most complementary." Dumbledore told the slayer, curious about what the hat had revealed to her and not to him.
"Yeah if complementary changed its meaning to obscure and incomprehensible maybe."
"You understood what the hat said Miss Summers, I know from my little understanding of slayers that the majority of what was just said is barely cryptic." Buffy knew Dumbledore was right, light and dark were not hard to interpret but at the same time there were parts that were surprising…she had not expected to hear about who she chose to fight with, or redemption. When summing up her whole character they didn't seem to be the things she would pinpoint. "So since the hat has assured me I may trust you to some degree and I need to talk with Professor Snape may I suggest you go and visit your mother?" This time both Buffy and Dawn agreed and moments later they were in the Janus Thickey ward again, Dawn sitting on the end of her mom's bed whilst Joyce lay down on the crisped whiteness of the hospital sheets and pillows.
"So what'd you think of Dumbledore?" Joyce asked, smiling at the thought of what an odd combination her daughters and her old headmaster would make, not surprising really considering they came from two different lifetimes.
"Old Merlin? Strange strange guy. Was his beard that long when he taught you?" Joyce laughed at her daughter's humour and for the first time in a while didn't wince as she did so. Her head was not only free of pain but felt comfortable, as if there was room inside it. She was still trying to work out why there was that space, surely her mind would be more crowded with two lifetimes crammed inside rather than just one. Maybe the other never left, maybe it was just repressed but then she must have forgotten something now. Joyce was confused. She knew that she was Lily Potter, she knew every single thing about Lily Potter, about how she fell in love with James, bout how she rowed with Petunia, about how her parents were killed and how her family was destroyed. At the same time though she knew everything about Joyce Summers… about finding out Buffy was the Slayer, about how she had divorced Hank, about Buffy's first day of school, about…Joyce's mind went blank. She looked at Dawn sitting next to her and a small frown creased her forehead. At that moment a young witch bustled up to the bed with a trolley covered with trays of food of all kinds. A few moments later Joyce was sitting up against her pillows with a tray of hospital food resting on her lap. Dawn was eating the green jelly from the tray with her fingers whilst Buffy, sitting on a chair by the bed, watched with fascination.
"Listen you two, I know this creamed spinach is pretty delicious, but I promise, I wont be offended if you go out for some real food." Joyce said light heartedly, almost forgetting about her moment of self-hatred.
"You kidding me? This is the good life. Relaxing in bed while people bring you food on trays." Buffy replied in mock amazement.
Dawn licked her sticky fingers. "I like the Jello."
"Help yourself." Joyce laughed again. "There's something about food that moves by itself that gives me the heebie-jeebies."
It was Buffy's turn to laugh. "Glad to see Lily Potter's got the same sense of humour as my mom."
"I guess when you make someone a new life you can't erase their old one totally." Buffy fell silent and closed up, folding her arms around her legs in a near foetal position and putting up a wall to block the blow Joyce unknowingly dealt. It took a moment for Joyce to realise the hurt she had caused her daughter but when she did her apology was heartfelt. "Oh Buffy I'm sorry. I didn't mean, I just forgot, I, blame it on the memory charm?"
"It's ok. I mean can you imagine me being called Hope anyway? A slayer called Charity and we'd be the perfect biblical trio fighting evil." Buffy's lighthearted tone was purposefully put on to reassure her mother but she was deeply cut. Her life had been literally erased and the fact that her mothers had been renewed was deepening the wound. Also, she couldn't help but wonder if in her old life, as Hope Potter, things would be different. Buffy Summers was called as the slayer, would Hope Potter have been? Buffy Summers got expelled and moved to live on a hell mouth, Hope Potter might have lived in the quiet English village of Godric's Hollow never even meeting a vampire. Buffy didn't know what would happen if the charm was removed, if Hope Potter was remembered again but she knew that five years of her life were missing and fifteen were buried. Buffy wanted to remember, to know what actually happened in those early years of which she remembered so little anyway but which held the key to who she was.
Joyce was not fooled by Buffy's tone. She knew how much a hidden life being revealed could hurt. When she had found out about her daughter's life as the Slayer it had been a bitter blow. Now though she wondered what would have happened if she were Lily at the time, if Buffy was Hope? Would she even have been the Slayer? There was no one she could ask about that since no one remembered Hope, no one at all, she shouldn't by rights but…she did.
"Honey I was right the first time." Joyce exclaimed. "I rememeber, Hope's not gone fully. She's in my memories and she's in you, she is you."
"But I'm not Hope. I don't know what she was like, what she'd be like."
"Buffy, I know. I know the way she used to be so protective of Harry and the way you protect Dawn. I know the way she would never let go of anyone she loved and the way you hold everyone you care for so close to you. I know how strong she was and I know how strong you are, physically and inside. I know how much I love Hope and how much I love you. I can still see her eyes, a reflection of Lily's and I can see yours. They are just the same, the windows to the same soul. Hope will never disappear Buffy, you wont let it." Joyce's face was damp with tears and Buffy could feel her own threatening to spill. She blinked them back and reached forwards to give her mother a hug. It was such a familiar position, yet not familiar enough. Buffy would risk her life for her mother and yet she had just encountered the most prominent threat to her life and sanity with almost no hesitation. Buffy was pulled back by a tug of guilt and her gaze swept Joyce's face, unchanged in physical appearance but this only masked the vast magnitude of change that had gone on inside.
Healer Thinkley approached the bed, a clipboard cradled in her arm and a large feather sticking out of her pocket. She peered at Joyce through her black rimmed spectacles as Joyce greeted her.
"Oh hello, um, you know my girls, Buffy and Dawn."
"Yes of course, we met when you came in. Back again then?" the healer said with a smile that dispelled the severe image her glasses and tight bun suggested.
"Just keeping her company." Buffy said wondering why she felt slightly guilty.
"Good. Just be careful you don't wear her out."
"Ohh don't worry about that. I woke up exhausted, there's really no more worn out to get." Joyce joked with the barest hint of seriousness.
Healer Thinkly pulled out her wand and waved it in the air so that a twisted ribbon of silver arose from it and formed what looked like a blown up version of a medical chart. "Maybe some good news would help. Things are looking very optimistic so we've scheduled you to go home in a week. How's that sound to you?"
"I think the ward had me scheduled to play in the inter-ward volleyball championships but I can give it a miss." Joyce said with a massive grin.
"Alright. You take care. Make sure you get some good solid rest. And I mean that." Healer Thinkly added the last phrase looking intently at Dawn, still balanced on the bed with jelly covered fingers. As she walked away Joyce wriggled to sit up fully without dislodging Dawn and wrinkled her nose.
"Uhh, a week. I don't think I can stand to stay here another seven days just waiting."
"Waiting? Gimme a break, we got, we got tons to do." Buffy said seriously.
"We have soap operas to watch and trashy magazines to read." Dawn supplied.
"And an adjustable bed to fiddle with. That alone will keep me busy for four hours or so." Buffy added.
"Oh, I really don't need you to stay here, Buffy. There's far more intriguing things to play with in the wizarding world than an adjustable bed, you must have a lot of adjusting to do."
"Yeah, like calling fries chips. Why aren't chips called chips?" Dawn said indignantly.
"Sorry honey. English English is just…different to American English." Joyce said diplomatically. "You know its also jell-y not jell-o right."
"But I wanna speak American." Dawn winged. "What's wrong with o. I like o, I don't wanna call it jelly. That screws up the whole bread jelly thing."
"Our country our language." Joyce said. "Besides," she added snootily. "We made it up first." Buffy let out a wry giggle.
"You do know you're speaking in a seriously American accent."
"Split personality. Watch out for the war of independence, result scheduled for July 4th." Joyce joked.
"You're a bit overdue." Buffy commented. "It's already the 24th."
"Seriously? Wow days are disappearing fast. So what'll the date be when I get out of here?"
"31st" Dawn answered quickly, beating Buffy.
"Harry's birthday." Joyce murmured. "I can see him on his birthday. His sixteenth birthday." She smiled softly at the thought knowing that though she had missed the last fourteen years this birthday she could share with her son. "What on earth do I give him as a present?"
"Mom. The kid thought his mother was dead for fifteen years. If you show up I don't think he's going to be worrying about a birthday present." Buffy tried to reassure Joyce but her mother's mind was spinning now with all the things she could do for Harry's birthday.
"I wonder if Sirius'll be there, and Lupin oh and Arthur and Molly." The loud pop that announced Dumbledore's arrival interrupted Joyce's spoken reverie.
"Hey Gandalf Mom wants to know what we're doing for Harry's birthday." Buffy told Dumbledore who looked surprisingly serious.
"My apologies for interrupting your visit." Dumbledore said ignoring what Buffy had said. "I have a rather important task I was hoping you could carry out for me. In a…professional capacity."
"Can it wait?" Buffy asked. "We're in the middle of planning a party and parties have to be planned just right or you end up with an attack and a tribal mask that turns the neighbour evil." Dumbledore assumed Buffy was talking from experience and thought to perhaps advise them before Harry's party was fully planned. "You'll be there right?"
"I may not be the most welcome guest. Harry is not particularly happy with the world at the moment, least of all with me. I don't know how much he would appreciate it."
"What'd you do?" Dawn asked bluntly.
"I cared for him too much to tell him the truth, I kept from him and then shared it at a time of great sorrow." Dumbledore looked down his long crooked nose with not quite as piercing stare as usual, the sharp edge that usually accompanied his gaze was blurred with guilt and regret. "It took me five years to steel myself to tell him why his life is as it is and even when I did it was because I had no other choice, even then I did not tell him the whole reason." This sounded familiar to Buffy, only yesterday they had been talking about something Harry only knew part of.
"The prophecy?" she asked and Dumbledore nodded with great solemnity. "What did it say?"
"In brief that there would be one boy born who could defeat Lord Voldemort, that one has to destroy the other."
"And this is Harry how?"
Dumbledore sighed. "There were specifics. Time of birth, parents and some more cryptic instructions. The prophecy could have referred only to two boys but Harry is the one, he was chosen by Lord Voldemort as his enemy and he was given a destiny to fulfil, unfortunately a painful one filled with hardship and loss." Buffy was not smiling. Everything she heard was increasing her sense of over-familiarity. First a destiny filled with fighting and now a prophecy as well, at least this one did not predict definite death for her brother. She was aware that Dumbledore was watching her closely, could sense his gaze on her face and knew that somehow, despite being unable to see her mind, the frail looking old wizard was reading her.
"You are no stranger to prophesies. To true prophesies." He commented as coolly as if stating that the sky is blue. Buffy was not surprised by this conclusion, she was quickly coming to realise that Dumbledore knew a lot more than he seemed to.
"I've run into a couple. They don't tend to be over-optimistic."
"Indeed," was all Dumbledore said and Buffy, afraid of the silence that followed spoke again.
"I knew someone who never believed them, said they only gave one version of the future."
"And what do you believe?" Dumbledore asked. Buffy raised her head to look him square in the eyes.
"I believe her. Prophecies tell us what will happen at one moment but not before or after. They don't include circumstances, they don't account for change and they know nothing of friends."
"Those are admirable sentiments. What makes you so sure?" Buffy swallowed hard. Very few people knew exactly what happened the night she faced the master. The Scoobies of course knew but Buffy had never told even her mother, let alone someone she had only known two days. Something about Dumbledore though convinced her she could trust him, convinced her that now was the right time to tell her mother of how she had died.
"A prophecy. A very real one. It came true but only in one sense."
"If something's true its true…isn't it?" Joyce looked at her daughter carefully, worried about what was to come. Buffy did not look at her but Dumbledore did with understanding written into the smooth lines of his face.
"No." He said softly. "One truth is not another. There is the truth, the whole truth and the truth that is not so much a truth as something indefinable and undeniable. I suppose this prophecy was merely the first version." Still Buffy looked straight into Dumbledore's face as she spoke.
"It said I would die. It said that I would face the Master and he would kill me. And he did. It was the truth and it happened." Joyce was struck dumb. Though Buffy had mentioned once that she had died in order for a second slayer to be called all she had said was that it was temporary. A strange word to use when talking about death but there it was. Buffy's life was strange and it seemed that hers was turning out to be no different. "It didn't say that I would come back though. It made no room for the assumption that my friends would start my heart beating again and that I'd live on. I don't know how Harry's future reads, I don't know what the outcome of his battle will be but I do know that it wont be decided by a prophecy."
"Then he must be convinced of that fact. Will you take the responsibility of telling your brother?" Buffy's gaze moved from Dumbledore's face and swept her mother's and her sister's.
"Yes." That one word was her answer and yet so much less. It could not encompass the connection she felt with the brother she had never met, nor the pain she shared with him. It did not pay tribute to the volume of tales she could share with him, nor the emotions they could let free together. "When?"
"When you are ready." Was the answer, "but might I suggest before you are all introduced."
"Tell him before his party." Dawn said suddenly reminding everyone of her presence. "We're still having the party right?"
"You betcha. Guest list or food plans first?" Joyce responded a smile back on her face but falling short of her shimmering green eyes.
"Guest list, definitely." Dawn said firmly.
"Ok well all of us obviously including Dumbledore if Buffy gets through to Harry. Remus, Arthur and Molly, Sirius, Harry's friends…" A soft cough from Dumbledore broke off Joyce's list of names.
"Sirius will not be able to come." Three faces turned to look at him and Dumbledore looked at each of them in turn.
"Sirius is Harry's godfather. Of course he'll come."
"Lily, Sirius is dead. He died only weeks ago." Buffy saw the pain in her mother's eyes before anyone else. She read the dashed hope of seeing someone so familiar and though she did not know who Sirius was she knew that this was a great blow to her mother. Dumbledore however read the screen of denial that flashed across Lily's face, a face that bore a moment of similarity to the young woman he knew.
"No. No. Not Sirius. Not James and Sirius. It can't be." Her voice cracked and it was at that moment that Joyce fully returned to being Lily Potter. Had she been Joyce Summers Sirius's death would have been a tragedy but it would not have moved her to the extent it did. The news left her awash in tumultuous waters sucking at her to drag her to the very depths where a blank nothingness stretched on to infinite boundaries. Lily clung to the bobbing memories she had to stay afloat. Memories of the marauders, of James and Sirius playing quidditch. Sirius' youthful face as he swooped down towards her on his broom laughing at her fear of flying then his arms securing her to James' broom as between them they taught her to soar amongst them. She saw the shaggy black dog he transformed into and James' stag. Never again would the four marauders explore the grounds of Hogwarts, free as the animals they morphed into, never would she see from her dormitory window those four inhuman shadows against the starlit sky and pray that they would be safe in the morning.
"I'm sorry Lily." There were tears in Dumbledore's eyes, his own responsibility for Sirius's death was bottled inside him and though many believed him to rise above any emotions he had recently found there were several he could not.
"How?" Such a simple question and yet like the briefest statements already made that day it held so much more. So Dumbledore narrated the tale of Sirius's death. He told his rapt audience of the events leading up to the fight at the ministry, of Harry's battle and his friends' participation. He spoke of the wounds they sustained and the consequences of what was seen. Lastly Dumbledore told of Harry's response, how the boy had shut himself away from everyone as they tried to draw closer to him and how he had not yet found the key to unlock the guilt and grief inside him. When Dumbledore had finished his were not the only eyes overflowing and it was Lily's gentle voice that broke the mournful silence asking to be alone. Alone to consider the world that had carried on in her absence and how it had left her behind. She would consider the uphill climb ahead and see the picture her mind drew of Harry at the top, in her mind he looked just like James, identical in almost every detail except the eyes. Lily could not see Harry's eyes except as dark hollows, obscured by some unshared emotions, emotions she loathed herself for being unable to relieve.
When Dumbledore took Buffy and Dawn outside he spoke in hushed tones Buffy would have thought more suited to the interior of the ward.
"Miss Potter I repeat my request of you. Will you join the fight against Lord Voldemort and help us prevent his ascension?" Buffy thought back to the mayor's ascension and the fight that ensued. She did not want to lead again an army of people she barely knew into a battle against something they could never imagine but neither was she willing to risk the destruction of a world that had just been opened up to her.
"Hand me the weapons. When he becomes demon he's gonna wish he hadn't."
"Miss Potter, this is slightly more delicate than that. You see I do not believe we need to wait any longer. According to our sources Lord Voldemort has not yet completed the necessary rituals. If he is unable to complete them, there will be no ascension. He requires certain tools, specifically the sword of Adonis and I happen to know where to find it."
Not too hard to guess what's coming up next but cookies for anyone who can guess the twist. (I'm following Sam-453's findings that ppl like cookies) Pls Review.