A/Ns: charmed-angel4: Thanks for the review! Glad you like the fic! Village-Mystic: This chapter- I revised specially for you. You said it was being rushed but Xander really didn't have too much time in the past couple of days. So I hope I don't disappoint you too much with this chapter. Getting into Xander's head is really not that simple because eh has a speech pattern and thought pattern that was written so specifically that it intrigues me to no end and so- I love him. And Joss. Just thought I'd mention...Lol. Destiny's Dragon: Thanks for the review! GoddessEris: Yeah, that's why I wrote this fanfic because he's just the guy that doesn't have any particular special talents. He's the normal guy and that's why I adore his character so much. Him having magick defeats his purpose of existing because popular to contrary belief, he is more than comic relief. I think the writers tried showing that throughout the last couple of seasons- especially the Season Finale of Season Six. He alone saved the world. Dear Xander with no magick did it because while Buffy has super strength, Giles has knowledge and Willow has the magick mojo goin' for her- he has everything else and together it is so much more. And I apologize profusely for preaching my Xander beliefs on you, Lol. Glad you found my story, enjoy the chapter! And thank you for the compliment on my writing style! -blushes- It means too much. ScruffyWes: Glad you're liking the story and I try not too have too many errors in my fics. (Unless you could my first one that I wrote with one of my friends. I shiver now to think of it) Enjoy the chapter!
Also: This chapter...it might possibly seem rushed in the sense that it's sloppily written or like maybe I was in a daze and just started writing whatever popped into my head. This is partly true but for the most part- not. I'm writing and Artemis Fowl fanfic but I've decided that I don't want it to be a WIP so I'm basically writing it without stopping much for the past three days. I decided I needed a break and that I'd grace you all with another chapter of the story in which the plot does not thicken but it'll prove to be some amusement, I'm sure. Enjoy!
And just to make things interesting, because this chapter is really quite the opposite, I give you a Monty Python moment: ecky-ecky-ecky-pekang-zoop!-boing-rwanana...
--Traffic--
Harry and Xander walked into the Hog's Head and crossed to the bar to where Hermione and Ron had just sat down. He scanned the room and noticed the five or six occupants. All of them seemed to have their faces covered. Harry vaguely remembered Hagrid telling him that sometime in first year. He glanced up at Xander and followed his suspicious gaze to a bandaged man that was somehow managing quite well with drinking down glass after glass of a smoking liquid through his completely covered face.
They went sat down and Harry gave Hermione an anxious look. "I'm don't know about this, Hermione. Has it occurred to you that Umbridge might be under all of that?"
"Umbridge is shorter than that woman," she replied quietly and looked at Xander with a faint blush as she looked over at Xander.
Harry smiled. "Xander, this is my friend Hermione Granger. Hermione, this is Xander Harris. He's my cousin."
Hermione's blush increased but still went unnoticed. Ron looked from Harry to Xander in shock.
"Your cousin?" Ron whispered rather loudly.
A veiled witch that had been sitting near the fireplace shifted a little. Her slight move was lost on everyone except Xander, whose suspicion was growing every minute. Someone was watching them and they were listening in. He could feel it and had been studying all the occupants since they went in.
"And that's my friend Ron Weasley," Harry added.
Xander smiled. "Nice to meet you two." He glanced in the direction of the fireplace again.
"Nice to meet you, Xander." Hermione smiled back. "You're American."
"How can you tell?" Xander asked with a laugh.
"Lucky guess, I suppose."
Just like Harry, Ron and Hermione also felt instantly relaxed talking to Xander.
"So where did you study magick?"
Xander laughed. "See, now you're assuming that I'm a wizard."
Hermione's mouth opened slightly. "So you're a-"
"Yeah, I'm a noodle or whatever it is that you call non-magick folk such as myself."
Ron snorted.
"Muggle." Harry corrected with a huge grin.
"Same thing." Xander replied with a shrug although in his mind he smacked himself. A noodle?
A bartender with gray hair appeared and glared at them but picked up a dirty rag and started wiping the bar. He slid another drink at the bandaged person and grunted when Harry requested three butterbeers and looked at Xander.
"Water." Xander said quickly with a shrug.
Hermione shook her head. "Professor Flitwick specifically told me to bring your own cups when here."
"No to the water, then." Xander looked over the dusty drinks on the back shelf. "Erm...a bottle of water, please?"
The bartender grunted. "Seven sickles."
"I got it." Harry told his friends and handed over the money as the bartender roughly slammed down three dusty bottles.
"You know what, I've always wondered what firewhiskey tasted like." Ron looked over the bar enthusiastically.
"You- are- a- prefect," snarled Hermione.
The door of the pub opened and Xander looked over at his cousin and his friends. "When is your meeting starting? 'Cos I think your...group is appearing."
Sure enough, a group of people, led by Fred and George Weasley, walked into the bar. The bartender looked like he hadn't seen so many people in his bar since the Middle Ages and dropped his not-too-clean towel before picking it up again and scrubbing the closes glass rather viciously.
Xander looked at Harry and nodded his head in a corner of the pub. "I'll be sitting over there. Don't want to interfere."
"You're not-"
Xander shook his head. "Don't worry about it, Harry."
With that, he stood up and disappeared into a shadowed corner. As Xander took a seat he could feel someone's eyes on him but the minute he looked up the feeling promptly disappeared. He had no doubt now that someone was watching Harry and his friends.
Xander let out a quit breath as he immersed himself in thoughts. The ideas and reflections floated around his head and it was as if all of them were trying to catch his attention. Thoughts apparently were no different than people. They all thought that they were better than others and would do anything to prove that, including give Xander a small headache. Traffic inside of his brain.
If he was honest with himself, which for the most part he was, this was beyond freakish. He smiled softly as his thoughts drifted back to Sunnydale and his friends. What would they do if they were in this situation? He could imagine Willow jumping at the thought that there were actually schools that taught magick. Buffy would probably be suspicious at first, but Xander had this inner calm that said quite clearly that these people weren't of the bad.
He heard from the other side of the room Hermione giving a speech but his focus was on anything but what they were saying. He had been thrown into a world where magick was a casual power. It wasn't a gift to these people. He could see that some people treated magick like a toy, something Willow would gravely disapprove of. Most people didn't think twice and took it for granted.
He felt the magick surround him and a shock went through his body. This was real. He had gone through the past two days in a dream-like state. There were house-elves in the mansion they were staying at and apart from the fact that Giles owned a mansion (which wasn't as shocking to Xander as you would have guessed because he had thought about the watcher's life through most of the plane ride from Sunnydale to England. Okay, more like half the plane ride from Sunnydale Airport to O'Hare International Airport in Chicago where they transferred planes. So in the end, he had thought about the general topic of Rupert Giles for about two hours, give or take.), which didn't look in any way, shape or form, flat, Giles also had house elves. House elves? Things like that weren't supposed to exist! And they were really quite ugly, too! They looked nothing like the elves that Xander had imagines when he had read the Lord of the Rings books.
Okay, the elves he could accept. Not easily, but more or less, he understood it. Then he was told, "Oh, by the way, this cousin you're meeting is a wizard and to top it off- he's the one that has to save the world!"
Xander looked at Harry through the gloom of the bar where Hermione had finished speaking and the attention was now on Harry who appeared to be answering questions from everyone.
He's only fifteen. Xander thought as he watched silently from his corner.
The fact that Harry was fifteen and had to save the world was ironic to Xander. He himself had been about fifteen or sixteen when he had helped revert that apocalypse with Buffy. He had been doing it ever since. For six years he had stood by his friends through the darkness that was always surrounding them and now he had left.
There was guilt. There was always the guilt in the back of his mind eating away any positive thoughts that tried to counter it. He had left his friends behind to go out on his own journey. Was that truly the right thing? He had wondered that question on many occasions for the past couple of days but he still couldn't answer it.
His thoughts once again shifted back to magick, to Hogwarts and to all these new revelations. Xander wasn't in shock. He had seen too much in the last six years of his life to be overly shocked that such a place as Hogwarts existed. He felt more oblivious that anything else. How had no one known of this?
But Giles did know about this. Xander slightly furrowed his eyebrows. Giles knew about this...world, he was positive about that. The Watcher knew what was going on. It was a very certain fact. The fact that Giles seemed to always know everything was irrelevant. It was Giles' eagerness, or interest, that gave him away now. It was as if he somehow knew who it was that Xander was going to meet and it was almost as if the old man's anticipation now showed through.
"Xander."
Xander quickly snapped out of his daze and looked up to see Harry and his best friends standing in front of him looking a little unnerved but excited at the same time.
"What's the what?" Xander asked as he stood up.
Harry moved toward the door. "We finished and its about time that we get back to Hogwarts."
"Is Xander coming with? Hermione asked.
Xander let the door fall shut behind them. "Yeah, Dumbledore was insistent that I join you all, "he shrugged.
"It'll be great. How long are you staying?" Harry asked excitedly.
"I'm probably leaving tonight back to London with Anya." Xander explained. "My fiancée."
This seemed to dampen Harry's spirits a little but he tried to remain looking casual.
Ron suddenly grinned. "Well you'll be disappointed to leave after you've finished the dinner. Best thing you'll ever taste."