CONSEQUENCES:
Chapter 29: The Recruits
Harry Potter walked beneath the dark sky quickly heading to the house not so near from the main street, of the little town he was in. With his lips unconsciously tight and his right hand grabbing his wand alert of any action that might be needing it's intervention, he continued walking hurriedly to the house with the most unsual form of the town. Between herbs and bushes he got into his destiny, without smiling fondly of the strange house as he used to do every time he came here, this time because of the dark matter he came to discuss in it, it was not the time to remember better, more innocent days when the actual ones were so uncertain and terrifying. He took a deep breath before opening the door and taking the first breath inside the house he immediately captured the wonderful smell of food coming from the kitchen. He went into the kitchen, the only place he knew, at all times, he would find someone in it.
He entered into the kitchen and indeed someone in it, not the one he had expected, but just as good. "Ginny?" He said softly not to startle her humming peace. The girl turned around swinging her long darkish red hair.
"Oh Harry!" She greeted grinning. She cleaned her hands with the towel tied to her apron. The motion remembered him of the girl's mother with a creepy accuracy. "Not to be rude or anything, what are you doing here?"
"I-"
"Uncle 'arry!" Two three year older red headed boys yelled hugging the black haired boy's legs.
"Sorry Harry!" Fred said pulling one of the boys over his shoulders and the other one under his arm. "They are getting sneakier as the hours pass"
"See it as payback" Harry said grinning widely at the twin with his children.
"Oh no, they are not even close!" A womanish voice said from behind the twin. "Hello Harry dear" Mrs. Weasley appeared with her red hair now sparkled by silver hair. She hugged the young man. "Are you staying for dinner?"
"Actually-" Harry's smile dropped but Mrs. Weasley and the present people mistook the expression.
"Don't worry Harry, this time I won't food poison you" Ginny said with pink blush on her cheeks.
"No, it's not th-"
"Oh the man we wanted to see!" The other twin appeared behind his brother moving quickly shaking both of his nephew's heads as Fred left with his twins for the living room. "We need to talk about a promise"
"Oi Harry! is Ron and Hermione also coming for dinner?" Fred asked from the living room. The black haired young man sighed and decided to tell them what he had came to do.
---
"But how is that even possible?" Mrs. Weasly asked shocked, voicing the thoughts of most of the Weasley family. Most of them.
"It is quite possible actually," Ginny said softly from where she was sitting. "We tend to work with some parallel dimensions in my department from time to time, we also once had a problem with a hellish dimension, Mr. Wruthus wanted to investigate something about a prophesy that had to do with Acathla…"
"There are thousands of them Mrs. Weasley, if what Willow told us is correct, then this is The apocalypse" Harry said hurriedly, it had taken some time explaining them all they needed to know but there were still some blanks in the story he was helping to fill hurriedly.
"This could be more than an apocalypse Harry, if what you are telling me it's true, it would mean the dimensional annihilation not only of our own but of many others, the flukes that are made when a portal or a gate is opened are tremendous, imagine what could happen if the Hellmouth is opened!" She whispered with her eyes widened.
"That's why we must stop them," Harry said seriously standing up. "Any ideas of how to get to Sunnydale in record time?"
---
Uncertain she bit her lip as she stood so close to the door of the one to who had once been the closest to a friend. She noticed her red blood nails were starting to cut the skin of her hand's palms. She stepped back starting to regret ever coming into this house. It wasn't as if she wasn't needed in LA, she was, but Angel had thought his dear Buffy might use a hand. She heard people's voices coming from out side the house and the slayer's instinct kicked in, to hide behind the nearest tree. She saw a black haired guy leading the group. The guy watched the house mimicking the biting of the lip nervously.
He whispered something to the younger girl next to him. And the red headed girl nodded. She made a sign to the bushes behind them and an "army" of weird dressed people came behind. Some others started to come from the street also and being Faith so focused in the army of powerful people coming her way Faith did not see the black haired boy go to the house's entrance. He knocked the door and Faith was about to yell the people inside of the attack but Buffy appeared in the door looking shocked as the black haired boy started laughing. Buffy hit his arm playfully and the black haired slayer sighed relieved. She knew this people were not vampires, they did not feel like it, but she had learned all demons did not wear horns or tail, they came in every way you could imagine and more. She saw how the people that had emerged from darkness and the most unusual places started to go inside the house, the blonde slayer and the black haired unknown guy watching one with amusement the other with shock how the numbers of the people started to increase. "Is that it?" She heard Buffy ask.
"No, the others were distributed in the whole city, I thought this quantity could do for us" The guy said grinning widely.
"But are they all trained?" Buffy asked uncertain. "I think we have enough with untrained potentials"
"They are all what I could manage to reunite, let' go inside and I'll explain you all" The guy said entering the house, the blonde slayer looked around the house and her eyes lingered a bit longer where the tree in front of her window was. She closed the door softly and went inside the living room.
---
"…. You were only gone for two hours!" Hermione exclaimed.
"Well … not really" Harry said scratching the back of his head.
"We had to use some… methods to save time" Ginny said as she sat comfortably next to Draco. "We used the time turners of my department" Some of the wizards stood in the living room with some of the potentials hearing the explanations, while others were observing and investigating about the brainless potentials. Some others were in charge of arranging the place and communicating with the rest of the wizards in Sunnydale.
"The group of McPeterson was attacked by a horde of vampires, primitive ones I must add" A black haired woman said seriously to Harry.
"I'll take care of it" Draco said standing up. "How many were…" Both left the living room and the eyes turned once again to Ginny who was explaining quickly what she knew about time turners.
"But why did you have to use the time return things? It's not that I'm not glad that you had arrived earlier and all that but-"
"There's a barrier around Sunnydale, around some parts of California actually, it doesn't allow for any wizards to apparate, we asked when this barrier had formed and so it seemed it formed when the goddess Glory, I think was the name Harry gave to her, gained consciousness" Ginny explained. "It's believed there were another slight barriers before that but, they all fell at the same moment you captured the goddess, so we assumed it was all her doing, yet I wondered why had the Wicca"
"Willow" Buffy informed.
"Thank you," Ginny said nodding and continuing immediately. "Why had Willow not noticed the presence of magic around her, I've been informed by some colleagues who perform the arts of earth wizardry that they tend to notice magic around them" Ginny stared at Willow as if asking for an explanation.
"I did ask her about it" Willow said and Buffy noticed how her friend was starting to get nervous. "She told me it was to protect us from them"
"I thought she had deceived you like that also" Ginny agreed once again nodding. "It's very hard, if not impossible to determine what a barrier is for, we knew it worked against us because the apparating destination was always reformed"
"So you learned when the barrier went down, changed the time with the time turners thingies and returned here, why didn't you come to our home immediately" Buffy questioned. "It has been about three hours you left" She referred to Harry.
"If I had appeared immediately what would you think?" He asked directing the question only for the slayer.
"That it was an impostor," She said rolling her eyes to herself.
"And what would you have done?"
"Probably attack you, definitely kill you" Ginny widened her eyes at the answer of the slayer and Harry chuckled in anticipation.
---
"When are we going to attack?" Harry asked Buffy when they were strangely alone.
"In two days maybe, in a week… I'm not sure" She answered. "I'm going to sleep Harry," She said leaving the room. "Good Night"
---
"You are going ahead of them" The black haired girl stated in the porch as she waited for her to jump from her own window. The black haired girl turned off the cigarette she had been smoking as she waited for the blonde.
"And you were hearing from the window" The blonde said as she grabbed the arms she had thrown before she jumped. "You are early," She said looking without surprise at the black haired one.
"And you are late, I thought you would come out sooner" She smirked watching how the blonde girl glared at her for a moment before resuming picking up her arms.
"There was something I needed to take care of" The blonde threw an axe the dark haired one grabbed easily. She tried the axe swinging it a few times.
"You could have left the military of wizards in Willow's care" She continued swinging the axe.
"I could have" The blonde agreed watching with a small smile in her face the movements of the other one so unlike her own.
"But you didn't" The girl said stopping as she noticed the other girl's glance. "Why don't you take them with you, I know you can feel the power emanating from the wands, it would be perfect to have an ally like that in what you are facing tonight" She looked at the lights coming from the window near them.
"I already have a perfect ally to fight with" She said finishing to place her weapons in her outfit.
"I'm flattered," The black haired said smirking widely.
"I didn't mean you were that ally" The blonde said also smirking. The blonde showed the hammer she had now in her left hand.
"I'm hurt," The black haired mocked. The hammer passed between girls and the dark one was amazed by the hammer.
"Are you sure of this, you haven't been in a fight since a long time ago" The blonde asked worried.
"That's why I could use some practice" The other responded handing her back the hammer.
"This is not-"
"Don't worry for me B" She interrupted grinning.
"I don't, I just don't want Angel fretting me about you" 'B' denied rolling her eyes.
"Yeah, of course, who would want that" The black haired mocking girl agreed making a face "I got a similar warning"
"We should get going, it's getting late" B cut off starting to walk to the street and crossing it without checking if her partner was following, not that she wasn't.
"I told you, you were late, if you had been here early we could have done this and maybe take a bit more time to rest a bit" The girl said annoyed walking now besides B.
"Faith.." Buffy said glaring at the dark haired slayer.
"B.." Faith mocked smiling fondly of all the new opportunities she would now have to annoy her once again.
"Let's go" Buffy said after sighing defeated.
They walked through the lonely streets, passing through the neighborhood into the "center" of the town, there wasn't much difference between both places, only a couple of inexperienced vampires the slayers fought and killed quickly. As they continued walking the scenery changed quickly to the less cared parts of the town. The nightclubs weren't as full as they used to be in safer times.
"I remembered you to be more talkative," Faith said lowly as they entered into one of the cemeteries of the town.
"That was before you slept with my boyfriend" Buffy retorted with a tint of anger.Buffy forcer the cemenetry's fences and made a "door" for both of them to be able to pass.
"No, even then you used to make more remarks, used sarcasm here and there, I must tell it was half of the fun of mocking you" Faith continued.
"I'm sorry I spoiled your fun" Buffy said gritting her teeth still alert of any movement in the surroundings.
"Don't worry I forgive you" Faith said softly with a small grin.
"How kind.." Buffy said dryly.They continued walking through the cementery 'til Buffy stopped, and started glancing at the tall mausoleum in front of them.
"As we continue to advance in this, lovely, moonless evening, may I ask where the hell are we going?" Faith whispered hurriedly.
"I was wondering how long would it take for you to ask that" Buffy said as she started climbing a mausoleum. "We are heading to… do you remember the big crypt in the middle of this cemetery where we were attacked once by some zombies?" She asked as she walked to the northern part of the roof.
"Which zombies, the green ones that were a bit creepy, or the ones that looked as if they had been the result of a weird experiment that went wrong?" Faith asked leaning into the same wall Buffy had climbed on.
"The second one, the green ones were in the Eternal Peace Cemetery" Buffy said from over Faith as she started going down.
"Oh right.. that they came out of their graves, I always thought they were vampire-wannabes" Buffy jumped once again falling in front of Faith.
"Well we are going to the cave beneath it" Buffy explained taking a deep breath.
"And we are going there because..?"
"I have a hunch" Buffy said simply starting to walk once again without caring of being followed by Faith.
