Title: A Kind of Magick
Author: DhampyrX2
Genre: X-over w/ Harry Potter
Series: none...yet
Rating: PG-13, just to be safe
Summary: Xander accompanied Giles and Willow to England to make sure she settled in well with the Devon coven after her Darth Willow episode, and has a chance to check in with some of his lesser discussed relations.
Timeframe: Between seasons 6 & 7.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. Don't sue me, I'm poor.
"Goddess, I can't believe I'm doing this...or that I've lived on the Hellmouth long enough I call out to the Goddess by default when I'm stressed. Next thing you know I'll be verbally sucking up to Merlin," Xander groused to himself the next day as he sat in a seedy Wizard's pub called 'Warlock's End' in a less than ideal wizarding community on the coast. Tonks had stayed the night after a long bout of catching up with her cousin, and had led him here after having him take a small potion to alter his appearance slightly as he waited for Aunt Cissa.
Normally, if he was meeting his aunt, the routine procedure would involve a portkey trip with Tonks once Xander had taken a bus far enough out of Sunnydale that the American and British Ministries didn't get huffy, a potion to totally alter how he looked as he accompanied his cousin, and never leaving either hers or Aunt Cissa's sight as they talked in one of the smaller Black family owned mansions.
Xander had only actually seen Malfoy Manor once, and even then it was to meet his Aunt outside. They didn't dare leave a trace the Arsemunch or Moldybutt could scry about his visits and rail over later. After all, visiting with Tonks could be explained as trying to return her to the Black family fold and get an Auror in Moldybutt's pocket to boot, even if her dad /was/ a mudblood. Nobody ever said Death eater /sympathizers/ had to be perfect models of Moldybutt's ideals. That didn't give a reason for her to see her half-squib/half-muggle American nephew, though. As a result, Xander was old hat at the cloak and dagger routine when it came to seeing what Aunt 'Cissa wanted.
The pub he was in was one step above Willy's 'Alibi Room' back in Sunnydale, and that step was the lack of vampires drinking blood at the bar. It was a place a respected pureblood witch like Narcissa Malfoy would never be seen in. As a result, the Black family had secretly owned the place and had used it for business for generations. It was a meeting place Xander had used more than once to see his family, and he secretly thought of is as the Wizard's answer to the Mos Eisley spaceport in Star Wars. 'A wretched hive of scum and villainy' summed up the atmosphere nicely.
As a witch near the bar, thankfully far from his table, and that looked like she should be cackling as she recited the weird sister routine from Macbeth, tried to make eye contact for the third time in the last ten minutes Xander thanked ever deity and demon that watched out for him (though in his life he was willing to accept more demons probably weighed in on that scale) as he saw his Aunt arrive through the back door.
She was in disguise, of course, in this case with a potion that made her look like a purple-haired teenager not unlike a real-life version of Psylocke from the X-men, as opposed to her natural features that resembled the actress Rebecca de Mornay. Still, Xander knew her the second she entered. He had always had an unnatural talent to see through disguise magicks like that, ever since he was a child. Nobody had tried to explain it, and with the knowledge of the Hellmouth he was uncertain he wanted to know, anyway, but it still came in handy. Once their eyes met, Xander jerked his head toward the fireplace as he gestured with a familiar hand signal, which Narcissa returned before joining him there where they used a Floo network transport to reach an apartment in Ireland still kept under one of his Aunt Andromeda's aliases.
Xander stood back as his Aunt took out her wand to dispel both their disguises after carefully checking that they were not followed or observed in any way. It might have seemed paranoid to an outsider, but between the risk of being seen talking to Xander, and the natural talent for subterfuge in the Black Clan's history, it was little more than old hat to them both.
Once he felt the magicks in him fall away, Xander let a small grin come to his face for Narcissa's sake as he greeted her. "Hi, Aunt Cissa," he said with a grin that never reached his eyes.
"Alexander," Narcissa Malfoy replied primly as she inspected her nephew. "You look more like your Aunt Bellatrix everyday," she added with a tiny smirk.
"I'm sure Aunt Bell would flay you alive before committing suicide at that thought," Xander returned pleasantly.
Narcissa giggled like a society matron should giggle, which made Xander wince slightly, as she responded, "She probably would at that. After all, you don't exist to /us/." Her demeanor cooled considerably as she added, "You also look like you fought a litter of Manticore and lost terribly. I've never seen you so drawn and lifeless."
Xander shrugged as if his state of health was unimportant, and to him it most likely was, as he commented, "'Been a rough few years. I've had to toughen up to survive. That is what our family is best at."
"Yes, yes. I do keep an eye on you, you know. The Hellmouth might keep you mostly out of the eyes of our world..." the mother of Draco began.
"...but not out of the eyes of the Black clan," Xander finished with a nod. "I know the family's company line. Granny made sure there were spies to keep tabs on us in case Mom learned something useful enough to be acknowledged and de-squibbified on the nasty old Mouth of Hell. She also made damned certain you kept it up after she died. And Aunt Bellatrix kept the American Ministry from knowing we had a shameful squib and muggle-born secret in our closet that might benefit from testing. Heaven forbid I be born able to wave a funky little mojo stick and come gunning for her for revenge," he added with a snort as he sat at a table that already had a tea service and some home made sweets on it.
"I still say you should head to Ollivander's and look for a wand," Narcissa protested coolly as she sat down and poured them each a cup of tea.
"Mojo sticks and I are not on good terms. Nothing good will come from me screwing with Wizard mojos. All I'd get if I do have that kind of power is a chance to be a pawn for Moldybutt, or a pawn for his enemies. I'll stick to demons and apocalypses. I always know where I'll stand with /them/. Besides, I promised myself after becoming a thrall to Dracula of all people, that I was through being anyone's butt-monkey or man-bitch," Xander responded tiredly.
"Alexander..." Narcissa hissed in aggravation.
"Yeah, yeah. It's not like you could admit I'm family, anyway. We're disowned. Nothing to be done about it, blah, blah, blah," Xander dismissed.
Lucius Malfoy's wife shook her head in dismay at her nephew's attitude, before she let the subject drop. It would likely come up again, but they had much to discuss, and not much time to do it in. She had always liked Xander, privately. He was sharp and lively, but with that streak of icy fire that made her line so feared hidden under his jester's mask. The impressive list of major demons he had either dispatched, planned the eradication of, or thwarted for himself while putting the public credit on the Slayer and her ilk spoke well of how well he worked in the shadows. The fact he had done it on guts, cunning, and instinct alone, rather than through magicks, said a great deal of just how dangerous he truly was. Narcissa Malfoy had little doubt he'd do whatever was needed to get a job he had started done, something few people, muggle or wizard, could truly say. That was why she needed him with her now.
Still there were things to be brought up before she got to that point. "I see you like my new apricot scone recipe," she said with a happy grin as Xander downed his second one in a row during her mental accounting of his acumen.
"I have a sweet tooth. So do Tonks, Draco, and most of the rest of us. You know that," Xander defended. A part of him was deeply upset she had not made her homemade version of Twinkies she had developed after his description of the snack cake had inspired her years ago, but he was too polite to bring it up as he scarfed his scone down like a starving dog.
"Indeed I do. I have some of your little yellow cakes to take with you when you leave. I left them in the kitchen so I'd have /some/ of your attention,' Narcissa informed him. Her words brought a little of the light back to her youngest sister's son's eyes for a moment, before it faded out again right in front of her. "Was her breakdown really that bad?" she finally asked.
"Coupled with my seeing my former fiancé boffing a vampire that looks too much like Draco and your Dickcheese husband to be comfortable, said vampire trying to rape my Slayer best friend when she wised up and stopped giving it up willingly, a failed wedding I couldn't even invite any of you to, despite the fact you all would have been less disturbing than the demons Ahn invited, the death of one of 'my girls', and planning out who I'd need to bribe, beg, and kill to keep Willow out of that Alakazam place if the Ministry went after her after she snapped..." Xander began to ramble off.
"Azkaban," Narcissa corrected absently as she studied Xander's reactions as he related the trials of the last year.
"Whatever," Xander returned. "Anyway, all that on top of earlier weights is just getting me down. I strongly believe that if the Ministry /had/ come after her, then anyone but Tonks would have their forehead on the receiving end of my favorite battle-axe before I bothered to question why. I'm tired of playing nice, and my frayed edges are showing because of it."
"We all go through it from time to time, Alexander. Don't let it bog you down," Narcissa comforted sagely as she sipped her tea. She knew what stresses such dangers could breed. Her own life as an informant and spy for the Ministry in general, and Dumbledore in particular, made her all too aware of the factors that could mire someone too close to a fight. Not that anyone but Dumbledore and Tonks knew she was a traitor to Voldemort. Truthfully she only was one because she knew how to play both sides to the middle anyway. Tom Riddle's hard edges were going to cut him one day, and Narcissa Black Malfoy made damned sure to have an out in place for her and Draco when things came to a head if he lost it in his last push for power.
Xander nodded tiredly as he asked, "So what can your squib of a nephew do for you?"
"Squib? Squib my foot. Sqiubs don't survive overloads of Wicca based black magicks being hurled at them like waves from the ocean. Squibs don't suggest and direct unity spells to take out demon-pieced muggle monstrosities, either. If you're a damned squib, I'll get on my knees and offer fellatio to old Dumbledore himself the next time I see him," Narcissa spat with a fire only her sisters Bellatrix and Andromeda usually saw in their youth. She played the bimbo far too well to show the fierce intelligence and sarcastic wit she had imparted to her son in front of anyone but family. One needed that wit and mental acuity to survive as a female Death Eater married to Lucius Malfoy.
"Ugh! TMI, Aunt Cissa!" Xander declared with a look of disgust. "Geriatric men getting service from family is too gross to picture. Don't say things like that," he pleaded painfully.
Narcissa let the young man squirm for a bit before she replied, "Then quit acting like I'm enough of a twit to buy into your masks. Do I /look/ like a Gryffindor to you?"
Xander's only reply was to grunt in disgust again at the mental image his aunt had conjured.
"Now, as to the reason I've called you here..." she began after another pause to let him stew uncomfortably. "I have a bit of a confession to make. You see, for some time..."
"You've been spying for the Order of the Phoenix," Xander interrupted with a bored look. At her shocked expression, he smirked and continued, "Come on, Aunt Cissa. Every Death Eater up to the king Jackass himself thinks you're too dim and stuck up to tie your shoes without a house elf helping you. I /know/ better. You'd have an out ready. You're not into high level nastiness like aunt Bell, and you're no White Hat like Cousin Tonks or Cousin Sirius. You know how to play the angles, hell you practically taught me how to do it just by watching you set up meetings for us. The question is why are you risking yourself to confirm it?"
Narcissa looked somewhere between outraged and chagrinned at how easily her nephew saw through her, before she finally settled with shaking her head and chuckling at the situation. Xander always was the most observant of the family, and that was saying something. Merlin help the world if Voldemort had ever recruited him. Her countenance sobered as she answered his query. "Draco. He's nearing the age where he'll be forced to take the Dark Mark," she explained.
Xander snorted as he replied, "I know. And can I just say how weird it is Moldybutt waits until his minions reach legal majority to sucker them the rest of the way in? As if calling them Death Eaters wasn't stupid enough...", until he trailed off at the Look his Aunt was giving him.
"Now isn't the time, child," Narcissa Malfoy hissed dangerously. "The point is things are reaching their crux. We can all see it coming. I don't want my son killed in the crossfire between Lord Voldemort and the Potter brat. The only way to insure that is to make sure he's under the protection of someone I can trust. I want you to protect him," she explained.
"Why me?" Xander asked in confusion. "I mean, if you ship him off to the Hellmouth I might have some resources to tap, sure, but if you wanted him fray adjacent, then why didn't you let Puff go somewhere other than Hogwarts like he wanted to begin with?"
"I have no intention of sending him to the mouth of Hell unless there is no way around it. That doesn't mean I will leave him unprotected. I wanted him where I could watch him myself growing up. Now I want you to watch him further. As for why you? Because you're every bit a Black at your core as I am. You'd lie, cheat, and steal to protect Draco without a second thought. You'd bludgeon Harry Potter bloody with one motion, as you slit Lord Voldemort's throat with the other if it would protect my son," Narcissa answered with a wicked smile.
Xander rolled his eyes as he responded, "Like that's saying much. No offense, Aunt Cissa, but your nominal boss isn't as big and bad as he wants to be in the grand scheme of things. I've seen Big Bads, and he does qualify, don't get me wrong there, but I'm not running scared of his hype either. He knows about as much of the modern muggle world as you or Puff, and he has the arrogance to think that's not dangerous. Three properly placed remote claymore mines with the right demonic wards and curses applied to them and he's hamburger. A good rifle or pistol with proper ammo and he's a headless corpse. I'm not sweating someone who thinks the only threat to him is a seventeen year old kid he failed to off as a baby. That kind of tunnel vision gives you a life expectancy measured in minutes in my hometown."
"And that attitude is why I want you here watching out for Draco. You're a cold, ruthless, monster when someone threatens those you want to protect. Your cousin needs that support to make it through this," Narcissa replied.
"Yeah, well, tell you what. I'll have Sprite pop me in to see Puff and ask what /he/ wants out of all this. He agrees, I'll have his back. He tells me to take a leap while he plays big bad jr., then we'll play things by ear," Xander offered evenly.
Narcissa smiled in a way that was entirely unpleasant to anyone outside of her family. She knew full well that Xander had basically agreed to watch Draco whether he wanted it or not. Her precious child was as safe as anyone she could think of.
Xander returned her grin with one of his own. He had a feeling that, if nothing else, he could work out some of his issues in the weeks to come through some old-fashioned means.
END PART 2