Thanks to the reviewers:
The Lady Morgaine: Thanks for the review, I love Malfoy too- it's so fun to write!
Virginia: It's more Angel's influence that got her the job at W&H rather than Angel himself. Thanks for reviewing.
Juzblu: Definitely no Snape/ Dawn- waaaaay too gross! The vessel's identity is revealed this chapter…
Tap Dancing Willow: Buffy will find out about the wand at some point and I suppose Angel didn't have to die, but he wasn't going to be in the story even if he lived. Thanks for reading and reviewing :)
SeleneA: Thanks for reading and reviewing, you'll find out for sure this chapter.
Charmed-angel4: Wow- that was one very long review! You'll find out if you're right this chapter. Keep reviewing!
A/N: Just so you know, the books will be edited quite heavily in this story. If I don't change it, it happened as in the book though.
From this chapter onwards, I will be revealing more about Lily's life, or more accurately her death, and how Dawn remembers it. I realised that there wasn't really that much 'foundation' in this story, so I've decided to add a few 'memory scenes' so you can get my version of the character's background. These scenes are to be indicated by a series of m's.
This chapter is for Matt- HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
CHAPTER SIX: THE TEARS OF EVE
"She who springs from tears of Eve is born again, but the connection stays and the line must remain."
"Okay anyone got any ideas on that? Because I'm coming up with a big zero." Dawn said lightly.
"Miss Summers;" Snape started, "this is not a laughing matter."
"You think I don't know that? Now, do you have any ideas what that means? No? Okay, next bit please."
"This is the last, yet never before, tis power so bright, so strong and so pure. The witches' saviour, the wizards' knight, The Trojka shall fight for all that is right." Dumbledore read out. "Fairly self explanatory. A force most powerful than anything we've seen before or will see again will save the witches and wizards."
"And there are three of them." Dawn added.
"How, pray tell, did you find that from those few lines." Snape said sounding bored.
Dawn smirked. "Trojka is Czech for three. The Trojka means The Three."
"But for the light to come to pass, she must be found in shadows evil doth cast." Dumbledore put in to stop the argument brewing.
Dawn shrugged. "Not a clue."
"When she is restored, the power unlocked, her comrades shall come and the rest will flock."
"Looks like you need the key." Dawn quipped.
"Yes I think we do." Dumbledore said mysteriously, sending a significant look towards McGonagall.
Dawn's eyes widened and she sat up a little straighter. "What?"
"You are the key are you not?"
"How did you find out about that?" Dawn asked stiffly.
"The key is legendary in the wizarding world, so legendary that very few people know about it. But I have keep 'tabs' on it. You were changed into your current form ten years ago by a group of monks?"
"Yes."
"Then I believe you are the key, pardon the pun, to our problem. Shall we get on?"
Dawn nodded, still not fully understanding what Dumbledore was saying, but it could wait.
"The first is chosen, the second is fate, the third is the link whom carries a freight."
"A slayer? They're chosen." Dawn suggested.
Dumbledore nodded. "It's a possibility… Thrice the blood of a champion, Thrice have evils mark, Thrice the hero, thrice the sin and thrice the touch of the dark."
"The identities of Trojka you must discover look through this puzzle for clues to uncover. Heed my words and learn them well. As for riddles spoken; only time shall tell." Dumbledore finished. "Again fairly self explanatory. Find this Trojka or the world is doomed, same old, same old. Toffee bon-bon anyone?"
"Ooh, yes please!"
"Professor, how can you be thinking of food at a time like this?" Snape said sharply.
"Have a little faith, Severus."
"Yeah, Sevie. Have a little faith." Dawn mimicked with a mouthful of bon-bon.
Snape glowered at the girl. "If that is all then I have a lesson to prepare."
McGonagall also get up. "And I have detention to supervise. The Weasly twins again. If they were to use their brains for something other than tricks and jokes they would be the best students in the year." She sighed.
Dumbledore chuckled. "Very well Severus, Minerva. I'll speak to you later."
When the professors had left, Dawn turned to Dumbledore. "What did you mean about the key? I know there's more than what you were saying."
"Very observant, Miss Summers. I believe that this part tells us about you:
"But for the light to come to pass, she must be found in shadows evil doth cast. When she is restored, the power unlocked, her comrades shall come and the rest will flock."
"How'd you get me from that?"
"I did find you at Wolfram and Hart offices, in the shadows evil doth cast one might say. The power to be unlocked could either be the keys power or the vessels power, I'm not sure."
"The what now? Vessel? What vessel? No-one told me anything about a vessel."
"Where did you think your body came from?" Dumbledore argued reasonably.
"I don't know, the monks made it?" Dawn said hopefully. This didn't sound like something she'd want to hear.
"Then how do you explain the memories you've been recalling? No, the monks put several glamour's on the body of a then recently deceased woman but I believe they were distracted as they channelled the Key into the vessels body which would account for you remembering your previous life."
Dawn stared at him dumbly. It wasn't as bad as Buffy dying or finding out she was the Key, but it was still a shock. "Who was this vessel?"
"A young witch that I had the pleasure of teaching. Her name was Lily Potter."
"No, that's impossible! She's dead, she died to save…I'm not even the right age!"
"As I said, the monk's put several irreversible glamour's on the body."
"No! You're lying! You're lying!" Dawn shouted as she fled from the office.
Dumbledore didn't move from the chair in his office. "Well she took that better than I thought she would."
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Dawn ran through the corridors, oblivious to the students surprise at one of their professors streaming down the halls. It couldn't be true, could it?
"Professor?"
She dimly noted one of her pupils shout after her, but was too out of it to really notice it. She didn't even realise that two students were following her and she'd always know when she was being followed before.
Things made more sense this way. The dreams, the memories, the body. None of it was hers. It belonged to someone else. And that someone had died to save her son.
She collapsed against her portrait.
"Pro-fesor." Harry panted. "Are…you…okay?"
This was the last person she wanted to see right now. Dawn took a couple of deep breaths and tried to look as normal as possible. "I'm fine thanks."
"Why…running?" Ron gasped.
"Exercise." Dawn suggested. "I had to get back to my room for something."
"Oh, right."
"Did you want something?" Dawn asked cheerfully. 'Please say no, please say no.'
"No."
"Right then…see you at dinner?" She hinted heavily.
"Yeah sure." The boys headed back down the hall and Dawn whispered the password and entered her room.
Ron looked back over his shoulder. "Well I guess that's over."
"I don't think she was telling us the truth." Harry confided.
Ron thought back. "She did seem glad to be rid of us."
"I get this weird feeling whenever I'm around her. There's something odd about her, and I've never seen her use any magic."
Ron thought again. "Neither have I… you don't think she's hiding or something and doesn't want to be traced by her magic?"
"Could you do that?" Harry asked wide eyed.
"My Dad said that…I don't know, some guy, was doing that so he wasn't arrested. All spells leave magical signatures or something like that so if a wizard's doing something illegal then they'd use a different wand; Dad says all the death eaters do it."
"But Dumbledore wouldn't let her teach us if she was evil, would he?"
"Of course not." Replied Ron, but this voice lacked conviction. "Unless he didn't know."
"I'm sure he'd know, wouldn't he?" Harry asked doubtfully.
"Sure." Ron replied, but both were thinking otherwise.
"Do you think we should tell someone?"
"No, I'm sure she's not evil…she half killed Malfoy." Ron said with a grin.
Harry laughed. "Yeah! But maybe we should keep an eye on her for a while? Make sure she doesn't try to kill anyone other than Malfoy?"
"If ya like. Oh bloody hell, we're gonna be late for dinner…move it!"
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1st November 1994 – 1:53 pm
Dumbledore sat in shock. Sirius Black; a murderer? Surely not; and defiantly not of James and Lily Potter! Not one day ago he'd seen the love shared between those three people and little Harry and now two of them were dead, Harry was staying with a horrible pair of muggles and Black was in the Azkaban for being a death eater!
But a street full of muggles had seen Peter Pettigrew confront him about his involvement and then be murdered for his troubles. Poor Peter. He could never have taken Sirius in a duel, especially if Sirius had lived up to his family name and lost all of his morals. It was in his blood after all.
Despite all the celebrating, it was still a bleak day in the wizarding world.
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Dawn didn't go to dinner. Dumbledore didn't expect her to. She'd had had a bit of a shock to say the least and was probable feeling angry and hurt. But she still had to be told or the keys energy would effectively combust and destroy her.
Dumbledore rose from his seat and briefly informed the students about the Halloween festivities that would be occurring in a little over a week. He then left the table and called Tally, one of the house elves.
"Could you please deliver this to Miss Summers' quarters, Tally? I believe she may wish to speak with her family."
The little elf took the small parcel and disappeared with a pop. Two seconds later she was standing outside the picture of a Werewolf that signalled the entrance to Dawn's room. She knocked on the door. "Miss Dawn?"
The portrait opened and Dawn looked out, hiding her surprise at seeing an elf as best she could.
"Yes?" She asked wearily.
"Mr. Dumbledore asks Tally to give you this, Miss. He says you wishes to talk to your family."
Dawn took the package. "Thank you, Tally."
The elf's eyes filled with tears. "You should not be thanking Tally, Miss. I will leave you now."
The elf popped away leaving Dawn a bit confused. But she put it down to another oddity of the wizarding world and went back into the room. She sat on her bed and ripped the brown paper off the object. What she saw brought a small smile to her face; a phone, but who to call?
After a moment Dawn dialled the number for the slaying centre. It rang once, twice, and then someone picked up.
"Hi, it's Dawn. Is Giles there?" The slayer on the other end of the line scuttled off to find him.
"Dawn?" His voice crackled through the magical spells.
"Heya Giles. How've you been?"
"We're all fine. What's this about Dawn? Not that it's not great to hear from you, but we got your last letter two days ago and I thought you couldn't use phones at Hogwarts?"
"You can't, I guess Dumbledore charmed this for me. He thought I might want to talk to my family." Dawn blinked back a few tears, but managed to keep her voice sounding fairly normal.
"He thought that you'd want to speak with your family? Dawn, what's wrong?" Giles asked panicked.
"Did you know about a vessel? Please tell me you didn't."
"Oh." Then there was silence. He had known. "Dawn, you're still Dawn. This doesn't mean anything; we all love you no matter what."
"You knew? You know that I was made of a dead girl and you didn't tell me?" Ten years ago she would have been yelling at him, but now she didn't have the energy.
"We didn't think it would matter. First Glory and then with Buffy dying, we didn't want to hurt you." Giles said trying to be comforting, but comforting people wasn't his strong point.
"You didn't think it would matter? How could it not matter? Did you know who she was?"
"Of course not. Dawn, what's happened?" His voice cracked. If Dawn didn't feel so tired then she'd almost feel sorry for him.
"There's a prophecy. It mentioned the key indirectly and Dumbledore said something about me unlocking the vessels potential."
"Did he say who the vessel was?"
"Yes." Dawn took a shuddering breath. "Giles, its Lily Potter."
"Bloody hell." Giles whispered.
"He said that I didn't look like her because of all these glamour's and stuff, but that explains the dreams and why I kept thinking I'd heard all this magic stuff before."
"I'm so sorry Dawn. We should have told you, do you want to come home?"
Dawn thought for a moment; could she bear to be around them when they'd lied to her? "Not right now, no."
On the other end of the line, Giles flinched. That hurt more than anything she'd said so far. "Okay," he whispered; "but if you need anything at all…"
"I know. Bye Giles." She sounded tired, but apart from that there was little emotion in her voice.
"Good bye, Dawn."
Dawn hung up the phone feeling exhausted. She didn't want to think about this now. She lay down on the bed and buried her face in the pillows.
Things would be better in the morning.
Maybe.
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1st November 1994 – 10:04 am
The day after the Potter's death, there had been many a celebration. Voldemort was 'gone' and the wizarding world could life in peace once again. One of very few people that weren't celebrating was Sirius Black.
He'd lost his best friend and another very good friend. He'd even lost his godson as Dumbledore had insisted on taking him elsewhere. He couldn't understand it. Had something gone wrong with the protection charms? The only way for someone to figure out where James and Lily were hiding was for Peter to tell them, and he'd never betray them.
He thought back on his times with Lily and James. Prongs had developed his crush on her when he was fourteen, towards the end of the third year. He'd asked her out about a hundred times and each time she'd shot him down without mercy, earning her the nickname Tigerlily. Still he'd persisted for over two years, hoping desperately to wear her down. Eventually he'd managed it. In the sixth year, Lily had responded to Prongs' question with: "I'll give you one date, Potter, if you promise never to ask me again."
After that date, Tigerlily had been different towards him. She'd seen the real Prongs and liked it. She now knew that he could be mature and he could carry an interesting conversation. Most of all, she knew he could be a gentleman and they had gone out again and again. Sirius knew that the pair had corresponded very regularly throughout the summer and when Lily was made head girl, Remus (the head boy) had informed Padfoot that the Tigerlily and Prongs were making good use of the private suite that the head students of Hogwarts were privileged to have.
Then they had got married. Sirius hadn't known at the time why they had got hitched so quickly, but it was obvious to him that they were in love so he didn't question it. When Harry was born three months later, three weeks after James' parents death; he had been surprised and hurt. He knew Lily was capable of keeping it a secret from him, both in her magical abilities and in her character, but James was another matter. They had always shared everything. But then he was asked to be Godfather and it was one of the happiest times in his life. He spent half his time with the newly weds and most of the rest working for the order. He had gotten to know Lily better, all the marauders had, and they had formed a strong friendship as well as making a good relationship with little Harry.
But now all of that was gone and wouldn't be coming back.
Sirius put his thoughts aside. He had to talk to Peter, maybe he'd accidentally let slip. A wave of nausea swept though his body. Maybe it wasn't such an accident. He knew what telling other people could mean yet, apparently, he'd done it. Sirius had to talk to Peter now!
Half an hour later, Sirius was staring down the butt of Peter's wand as he successfully got himself off the hook for murder and then got rid of the only person who knew he was responsible.
Peter Pettigrew was a free rat.
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The next morning dawned bright and clear. It signalled the first quiditch match of the school year, Ravenclaw versus Hufflepuff. Not as exciting as Gryffindor or Slytherin matches, but there was still lots of anticipation about it.
The quiditch teams piled their plates with food and spoke with false bravado about the upcoming game, but across the school, Dawn Summers was tossing and turning in her sleep.
It was the same as last time at first, the running from the shadow. But this time, before it killed her, the shadow transformed into Tara.
"She who springs from the tears of Eve has been born again but the connection stays and the line must remain."
"What? Tara, I don't understand."
"What's in a name, Dawnie? You'll figure it out." Tara said reassuringly.
A shadow surrounded Tara and she was replaced by Harry, but the shadow kept swirling. "You think you know what you are, what's to come? You've only just begun."
The shadow overtook him and plunged into her like last time. But, just before it would hit her, she woke up into another nightmare. A much more real nightmare.
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She wondered through the grounds. Could this really be happening? Was it just a horrible dream that she'd be woken from and would laugh about later? No- it was real alright. There was some stuff that made more sense now though, for example the feelings of loss and that someone was missing- James. She couldn't grieve for him yet though, that would be making it way too real.
She was distracted by a gasp from a first floor window closely followed by a thud near one of the walls and a groan from a red headed student.
"Are you alright?" She asked running over.
"Fine." He groaned. He looked over as his twin brother dashed out the doorway. "I think we were a bit premature in testing the 'soaring sweets', Fred. I most certainly didn't soar as much as fall."
"That you did, George. Maybe if we added more essence of an eagle…"
Dawn smiled in spite of herself. "Maybe you shouldn't be making dangerous products and then jumping out of windows."
"It was only the first floor."
"And we would never endanger ourselves-"
"-Intentionally."
Dawn rolled her eyes. "Very few people ever do. Go on, aren't you going to the quiditch match?"
"Of course-"
"-we're on the Gryffindor team-"
"-so we have to check out the competition."
"See ya professor." They chorused and they ran off, to the stadium presumably.
Dawn shook her head- they would kill themselves if they went on like that.
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Dawn was the only person in the library, except for Madam Prince, of course. Everyone else was at the quiditch match.
Dawn had decided that her dream-problem was probably easier to sort out than her life-problem, even though she had the strangest feeling that they were linked. Maybe it was because Harry turned up or because she didn't understand either of them.
She had a scrap of paper in front of her. Everything Tara had said from the dream was on it.
"What's in a name?" That's what Tara had said. Well, names had meanings didn't they?
Dawn hunted down a name origins book and flicked through until she found…
Dawn; New Beginnings.
How sickenly appropriate.
Hesitantly, she looked up Lily.
Lily; Pure. NAME FACT: in the bible, lilies were said to blossom from the tears of Eve as she was banished from paradise.
Oh hell no!
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Uh-oh! I don't really know what's going to happen next! That never bodes well! Harry will find out about Dawn at some point, but I think next chapter's a bit too soon. It'll probably be more of Dawn dealing with it, maybe some uncovering of memories and probably Halloween, yay!