Title: Places of Safety
Author: Sonya
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I don't own. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all associated characters, settings, etc., belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN, etc. Harry Potter and all associated characters, setting, props, etc., belong to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Inc., etc. No copyright infringement is intended, so please don't sue - all you'll get is a really bratty bird and some really spoiled rats.
Spoilers: Up to 'Wrecked' in the Buffyverse, up to "Goblet of Fire" in the Potterverse.
Pairings: Willow/Snape, Hermione/Viktor Krum, Draco/Ginny, Fred/Angelina. Other 'ships to be decided.
Summary: Hiding from yourself is . . well, just about as hard as it sounds if taken literally.
Author's Note: Just a reminder that this story takes place following "Goblet of Fire" - as in, "Order of the Phoenix" never happened. There will be overlaps, but there will also be differences, and there are no intentional spoilers. So, if you've read the book, you'll see some things familiar and some things not. If you haven't read the book and don't want to be spoiled - use your own judgement. If I don't tell you what's my idea and what's from the book, then you're not really being spoiled, right?
And if anyone cares, I have a Livejournal - It occassionally contains fic-related ramblings. I also have a website, at
Okay, shameless self-promotion over. On to the story.
***
The library was cool and quiet as always; unchanged. Hermione wanted rather desperately to preserve its aura of immutability, the feeling of it being another world apart from the events outside. She was hiding back in the Medicine and Healing section now, sitting crosslegged on the floor for lack of a table. There were tables available, but they weren't back among the stacks; they were out in the main lobby of the library, in full view of Madam Pince, who hadn't seen her yet.
She'd waited almost a full five minutes, until the librarian had turned away from the door, before darting in silently past the front desk. Darting - physical coordination of any kind, really - was not her forte, and she thought Madam Pince might have seen her anyway, as she disappeared into rows and rows of dusty tomes. The librarian hadn't followed, though, and that was the important thing. Hadn't seen Hermione collapse back against the Herbology section, eyes clenched shut and heart hammering as if she'd just eluded rogue dementors - rather than one more apology.
She'd been embarrassed and vaguely appalled at her own irrational behavior, but she'd still tried to make her way quietly over the medical texts.
Can't let her see me. Can't let her know I'm here.
I need . . I NEED this place to be the same. Unchanged.
I don't act like this. I don't do things without knowing why.
No, I do know why. I just know that the 'why' is irrational and childish and petty.
And shallow and selfish. You're trying to escape what happened. They were tortured to death and you don't even want to suffer through having to think about it all the time. Oh, yes, poor you, having everyone apologize to you. It's not *you* who died, now is it? It's not you who were tied down and tortured. But by all means, feel sorry for yourself. Such a dreadful burden to carry, having everyone apologize.
I can't do this. I can't.
And that little bastard was just sitting there eating his breakfast, like nothing was wrong in the world, and he was there, I know he was there, *everyone* knows he was there and no one's doing a single bloody goddamned thing about it -
- stop it, don't think about it, not here, you're here to study, find something else to think about -
Hermione scanned the shelf a little desperately, looking for a promising title. Not 'First Aide for Potions Students.' Not 'Magical Fatigue Syndrome: Treatment and Prevention'. Not '101 Medicinal Herbs and Their Uses'. She snatched 'Charms for the Common Cold' off the shelf.
That's bound to have something useful, a cold is certainly a Mundane Malady. I should have found someone who'd taken Spells for Mundane Injuries and Maladies last year and gotten a syllabus, I don't know what order we'll be going in, and I've only got a half-hour or so until class so if I don't go at this in some kind of logical order, I'm going to get nothing done.
I should look for something more general, and hold this one aside for now. I need an overview - though something in a little more depth than the textbook - hrmm, maybe - she reached for 'A Witch's Guide to First Aide for Children', grimacing at the title.
Why is it a *witch's* guide, hrmm? Why not a wizard's? Oh, I suppose because it's bound to be the witch who's home with the little ones when they fall off their practice brooms, while the wizard's out doing great things in the world. What utter rubbish.
But it still might have some useful -
The word 'Lacerations' seemed to jump off the index page at her. She slammed the book shut, snapping her eyes closed just for good measure.
Breathe. Breathe. It's just a word. You're being a melodramatic, self-pitying -
- there's not enough air in here, oh God, it's hot, it's too hot in here and I can't breath and I'm going to throw up -
- discoloration of the skin around the lacerations to the extremities indicates injury close to time of -
- I can't do this I can't do this I can't do this -
I can. I will. I can't but I will anyhow.
"Miss Granger?"
Hermione blinked up at Madam Pince, and mentally called herself every foul name she could remember for closing the book so loudly.
"Are you feeling quite well, Miss Granger?" the librarian asked, glaring down at Hermione over her spectacles.
"Oh, yes, I'm alright," Hermione assured her, gathering her things in a panicked rush. Don't be an idiot. You've a good twenty-five minutes left that you could be studying, there's no earthly reason to run out of here. None. You're being positively pathetic.
I have to get out of here. I have to get out of here before she says it and she wrecks this place -
- oh god this place is already wrecked why did I have to grab that stupid bloody book there wasn't suppose to be anything to remind me here, it's the library, it's ages on ages of wisdom all gathered together and neatly stacked and alphabetized, all put in rational order, all reason and logic and not screaming and glass shattering and -
- stop it, just stop it! You need to study, not have a panic attack! This is ridiculous!
I can take 'Charms for the Common Cold' with me.
No, I can't, I'd have to check it out and I can't stay here that long - I can't stay, have to get away before she says -
"Then I'd suggest you take your books over to one of the tables before someone trips over you, and try to be quiet about it, too," Madam Pince suggested primly, and Hermione felt a momentary flood of relief. She's not going to say anything. She's acting just like everything's normal, I'm just making too much noise in the library, that's all.
"Of course," Hermione agreed, nearly smiling up at the scowling librarian. "I was just trying to make a selection, and - I guess I got caught up." She added 'Charms for the Common Cold' to her stack of textbooks. Of course I can stay and study. It's alright. She's not going to say anything, she's not going to spoil it, I was just being foolish. It's Madam Pince; she wouldn't know high emotion if it bit her, thank Merlin.
A boney hand settled on her shoulder as she moved past the librarian in the narrow aisle between bookshelves.
"Miss Granger, I heard -" Madam Pince began in an awkward, stilted sort of way, as Hermione's stomach plummeted. " - I mean, I was so sorry to hear - I'm dreadful at expressing these things, but I just wanted to say something -"
"Don't!" Hermione snapped, much to her horror. Oh, I did NOT just snap at Madam Pince! "I mean - you don't have to -"
"Watch your tone, Miss Granger!" Madam Pince retorted sharply, all trace of sympathy gone in an instant from her sharply boned and glowering face. There were spots of bright, embarrassed color on her sunken cheeks, looking like someone had spilled cranberry juice on old parchment. She never says anything nice and now the one time she tried you snapped at her, and she's embarrassed about it. Oh, good show, Hermione.
"Perhaps you think that you've earned special treatment, due to your circumstances?" Madam Pince lashed out, when Hermione didn't respond immediately to her admonishment. "Permission to scatter books all over the floor, and make as much noise as you'd like, and shout at professors?"
You're not a professor, you wretched old hag! Hermione thought furiously. Any thought of pity for the emotionally stilted librarian vanished.
"I'm sorry," Hermione said stiffly, feeling the hot flush of anger running down from her cheeks, down the back of her neck and along her spine, making her stomach clench and her toes curl in her shoes. It was oddly like being unexpectedly kissed, this overwhelming rush of feeling, only sharper, and dreadful. Something's wrong with me, I've no reason to be this angry. "I have to go now."
***
"If one more person says they can't *upset* me, I'm going to have to get *very* upset!" Ginny announced, flinging her books carelessly down on the tiles of Myrtle's bathroom. "And I'm soaked in pumpkin juice, and McGonagall says I'm not to go to classes today and she'll *see* about tomorrow, and Ron wanted to know why *Malfoy* was *bothering* me, and Harry's being all 'are you okay' and 'here, let me carry that for you' and I think he might sort of *like* me and isn't *that* just precious timing?" She paused for breath, sitting on her stack of books and waiting for a response.
"And Draco doesn't want to be called Malfoy, and he's being very weird," she commented in the silence. "It's like - oh, I don't know what it's like. He's acting like another brother all the sudden, sort of, except .. well, not quite exactly like a brother." She flushed slightly, picking at a thread on the sodden sleeve of her robe.
"And I'm .. well, it's a little better today," she said, more quietly. "But it's still .. the girl who spilt the pumpkin juice on me, I got so angry with her, which isn't anything new by itself, but I was thinking - I wanted to - Myrtle, are you listening?"
There was no answer. Ginny pushed herself up with a sigh and trudged over to Myrtle's usual stall, sticking her head in the door. "Are you even *here*?"
No response.
"Oh, well, that's bloody lovely," Ginny announced to no one. "I've been talking to myself. That's a bloody wonderful sign, isn't it? Quite the logical next step for me, don't you think, talking to myself?" She slammed the stall door shut in annoyance, stalking over to the sink and jerking the tap wide open, thinking to wash the pumpkin juice off her arms.
Nothing happened; the metal creaked in protest, but there was no rush of water. Ginny glared at it in momentary vexation, before she realized what she'd done.
She'd tried to turn *that* faucet on.
That one's never worked.
Oh, it works. But not for water. Not for anything clean.
Cleansing of another sort. Perfect symbolism. Brilliant, just brilliant.
Sick, horrid, terrible.
But brilliant, you can't deny that, can you?
She reached a sticky hand out tentatively, fingers brushing over the snake scratched into the side of the tap.
I scratched that there, when I realized what I'd found; and it knew me. It opened for me. I'd never felt such elation .. it was almost enough, almost as good as -
- no!
Power. It was power. Power in a whisper, just a whisper, just -
"Open," Ginny whispered, voice coming out strange and hissing.
The tap began to spin; she jumped back with a strangled yelp. The sink was creaking and groaning, glowing with magic.
"I didn't mean to!" she shouted at it, scurrying back away from it. "I didn't mean to say anything out loud, I didn't mean it, stop it!" The floor shivered as the sink sank below it, out of view. "Stop it, close, close up, stop!" But the words came out just English, not that snake-like hiss, and the gaping hole in the tile floor did not respond.
The entrance to the Chamber of Secrets just sat there, wide open like a laughing mouth, gaping at her.
"C-Close!" she yelled at it, shooting frantic glances at the door, terrified someone would come in just now, just because they would, even though they never come in here, they would come in *now* just because that's my luck.
No they won't; you know they won't. They never do. No one will know.
I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to say anything, I didn't want to!
Didn't you? Why did you reach for that tap, when you know better? Why did you need to touch it? Why were you thinking of it?
I wasn't, I wouldn't!
I would. I would, and you are me, and I am you, and there is no one else here . . .
Sweating and feeling as though each step were a Herculean effort, as if her boots had suddenly turned to lead and grown too heavy to lift, Ginny made her way to the edge of the entrance to the Chamber.
She stared down into the great black void of the tunnel; there was a way down, whispering at the edge of her memory. It took me weeks to find it. The first trip down was a nasty tumble onto jagged rock and bone, but I knew there was a better way . . the great and noble Salazar Slytherin would not have slid down a pipe onto a pile of rocks, and it wasn't wide enough to comfortably accommodate a broom.
The very existence of this entrance suggested other things. Things forgotten. Things lost as we grew soft and complacent and unworthy . . but I would be worthy.
Because it knew me. The Chamber knew me. The serpent knew me.
It still knows me.
I am not going down there! What am I thinking? No!
I just need to figure out how to close it, just talk snake-talk at it again and then I should run away and never come back here.
But .. I can't never come back here. What about Myrtle?
Stupid little mudblood -
- the stupid little mudblood is my friend. The stupid little mudblood doesn't want me to die. And her blood's no dirtier than yours.
No, no, not true, I became more! I'm not - not flesh and blood, not dirty, not weak - powerful - I am Lord Voldemort -
- I am Virginia Weasley and I should get the bloody hell out of here, right now -
- I should remember. I should remember how to get down there. Because that place is mine.
No, no, it's not . . his . . mine . . there's no one else here, just me, just both of me and I want . . I want what's mine . .
Leave. Come back later, when Myrtle's here. Close it before someone sees, before someone sees and knows what you remember . .
. . remember . . I want . . oh Merlin help me I want control, I want something for this, I want some recompense for everything, for all of this, for broken bones and dirty blood and chicken's blood and dirty feathers and crunch of bones and ink sinking into a page and feeling like fading . . like dying by inches . . there must be a reason, a reason why it had to be me.
Not one of my brothers. Not Harry. Not Hermione. Would have been as easy, to slip the diary to one of them, but it was me - and I want *something* for that - is it so terrible to want to remember something more than being abused and beaten? Is it wrong to want the good bits if you're stuck with the bad?
Yes! Yes, it is! There are no good bits! There's just -
- power. There is only power, and those too weak to seek it.
No!
Yes, oh yes.
You're afraid, aren't you, what it will do to you? Afraid you're not so much better than me after all. Afraid to seek power, afraid to learn the things I learned. Afraid to upset your tidy little world where you're worth something just because you're *good*.
No .. no, not afraid . . just . .
.. afraid. Yes, afraid.
Face your fears like a good little Gryffindor.
There is no right answer to this, is there? No right way to go . . you can't un-ask the question . . you can't take it back, you can't take anything back, not ever . . because we are more than flesh, more than blood . . we are memory . . we are everything we've ever done, been, seen . . I've already gone down there, I just don't - I don't -
*I want to remember*
It came to her, almost too easily, whispering up from another lifetime. With it came images, frighteningly ordinary images - faces in the Great Hall, sitting bored in Transfiguration twirling a quill and wondering how soon class would end and he could slip away to sneak into the Restricted Section, patrolling the hallways the first year he was made a prefect, the time perfect for thinking - stopping some stupid third year Hufflepuff who was running in the halls -
Myrtle!
Ginny gasped, and the memories fled, save one. She tried to whisper, her voice coming out a harsh, incoherent rasp. She swallowed, moistening her throat, tried again. This time the words came out clear to her own ears, an oddly melodic hiss. Shivering and trembling, she knew this was more than memory. She wasn't reciting, wasn't borrowing . . she understood herself, speaking parseltongue.
This is a piece of me, too.
My past, present, and future.
"I come in desperate need," she hissed to the black void before her, and the walls within writhed. Creaky with rust and long disuse, thick filaments detached themselves from either side of the tunnel down. They wavered in the air, stretched, thrust forked tongues out at one another, tasting - is that you? It's been so long, so long since anyone's awakened us. She knew they were only magical constructs, not real, not actual creatures who could feel stiffness in their bones after a long sleep or find comfort in the familiarity of their companions, but their movements were uncomfortably organic, real . .
The top-most pair of snakes - their scales metallic bronze, gone green with age in places - lifted their heads from the tunnel, poking inquisitive tongues at Ginny's boots. She stood still as stone, and she didn't remember this - had they done this before? Greeted her like this? Greeted him? She didn't think so, but she couldn't be sure.
Slowly, seeming satisfied with their hissing inspection of her and of one another, they reached across the tunnel, twining their necks together like lovers greeting each other after a long absence. Something in it moved her, stirred a feeling that she was certain belonged to neither herself nor Riddle; it was beautiful in a way she didn't understand, but she could see that the design hadn't been careless. It seemed all wrong for this dank, forgotten place.
Pair by pair, necks intimately entangled, the metallic snakes formed a ladder down.
***
Faith rarely got into fights anymore; it still happened sometimes, that was unavoidable in prison. Especially when you're short, young, and - when deprived of your burgundy lipstick - sorta cutesy looking. She'd pounded in her share of faces on the inside, but she didn't go looking for fights anymore. It brought her too close to the line, brought her blood pumping a little too close to the surface of her skin - brought on thoughts like I could be outta here any time I want.
I don't need this. I'm all reformed and shit. Haven't killed anybody in ages. So why exactly do I need this shit again?
The answer to which was, of course, because she was still having thoughts like those. She knew where the whole fuck-the-rules thing lead. She'd been there, done that, and gotten the snazzy orange jumpsuit - and she wasn't interested in being that any more.
It probably would have helped if she'd had a clue what she *was* interested in being. Prison left entirely too much time for thinking; about her life, about her past, about her wrong number of a Calling. Somewhere along the line Faith had decided that somebody up there had really big-time fucked up when they assigned her superpowers. If there was any one person in the whole entire world who should *not* have superpowers, it was her. She figured maybe there had been a list, all in alphabetical order and crap, and it was the next girl down who was supposed to get Called. Or somebody else with her name. There was a cosmic computer glitch, the Powers That Be forgot their reading glasses, whatever - Faith was dead certain she had never really been meant to be the Slayer.
But she heard the footsteps and the faint voices coming down the hall and woke from a sound sleep, sitting bolt upright in the bed, adrenaline pumping and muscles wound tight, ready to spring. Two of those voices had a distinct British accent, overlaid by a tone of resigned disgust. Slayer instincts just don't die . .
"Oh, we are so not doing this," she muttered incredulously as her midnight visitors came into view; the guard, she knew. Frank. Frank was a decent guy, for somebody who'd gone out and become a cop on purpose, she supposed. The other two were strangers, but she saw tweed, heard the Queen's English, and that was all she was interested in knowing about them. "Look, Frank, whatever these guys told you - " he was unlocking her cell door, giving her a tired, slightly bemused look that said clearly just go with this, kid, okay? It's late. " - that is *such* a shitty idea, look, you let them in here and I'm telling you there's gonna be a situation, and you know and I know that you can't really stop me if -"
"We're not here to kill you, disappointingly enough," snapped one of the Watchers, pushing the barred door open the minute Frank finished with the lock. The other Watcher followed with a duffle bag - a heavy duffle bag, it seemed, from how he was struggling with it.
"Right, and I'd believe you, except this is prison, not the psycho ward," Faith snapped back, crouching back on her pallet and easing into a defensive stance, keeping one eye on the two Watchers and the other on Frank, standing outside the cell and trying to look bored and not curious as all hell. "They're stingy with the happy pills around here." I'd really rather Frank *didn't* get dead in the crossfire. He's a decent guy.
See? I'm all reformed and crap. Really I am.
So why's this shit have to happen now?
"Charming as ever, I see," the lead Watcher returned, voice dripping sarcasm. The other had set the duffle down on the far end of her pallet and was unzipping it; Faith tensed when he reached inside. There was a fraction of a moment, when she saw his hand come out holding a wicked looking gun, where she almost jumped him. Gun, hell, that thing could be a rocket launcher. Then a millisecond later she recognized that he was holding it by the barrel; his finger was nowhere near the trigger, and besides, even if it was, he was pointing it at the wall. It also turned out to be, upon closer inspection, not all that wicked after all. It was a dart gun, sorta like the one Giles' used to keep for zonking out wolf boy when necessary, only meaner.
"Whoa, hey!" Frank exclaimed from outside; Faith guessed that from his vantage point, he wasn't able to figure out the make and model of the artillery these guys were unloading. Not that dart guns were exactly legal on the inside, but they beat the hell out of getting caught with a semi-automatic, which is what the thing looked like from a distance. "Nobody said anything about - "
" - the large quantity of marijuana found in your daughter's car?" Watcher number two suggested smoothly.
"What?" Frank exclaimed. "What the hell is this? My daughter does not smoke dope and when the hell did -"
"And your daughter's smoking preferences have what to do with the situation?" the Watcher interrupted once again, quite calmly, still looking down into his duffle bag and unloading what looked like a cigar case, though Faith suspected it contained the darts for the gun.
"You guys are just such fucking assholes," Faith pronounced, shaking her head, catching on a lot quicker than Frank, who was still protesting.
"Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?" the first Watcher inquired mildly, apparently amused by her outrage.
"Nah, I kiss yours," Faith snapped back.
"I wanna know just what the hell is -" Frank was near to shouting, obviously spooked, and Faith could hear other voices coming awake up and down the cell block. The first Watcher reached out and quite calmly grabbed the cell door, the bars of which Frank was currently white-knuckling. It swung inward, and Frank swung inward with it. He was grabbed by the shoulder, the door slammed behind him.
"Hey, you okay in there, girl?" called a vaguely familiar voice from across the hall.
"Five by five!" Faith hollered back, then lowered her voice to a deceptively casual drawl. "Though some other people around here are gonna be shipped back to the mother country in bitty little boxes if they don't start telling me -"
"What is going on, Mr. Callahan, is that you are going to shut your mouth," the first Watcher was hissing at Frank, who was paying silent and rapt attention; probably due to the arm pressed across his throat and the cinderblock wall at his back. Neither Watcher so much as acknowledged Faith or her threats. "You are going to keep your mouth shut from this point forward. You saw nothing. You heard nothing. In fact, you've been having a very trying week and you were so distracted that you really have no idea what was happening in this cell block at this hour. You may have accidentally dozed off. If you should happen to recall a different scenario, ever, when speaking to anyone at all, then I'm afraid that a rather significant quantity of illegal substances would make their way into the trunk of your daughter Meghan's 1989 Toyota Camry, which will tomorrow be parked in front of Hemery High School - parking slot number sixty .. four, is it?"
Frank didn't answer. The Watcher with the duffle pulled out a small curved sword, sheathed but still deadly looking. He pushed the case of darts up the cot a little to make room for the sword; pushed it closer to Faith.
"It would be *most* unfortunate if someone were to alert the police to the contraband in your daughter's possession, wouldn't it, Mr. Callahan?"
What a total motherfucking shithead. Somebody needs their ass *kicked* back across the Atlantic.
"Yeah," Frank agreed hoarsely, when the pressure on his throat eased somewhat. He sounded absolutely petrified, with a touch of really pissed off.
"Well, now that we've got that cleared up -" Faith said cheerfully, and lunged for the dart case, grabbing it one-handed and swinging it back against the wall, out of the clutching grasp of the Watcher now lunging over his duffle bag. The case hit the wall with a very satisfying cracking sound and sprang open; glass clinked as syringes rolled free, plummeting towards the ground. Faith dropped the case and grabbed a syringe with one hand just as the rest hit the floor and shattered, her other hand darting out to grab the arm of the Watcher who had been threatening Frank and family. She let his own momentum carry him head-first into the wall, jerking the cap off the syringe with her teeth at the same time; the other Watcher's advance across the cot was blocked by his associate's urgent appointment with the cinderblocks.
She pulled back just a little, just in time to not actually crack his skull; he was stunned, though, and thus it was easy enough to whirl him around and pull him back against her chest, jaw held tightly, needle at his jugular.
" - maybe someone wants to tell me what this crap is, before I jam it into this guy's throat," she finished conversationally.
Frank just stood goggling, flattened against the wall.
"It's a sedative," Watcher-with-duffle replied cautiously, tense, right hand twitching.
"Don't think it," Faith warned, jabbing the needle into the other Watcher's throat so that it just broke skin. "Leave your toys where you dropped them, you can pick up later. Right now, we're having a conversation, and I hate feeling ignored. So, if I dose this guy up, he'll just, what, pass out on me?"
The Watcher in question made a strangled sort of groaning sound. The other said nothing, and she could practically hear the gears grinding in his brain.
"Why am I thinking *not*?" she guessed.
"It would kill him," the other Watcher confessed. Frank coughed loudly, bringing a shaking hand up to his already bruising throat.
"Now see?" Faith teased while her brain spun. I don't wanna kill this guy. I do *not* wanna fucking kill *anybody*! I don't *do* that anymore! But fuck it, I am not gonna roll over and die for them, either - and I gotta get poor old Frank outta here - "This is why I don't believe you when you tell me things. There's just no trust in the relationship anymore."
"They were never meant for you!" the Watcher in her grasp squeaked out.
"Okay, so, saying I get a sudden lobotomy and believe that, that means, what? I'm supposed to be your pet assassin now? 'Cause they were meant for somebody."
"They would not kill their intended target," explained the Watcher who was currently backing towards the cell door in infinitesimally small, shuffling little steps. He's gonna try and bail, isn't he? And leave his good buddy here to the psycho bitch with the needle. So much for all that loyalty crap, huh?
Why does no one else ever notice how much the so-called good guys suck at their job?
"And here we're running into confusion again, 'cause you just told me they would," Faith argued.
"They would kill Mr. Davenport -"
"Oh, good, names. Nice to meet you, Mr. Davenport," Faith quipped, giving the Watcher's jaw a little shake for emphasis.
" - but they would not kill a Slayer," the other Watcher finished.
A Slayer. But they were never meant for me.
"What happened to Buffy?" Faith demanded.
***
TBC . .