Timeline: Buffy, Post Chosen (aka after Season 7). Harry Potter is after Book Five,
Order of the Phoenix. Just cause.

Note on Magical Abilities: Xander is not a Wizard. Xander will not be a Wizard.
The end.

AN: This fic is not dead. I've just been distracted... Check out my livejournal
for updates for anything I do, fic or fanart, wise.

http/dialinghell. chapter will be longer, much, I so decree. Thanks for reading. :)

Gee, Thanks for All the Love: Chapter 1

Severus Snape had never expected to survive the war. He had been too intimately involved in the dirty laundry on both sides. Propriety, if nothing else, would insure that he got a well-deserved Unforgivable curse thrown at his back at some point and that would be that.

He certainly hadn't expected to live long enough to see Voldemort's head wiped clean off his shoulders in the only useful thing Potter had ever done in all the seventeen years of his miserable existence. What's more, he hadn't even begun to imagine ever getting to see his son in the afterlife, if there was one for men like him, let alone in the flesh and blood, side by side with one of the most powerful women in the world.

There was a deep, stunned silence in the Great Hall as Voldemort's head, propelled by momentum from Potter's frantic swing, rolled slowly and unevenly across the floor before it rested at his son's feet. His son, Alexander, Alexander Harris, looked down, wrinkled his nose, and gave the head a distasteful kick.

This time it rolled towards them and stopped at Lucius's feet. Severus watched, face impassive, as his old friend's mouth convulsed once, twice, before an inarticulate howl of rage and grief tore from the older man's throat. The sound galvanized the rest of Severus's brethren into action, and the remaining thirty or so Death Eaters swarmed the five of them, intent on completing this last task for the Lord and Master.

In the immediacy of the melee, Severus lost sight of Dumbledore's forces and was faced, literally, with the wizard who would likely claim his life. In the crush of bodies and flashing green curses, Lucius Malfoy was shoved against him, his silver eyes wild as he screamed, "How long!" His wand pressed viciously against Severus's throat as fighters pressed them even closer.

Severus's own voice was cold and controlled, the voice he had used to terrorize his students into some form of competency for over two decades. "Since the night Voldemort ordered me to kill my son."

His words seemed to remove Lucius's last support and Severus stumbled as the larger wizard sunk against him. "We trusted you," his old friend murmured. And behind that simple statement was the implied accusation that He, Lucius Malfoy, had well and truly trusted him as well, as more than a follower of the Dark Lord; as a confidant, a friend.

Severus laughed woodenly. "You of all people should have known better than that."

"Then that is a mistake I shall have to remedy." And just like that, his time HAD come. But oddly enough, even in the chaos of the Last Great Battle, with Voldemort's head being kicked about like a bloody ball, he felt a deep and abiding sense of peace, of release. He hadn't expected that, hadn't begun to dream that he had repented enough to be allowed such a small sign of absolution. Lucius jammed the wand so hard against his windpipe that Severus, dimly, could feel it pass through the flesh of his neck. Could feel, with the clarity that some would say comes with death, the warmth of the small trickle of blood congealing and sliding down his neck. "AVADA…"

And honestly, Severus Snape would have been perfectly content to die right there.

But the bodies shifted suddenly, and his eyes widened as he met his son's one eye over Lucius's shoulder, at his back. Alexander Harris had managed to get roughed up in the scramble already. There was the cut on his forehead that had started this whole melee, but now there was also a rough abrasion across his left cheek, and his eye was already darkening into what would be a terrific black eye. Severus opened his mouth, though his couldn't have said if he was going to say something to the man who was part his flesh and blood, or to speak to his oldest friend who was about to kill him. But there wasn't any time for words.

Just for Alexander Harris to bring up a silver serving platter he must have grabbed from who knows where in order to smash it in all its House Elf, spit-polished glory, across the back of Lucius's unsuspecting head. And the Second In Command to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named dropped like a tree. A tall, blonde, angry tree.

Father and Son regarded each other in the din of battle. And all the usually acerbically articulate Severus could think to say was, "You're NOT supposed to be here."

Alexander blinked once, twice, and shrugged, a gesture that was half-defensive, and more than a little angry. "Yeah, well, YOU'RE not supposed to EXIST!"

Severus blinked once, twice, opened and closed his mouth because, well, he was right.

"Dawnie told me what happened in the Great Hall."

Buffy's mouth frowned as she turned her worried glance from the castle window to the most powerful witch in existence, on either side of the Atlantic. "Hey Wills."

The redhead had emerged from the battle mostly unscathed, though once the Death Eaters figured out exactly how powerful she was, they started nearly killing themselves in order to get away from the Wicked Witch of SunnyD. Buffy herself was showing her age. That last desperate Death Eater brawl had almost been the end of her, and three days later she was still sporting cracked rubs, a fractured ankle, and more burns and lacerations than she really cared to think about.

Stupid magic. The Slayerey Goodness Package gave them all some natural immunity from nasty spells used by the robe wearers, but that tended to mean energy was diverted from normal attributes, like super fast healing, to replace the expenditure. Overlooking the fact that Buffy could have become her very own ball of green energy with all the killing curses she had dodged and deflected, it still sucked because she HURT.

And even more fun, now that they were with a group of people perfectly capable of knitting and fixing everything that was wrong with her, thanks to her ever helpful Slayer metabolism and natural immunity to hocus pocus, any attempts at magical healing resulted in a big fat waste of time. And one really pissed off Mediwitch.

"She heard from Annie, who told Hannah, who…"

Buffy rubbed her bare arms, wishing she had bothered with a sweater. She used to wear them in California, you'd think she'd be bright enough to remember them in Scotland. "Who heard from whom?"

Willow snorted, impatient. "Dumbledore, of course."

Her arms dropped to her sides, still chilled. "Of course," Buffy snapped dryly. The interfering old twinkly-eyed busybody.

The redhead sighed and joined the oldest Slayer at the window. She didn't have to stand on her tiptoes to peer out, a fact for which Buffy sent her a long-suffering glare, but even through the remnants of the morning fog, Xander was still clearly visible, sitting on the far edge of the lake. Occasionally patting a stray tentacle that got too friendly.

"He won' talk about it."

And Buffy, for the life, or hell, or even DEATH, of her couldn't figure out how to make him. That bothered her, because Xan, in all his smart-mouthed glory, was glib and out of place during the most inopportune of times in all the right, Xander shaped ways. She hadn't been quite sure how to live with this solemn, contemplative MAN of the last three days.

Willow had made her little soul searching journey from computer dork to lesbian dark witch, and on to lesbian white witch playing the field, and Buffy had gone from Valley Girl to the obnoxious martyrdom of her teen years, and now, at twenty-six, found herself set somewhere near den mother to a bunch of hormonal killers with acne and training bras. But Xander's metamorphoses was harder, less visible to trace, and more profound perhaps because of it.

Willow reached up, her fingers tracing Xander's distant figure through the glass, a worried frown on her lips.

"What about Daddy Dearest?" Buffy asked.

"Still out cold in the infirmary. Expected to be spacey for at least a few more days."

"Good."

Willow laughed. "You going to kill him?"

She shrugged elegantly. "It's crossed my mind. Repeatedly. On rewind even. I'll wait for Xand's verdict, though Snapey will be getting the ice pick lecture regardless." Although, if Daddy Dearest, despite being unmasked as a double agent for the Side of Good, was STILL as unpleasant as he'd been made out to be, an ice pick may just accidentally materialize at his hospital bed while he was still recuperating.

Den mothers had far fewer scruples than martyring Slayers.

"You think I could maybe beat him up… just a little?" Buffy asked hopefully.

Willow laughed as her as dancing eyes turned to her friend. "Not nice. He's unconscious."

A rueful grin spread across Buffy's lips, despite her best intentions. "Well, yeah, every Vampire I've ever beat the hell out of has been, well DEAD. You've never complained before."

"None of them were ever Xander's Dad before."

Buffy snorted. "Dracula wanted to be his Sugar Daddy."

The redhead groaned and punched her arm lightly. "SO doesn't count."