DISCLAIMER:  The characters aren't mine.  I'm borrowing them from the esteemed Joss Whedon and J.K. Rawling.

      SPOILERS/BACKGROUND:  Everything from BtVS Season 1 to Season 6, AtS Seasons 1 to 3, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

      Reviews always welcome!

            *           *           *           *           *

      CHAPTER 18:

      WHO LET THE DOG OUT?

      Buffy, Ron, and Hermione all reached Hogwarts safely; they had gone slowly and kept an eye out for any other sign of danger, but none had been forthcoming.  Ron's head recovered quickly, and he had insisted that he was fine; in fact, he had put on a convincing enough show of it to convince Hermione to let them go back to the Three Broomsticks for their Honeydukes bags.  By the time they returned to Hogwarts, all Ron needed was a quick checkup from Madam Pomfrey, and he was cleared to leave with the promise not to strain himself too hard and to take care of his head.

      "'course I'll take care of it, I haven't got a spare," he had promised her.

      The news that a Death Eater Animagus in the guise of a rat could be scampering around the Hogwarts grounds had spread quickly.  Mostly these were accompanied by earnest warnings to get out of the way of Professor Moody whenever he came by; the wooden-legged ex-Auror had been stalking the hallways ever since the word got out, his magical eye glaring in literally every direction.  However, mercifully, Buffy and Willow's names had not been mentioned in connection with the news; all the news said was that a Death Eater had somehow gotten through.

      Buffy and Willow sat together as usual at the Slytherin table that night, both arriving early and taking double their normal portions.  Hermione and Ron entered a few minutes earlier, both looking as if nothing had ever happened, though Ron gave Buffy a brief smile of gratitude as the two Gryffindors made their way to their seats.

      "Did you write Harry?" she asked.

      "Of course.  Did you write Draco?"

      "Not yet," Buffy admitted.  "Still having trouble with what I want to say.  I'll do it later tonight."  The warning Draco had given her about Hogwarts not being safe had returned to her memory shortly after they had been away from the attack.  She wondered if he had been trying to warn her of Peter's presence somehow, but she guessed he would have been more specific had that been the case.

      "All right.  Studying later?"

      Buffy rolled her eyes.  "You're going to turn me into a little Giles, you know?"

      "So I'll see you at eight?"

      "Sure," Buffy breathed.  That would give her more than enough time to compose a letter to Draco.  She headed back to Slytherin Tower, got out a quill and parchment, and thought of what to say.  Eventually, painstakingly, she wrote.

      Draco,

      Had my first battle with a Death Eater today … an Animagus named Peter Pettigrew.  Will caught him spying on us at Hogsmeade.  Wasn't as bad as I thought, but was still tense.  Anyway, you've probably heard this part, but he got away and people think he's made it into Hogwarts.  I'll let you what comes up.  Hope whatever was going on at home is close to being worked out.  Come back soon.  Miss you.

      Buffy

      P.S. If you don't answer my other letters soon, I'm going to start thinking you don't like me.

      She sighed as she went to the Owlery and let the owl go.  The ending had been a little more emotional than her previous two; she had never told him outright that she missed him before.  She wondered what he would say to that.

      Probably'll be even less likely to write now, she thought glumly as she descended from the Owlery and instinctively headed in the direction of Lupin's office.  It was getting close to eight.

      Suddenly, as she hit the last set of stairs before Lupin's office, she spotted a tiny dark stain on the floor.  She bent down to look at it, but she was already sure in her mind; she had seen similar stains far too often.  There was another a few steps farther down.  She began to run.  The trail led directly to Lupin's office.  Without thinking, she burst open the door and strode in, wand at the ready.  Her mouth dropped, and she backed out of the room.

      "Professor!" she screamed.

      The office lay in ruins, and it looked like there had been a ferocious fight of some kind within.  The desk and several bookshelves had been destroyed, and everything on the mantle and several other shelves had been cast around the room.  There were several spots of blood on the walls and floor, and even one on the ceiling.  However, Buffy also spotted tufts and patches of fur lying on the ground, and she cursed herself for not remembering.  Tonight was the night before the full moon, the first night since she'd been here that Lupin would have turned into a werewolf.

      The sound of running feet reached her ears a moment later, and she recognized the clunking of Moody's wooden leg.  A moment later, the one-eyed professor burst into view, wand at the ready, moving much more quickly than Buffy would have believed possible with that leg.  His eye was already pointed through the wall into Lupin's office.

      "Bloody hell!" he roared as he drew even with the door and could focus both his eyes on the scene within.  He darted into the room and saw the wreckage of everything above the fireplace.  That didn't stop him, however.

      "Accio Floo powder!" he snarled, and a handful of powder lifted itself from the wreckage on the floor and flew into his upturned palm.  He threw it on the fire.

      "Minerva!  Snape!  Lupin's office, now!"

      Shapes began to take form in Lupin's fireplace, and a moment later, a fully formed Severus Snape strode out of the fire, his eyes narrowing dangerously as he surveyed the room.  Minerva McGonagall followed a moment later, saying, "this had better be impor … oh, gracious!"

      "It had to be in the last few hours," Snape spat.  "It obviously happened after moonrise.  Not too late for a Recall Charm."

      Moody nodded, and cast some more powder in the fire.  "Flitwick!" he snapped.  "We need you!"

      "Coming, coming," Flitwick's teacherly voice answered as his form began to materialize in the fire.  A moment later, the tiny man stepped free of the fireplace, and gave a tiny, horrified squeak.

      "A Recall Charm, if you please, Flitwick," Minerva asked.

      "Of … of course," Flitwick said, his voice shaking.  His hands were steady, however, as he swept his wand around the room and chanted, "Historia proxima, appareo."

      A transparent image of Professor Lupin in human form sitting where his desk chair would have been appeared.  Buffy's eyes widened.  She was thinking of several times when she could have used that one in her Slaying duties.  Historia proxima, appareo.  She made a mental note to remember that one.

      "A little forward," McGonagall said patiently.  Flitwick nodded and flicked his wand.  A moment later, Lupin began to transform.  Snape turned to glance at her briefly to watch her reaction, but she betrayed nothing; Lupin had told her he was a werewolf and she had seen Oz transform often enough to know what it looked like.  Snape shrugged and turned back.

      The Lupin illusion padded over and curled up by the fire, apparently going to sleep.

      "So he did take his potion today," McGonagall observed.  Flitwick nodded.  Snape scowled.

      "All right, a little more forward … right there!" McGonagall snapped.

      Lupin's head had risen again and he was looking toward the door.  A low, ghostly sound like a lock clicking reached their ears.  Lupin's ears laid back, and a growl escaped his lips.

      Suddenly, Lupin lunged, and it was clear that he was fighting someone.  Spells seemed to come out of nowhere in the air, attacking the wolf, throwing him around the room, and it was clear Lupin was hurt.  McGonagall's face was ashen.  Then Lupin managed to connect with something at around ankle level, and there was a high-pitched cry of pain that seemed to come from the air, almost as if coming up from the floor.  A moment later, another few drops of ghostly blood landed on the floor, as though the air had bled.  A moment later, Lupin darted out of the room.  It was impossible to tell if he was following someone or being chased.

      "What happened?" Snape asked.

      "Quite simple, really," Flitwick answered.  "Our intruder cloaked himself against the Recall Charm."

      "Can you break it?" McGonagall asked.

      "Of course," Flitwick replied, but his voice was somber, and he added, "in about three days."

      "Lupin will be back by then," McGonagall said crisply.  "We can ask him what happened."

      "We assume Lupin will be back by then, Minerva," Moody said neutrally.

      "He'll be back."  McGonagall's voice was iron, but there was the faintest hint of a quaver beneath it.

      "And why didn't he come to any other teacher, then?" Snape asked.

      "And say what?  Aaroooo?" Moody interjected.

      Snape's mouth contorted in a snarl.  "It would at least have let us know something was wrong."

      "Come off it, Snape," the scar-faced professor growled.  "You know damn well how the little kids would have reacted if they saw a werewolf walking through the halls.  He's either found a way out of the castle, or he's hiding somewhere no one goes."

      "I think he'd have left," McGonagall added.  "He wouldn't want to get cornered, and that boy knows every secret passage in the castle that Potter and Black ever found."

      Snape grunted.

      "Minerva's right," Moody agreed.  "He'd head for the woods, if he could.  All right, I'll go look up Hagrid.  If anyone can find Remus, it's that dog of his."  Moody strode confidently from the room.

      "I'll inform Dumbledore immediately," McGonagall added brusquely, striding back into the fire.  She was gone a moment later.

      "I guess I need to get back to work," Flitwick mused.  He started for the fire.  "This had to have been young Peter."

      "No!" Buffy called suddenly.

      Snape and Flitwick turned to look at her.  Her mind was racing, replaying the fight she had just seen and comparing it to what she had seen earlier that day.  Things weren't adding up.

      "I think … I think it might be a good idea if you tried breaking the counter-charm," she said.

      "So you've learned so much in three weeks that you can second-guess professors, Miss Summers?" Snape asked coldly.

      Buffy turned to glare at him, but she spoke to Flitwick.

      "I fought Pettigrew earlier tonight.  If I know anything about fighting, that wasn't him."

      "Really?"  Flitwick actually seemed curious, like someone solving an enjoyable puzzle.  "Why not?"

      "That thing you just showed us included sound, right?  Including from the cloaked person, because we heard his cry of pain, right?"

      "It did indeed," Flitwick said, with a subdued note of pride.

      "So why didn't we hear him chanting?"

      "Ah, yes, well.  Chanting isn't completely necessary to cast spells," Flitwick explained, as though giving a lecture to an advanced student.  "The words help you focus your energy before you get used to simply doing it, but eventually you start just thinking them to yourself, and then just doing it."

      "But it's harder, right?" Buffy asked.  "Not as powerful?"

      "Well, not usually, no," Flitwick agreed.

      Buffy's mind was racing back to when she had fought Oz as a werewolf in the Bronze, and a handful of other werewolves she had faced since then, and she did her best to translate it into this new world.  However, judging by what Flitwick had just showed her, Lupin was powerful and agile even for a werewolf, and he would have been less out of control than normal ones.

      "Professor," she asked, "Do you believe that Peter Pettigrew could have fought off Lupin without chanting?  I don't think I could have, and I beat Peter earlier tonight."

      "Don't get so cocky," Snape warned, but Flitwick's face was thoughtful.

      "Perhaps …" he mused.

      Buffy suddenly remembered that she had promised to meet Willow, who would have remembered that tonight was the full moon and was probably waiting for her in Slytherin Tower.  "Anyway," she said hesitantly.  "I promised Willow I'd meet her at eight to study … do you need me to stick around?"

      "Oh, I don't think so," Flitwick answered sagely.  "Go study."

      Buffy nodded and bolted for the Tower.

      Willow was waiting for her in their dorm room.  She looked up a Buffy as if to say, 'you're late,' but Buffy spoke before her friend could say anything.

      "You'll never believe what just happened," she breathed.

      Willow's eyes widened and her jaw dropped as Buffy explained what had happened.

      "So there could be another Death Eater inside the castle?"

      Buffy nodded.  "And one more powerful than Peter, if he can cast spells without chanting."

      "You know, I don't think that would be actually as hard as people here make it," Willow said suddenly.  "Everyone here just gets so used to doing it with words, and eventually they get to the point where they can't do it any other way, at least not without a lot of training, and usually only with a few spells that they use all the time."

      "Maybe we should try it then?  I mean, so we don't get used to it?"

      "I've been thinking that, too," Willow admitted.  "It's just that we've got so much to learn even with words."

      "It could be really useful, you know," Buffy said.  "In the real, non-classroom sense of the word."

      Willow nodded.  "Maybe next week," she said.  She looked up and grinned.  "But I like to think that I try to skip around to useful spells, too, you know, when we're practicing."

      "Did you already have something in mind tonight?" Buffy asked.

      "Seemed appropriate," Willow said, tossing a handful of notes down on the floor between them.  The bold heading read Locator Charms.

      "That works, too," Buffy said, a fierce note of approval in her voice.  "But wait … why don't the professors use these to find Peter?"

      Willow shrugged.  "Hogwarts is too big.  You'd have to be really powerful even just to locate something in Slytherin Tower without a piece of its essence, just working on a description or a picture.  If we get to the point where we can pinpoint missing socks in this room, we're doing good."

      Buffy grinned.  "Well let's get started, then."

                        *           *           *

      Buffy's sleep that night was troubled.  She saw Draco in a large, dark chamber, running around frantically, while an enormous stone face with cold, empty eyes looked on from the background.  Then she heard hissing, like Willow had done earlier, only darker and more sinister, and then it was Willow's voice, and each time a hiss came, Draco would cry out, then fall to the floor, then get up again with a look of determination and venom in his eyes, only to fall to the cold, wet stone again.  Then the scene changed, and she saw herself lying on a cold, stone bench, Draco standing over her, laughing evilly, and then it was not Draco but an older man with long, flaxen hair, dressed in regal attire, though the laugh was the same.  For some reason she felt that she wanted to hit him but found that she could not move her arms, or any other part of her body.  The man smiled, a smiled which quickly transformed from cold to lewd to ghastly, until it seemed his face became little more than a parched skull.  Buffy tried to scream but for some reason could not.

      She awoke, gasping, her bedsheets drenched with cold sweat.

            *           *           *           *           *

      AUTHOR'S NOTES:  Thanks again to everyone who reviewed the last chapter: Fate, Cousin Mary, tiny, Judith, ShadowElfBard, Carmen, Destiny's Dragon, raven, Peanut Gallery, Anne, ShawThang, Tiger Tiger2, NoAlias, Kandice, and Jedi Buttercup!  W00t!!  I'm not used to getting so many for one chapter … thanks!

      ShadowElfBard:  Don't worry, you'll definitely get your wish (to see Willow fight) eventually (and more than once). ;-)

      Judith:  You place me among select company comparing me to DKG and Lisette.  I'm honored.

      Raven:  After having read the most recent book, I agree with you, and I'm wondering if my reading of PoA was inconsistent.  My reading of that was that it was a short trip from Hogwarts to Hogsmeade, further than the station, so I had a short train trip from Hogwarts Station to Hogsmeade Station.  In the more recent books, however, it says that the children get off at Hogsmeade Station when they're going to Hogwarts.  I've been confused about this because, as far as I remember, the station was called "Hogwarts Station" or was at least not described as being within a village in the first three books.  The movie reinforced this perception … the station was pretty much right on the lakeshore.

      Suffice to say that for the purposes of this story, Hogwarts and Hogsmeade Stations are not far apart (certainly no more than a few miles), but are not one and the same.  It won't make a whole lot of difference as far as the story is concerned.  Hogsmeade is still situated within a fairly short distance of the castle as the crow (or broom) flies, but I figured it had to be far enough away to be out of sight (not just right across a lake, unless it was the size of a Great Lake) or it would be visible from the castle and hard to avoid at least mentioning in the first two books and the first half of PoA.  YMMV.

      Kandice: Bahamas cruise?!?!  I like you!!  I wish I had the time and/or money for something like that.

      COMING SOON:  Chapter 19, "Messages."  Buffy is not the only one having nightmares; Buffy has her Slayer dreams, but Willow is connected to the Heir, with all the dreams-of-the-Dark-Lord baggage that implies.

      SNEAK PREVIEW:

      "He lives, then?"

      "Well, yes, my lord, but …"

      Willow felt rage and frustration burn behind her eyes, and a cold desire to teach this witless creature a lesson in the consequences of failure.  "Crucio," she said.