DISCLAIMER: The characters aren't mine. I'm borrowing them from the esteemed Joss Whedon and J.K. Rowling. (For some reason I've been saying "Rawling" in every chapter up until this one … grr …)
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!
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CHAPTER 23:
NEWS
Willow fidgeted nervously as she boarded the boat to take her back across the lake. She had taken the early-morning redeye train to Hogwarts, so she hadn't had time to see the morning paper, but it would have been out by the time she arrived. She wondered what kind of reaction she would get. How much had been revealed? Snape had said some time ago that special efforts had been made to keep her name out of the paper, but she didn't see much way out of this one.
As the Hogwarts shore came into view, her eyes widened. Buffy was already waiting at the pier. She hadn't been planning on arriving until midafternoon.
"Um, hey," she said as the boat pulled in. Then she took in her friend's appearance. "Did you sleep at all?"
"It was a long night," Buffy said.
"How did you know I was coming?"
"I didn't, I saw you out of the infirmary window. I just flew down here."
"Oh, so this isn't about the paper?"
"The paper? Did Lupin's attack already get out?"
"Lupin's attack?! What?!"
"You didn't know?"
"No, I got on the train at four-thirty this morning!"
"Waitaminit … so you're referring to something else in the paper I should know about?"
Willow grinned sheepishly. The pain of the memory was fading. "Three things happened that probably would have made the paper, but I think only one will make it in."
"All right, should you tell me now, or should we get the paper first?"
"Wasn't there one in the infirmary waiting room?"
"I was in the sleeping quarters."
"You weren't …" Willow looked her friend over.
"No, but Lupin's in bad shape. I stayed up with him all night."
"Oh, Goddess."
Buffy nodded. "Come on."
"Are we going to the infirmary?"
"Yeah, I'm going to stay at least until breakfast."
They took side corridors up to the infirmary, and managed to avoid passing anyone they knew well; the fact that it was so early in the morning helped. Sure enough, there was a copy of the morning Daily Prophet already lying out on the table in the waiting room.
"Sure you're ready for this?" Willow asked.
"Are you?" Buffy asked, with a somber nod towards the sleeping quarters.
Willow grimaced.
Buffy spread out the front page. "Aw, man, you stole my front page!" she pouted.
"If I could give it back to you, I would," Willow promised.
A large picture on the front page showed the main room of the Atlantis, with wizards in important-looking uniforms shooing the cameraman back, sealing off the area, and talking to reporters in the corner. The headline read
Harry Potter Captures Peter Pettigrew
DIAGON ALLEY, LONDON — In a rare pleasant surprise over the last few years, the Boy Who Lived dueled tonight with four dementors and the illegal Animagus and recently-revealed Death Eater Peter Pettigrew, the traitor who faked his own death at the end of the last war with You-Know-Who. Pettigrew, who cut off his own thumb years ago in an attempt to frame Sirius Black, lost the rest of his arm in the fight to an enlarged piranha.
No witnesses were on hand for the fight at the Atlantis, one of the Prophet's top five dining establishments over the last three years,
"Top three!" the waiter in the picture shouted …
… and Magical Law Enforcement officials claim the entire room had been shielded against any Recall Charm. The last witnesses to leave the room claim to have seen Harry and a mysterious red-haired girl that they did not recognize behind them.
This incident has raised a lot of pressing questions. Foremost among them: who is this mysterious girl? A waiter who claims to have served the pair avows that the two ordered a private booth and that Potter picked up the check …
"That's their 'most pressing question?'" Willow gasped, tossing that page of the paper aside to avoid reading the rest of the article.
"Journalism at its best, it seems," Buffy said wryly. "Now you know what it's like to date a celebrity."
"Buffy, this isn't funny!" Willow cried. "The whole school is going to be looking at me now."
"Well, maybe not, since I think me, Ron, and Hermione were the only students here who knew where you were, so unless the teachers talk, people won't put two and two together until you tell them—but why is this something you'd want to hide?"
"Not hide, just … not be quite that public."
"Well, you're going to have to get used to it eventually, you know, especially when Harry comes back for the fall."
"I know, I know, but it's just … well, it's so new. And I never thought I'd ever date anyone famous, you know. Not a very Willow thing to do."
"Well, it is now," Buffy said with a smile. "And for what it's worth, I think you two are awesome for each other."
Willow felt herself blush, and she tried to think of a comeback, but her tongue tripped over itself. Eventually, she shrugged, and grinned sheepishly. "Well then, let's see what you've been up to without me here to keep you out of trouble."
"So cold," Buffy laughed as she flipped the paper open to the second page.
Missing Hogwarts Professor Found, Rescued
HOGWARTS – At nearly midnight on Tuesday night, Hogwarts Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor Remus Lupin reappeared at the edge of the Hogwarts grounds, hounded by a pack of dementors. Lupin, who taught at Hogwarts more than two years ago, was fired despite his incredible popularity among the student body because of concerns from some outside parties about the fact that he's … well, a werewolf. He was hired again shortly after the Ministry reversed its earlier statements and admitted that Vol … well, that You-Know-Who had risen again. As reported by the Prophet, he had been missing from his office since Saturday night after being attacked by a person or persons unknown.
No Hogwarts faculty have yet commented on the incident and the school had not released a statement by press time. Lupin is reportedly in critical condition in the Hogwarts Infirmary.
Be sure to check to check tomorrow's edition of the Prophet for more on this breaking story.
Willow's eyes were wide as she read it. "More dementors? What happened?"
"The paper actually got the details right," Buffy admitted. She proceeded to describe the previous night's events to Willow, right up to the part where she had used the Recall Charm to listen in on McGonagall's conversation with Madame Pomfrey.
Willow's eyes were even wider by the time Buffy had finished her story. "Wow," she whispered. "And here I thought I was going to be storyteller of the day."
"So what really happened?"
Willow shifted uncomfortably. There was going to be no easy way for her to say this, especially as Buffy had come to Hogwarts specifically to prevent what had just happened to her, but she had to know. There was no way she could hide it forever, and it wouldn't solve anything to do so.
"Buffy, those creatures … those dementors … when they get near you, they sort of … well …"
"They suck all the warmth and happy thoughts out of a person, and it gets worse the more of them there are, and the closer they get. And they make people relive the worst memories of their lives and all that?" Buffy finished, remembering Hermione's little lesson from the previous night. Then she froze, and Willow realized that her mind had made one of those intuitive leaps that the Slayer's mind seemed to make frequently … well, outside of class, anyway. The redheaded wiccan hung her head.
"I'm sorry, Buffy."
"Never mind," Buffy said dismissively. "What happened?"
"They showed up, and I'd never seen them before and I didn't know what was going on, and it felt like I was all alone, and I kept seeing Tara, and Dawn in that car, and Warren, and everything. It was so horrible …"
"Will, seriously, I don't mean to cut this like that, but what happened? What did you do?"
Willow took a deep breath. "I probably would have killed Peter if Harry hadn't stopped me."
"So you were the one fighting Peter?"
"Mostly," Willow confirmed. "Then Harry blasted the dementors away with this spell called a Patronus, and I blacked out at the same time. I woke up at Ron's brothers' shop, a few blocks away."
"So you didn't kill anyone."
"No."
Buffy breathed a sigh of relief.
"But Harry knows now. About me, I mean."
"How much did you tell him?"
"Pretty much everything."
Buffy's eyes narrowed. "And about me?"
"Well, I did leave that part out. But I did tell him about Dumbledore, Fudge, and Flamel delivering our letters in Sunnydale. I have a feeling the rest is going to get out before long, though," Willow finished morosely. It wouldn't take too long for a reporter sent to Sunnydale to find out about the Slayer. Enough people there knew.
"All right. As long as you didn't say … that."
"Oh, and I almost forgot," Willow said, a grin suddenly blossoming over her face. Not all the memories of that night had been horrible. "Harry really didn't mind."
Buffy's eyes brightened, and she smiled as well. "Did you …? Did he …?"
"Well, we didn't do anything," Willow explained loftily, but there was a spark in her eyes. "But we are. I mean, not that we are going to do anything, but we are … well …"
"Willow and Harry," Buffy grinned. "Will, that is so awesome."
"I know," Willow said with a laugh. "Goddess, I know. Even without doing … well, whatever … this was the best night I've had since Tara was alive." She sighed inwardly at that. She had always felt a brief surge of darkness within her whenever she said anything openly about Tara's death, and it was still there, but it was fainter than it had ever been, and had lost most of its frenzied edge.
"Except for the whole, well, dark-eyed and evil thing."
Willow grinned. "Well, yeah, except for that."
Buffy let out a breath, briefly ruffling her bangs. "Well, it sounds like our favorite rat-man was the only one really hurt there, so it could have been worse. So what I was going to originally ask … have you come across anything about dreams?"
Willow sighed. "It's a really obscure branch of Divination. That's about all I know so far. It wasn't even really related to anything we'd need to know for fall, so I hadn't really looked at it."
"Well, can you look anyway?"
"Of course," Willow answered. "By the way … can I see him?"
They had not moved from the waiting room. Buffy suddenly realized that Willow hadn't seen Lupin yet. "All right," she said. "But it's not pretty."
"I'll deal," Willow said as they walked into the sleeping quarters.
It wasn't as bad as Buffy's imagery had made it out to be; he really did look like he was sleeping. The wound at his neck had already been healed. He was extremely pale, and his breathing was shallow, but it was regular.
She looked up at Buffy. "I'll start looking for whatever I can find on dreaming," she said. "But we aren't supposed to know about this, so I'll have to be all cloak-and-daggery about it. I really ought to be warning you against this, but I think I've known you long enough to know how far that goes."
Buffy shrugged. "I get warnings in dreams all the time. Sometimes I think they do kind of mix with other peoples'. I've just never thought about practicing it before."
Willow yawned. "All right, I'll get started this afternoon, but I desperately need to get some sleep, I'm sorry."
As if cued by Willow's yawn, Buffy yawned as well. "All right," she acquiesced. "It's been a long night for me, too, but I'm good for a few more hours." She flexed her arm and pointed to her bicep as if to imply, Slayer strength. "Hermione said she'd be by after breakfast, so I'll come up then. I don't think I should leave him alone."
Willow nodded and gave Lupin's hand a tight squeeze as she excused herself. She navigated her way back to her bedroom, and was asleep before her head touched the pillow.
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Author's Notes: Buffy and Willow have their first taste of fame in the wizarding world, even if they weren't identified … this was mostly a setup and transitioning chapter, getting set for:
Coming Soon: Chapter 24, "Reckless Dreams." Buffy and Willow both manage to find themselves in other peoples' dreams. Not always a fun place to be. (No, guys, that's not really them showing up in your real dreams … :-P)
Sneak Preview:
Willow was in the same chair she had been in her previous dream. In her chair, she corrected herself. Where had that stray thought come from? Time to deal with that later.