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 24:
RECKLESS DREAMS
Buffy watched as Willow's tired form retreated out of sight, and waited for a few more minutes.
I'm good for a few more hours. Whatever, she thought. She was half dead on her feet. She was amazed that Willow hadn't noticed.
It was nearly seven o'clock. Hermione had said she'd be in by eight. That would give her one hour to work with if she succeeded, one hour to fend for herself if she failed, and one hour of sleep if nothing else happened. Lupin wasn't alone. The bedchamber was empty except for the two of them, but Madame Pomfrey was around, and she knew better than to think that the rest of the faculty would just leave him unguarded, not when his original attacker had been able to get into Hogwarts once. In addition, she'd never failed to wake up if danger approached her while she was sleeping … well, Angel had been able to, but he had been special.
She lay down, her head resting on Lupin's chest, and let sleep take her away, trying to concentrate on Lupin as much as possible before she did.
She was standing on a cold, stony plateau, splotched with scattered patches of trees and foliage. From the light and the sound, it had to be early morning. There was a light mist over the land, and she couldn't recognize it. Eventually, she realized that there was more to the image before her than just a natural mist, however.
I'm dreaming, Buffy realized.
I'm dreaming of a nature walk? she wondered a moment later.
She cast her eyes down at herself. She wasn't wearing her school robes, but she wasn't dressed abnormally. She certainly seemed to be herself.
Faint, ghostly flashes of light distracted her attention. She swung around, her wand suddenly in her hand, though she hadn't been holding it a moment ago and had no idea how it had gotten there. The lights were coming from a thick patch of trees almost a hundred yards away. Buffy began to run, but the lights faded as she approached. The lights came from another patch of trees a moment later, and Buffy ran towards them again a moment later, and once again, the lights faded as she approached. One of the trees seemed to be freshly blackened, as though recently hit with a spurt of fire, but no sign of fire or anything that might shoot fire was in sight.
The flashes came again, and this time, they were in the middle of a wide open part of the plateau; three quick bursts of red light, ghostly and faint, seeming to erupt from midair. She thought she had seen the faintest outline of a person for a moment, but then it was gone.
Buffy hurried to where the bursts of light had been coming from, and found a faint, barely-noticeable path on the ground. She wasn't sure what it was doing there; it didn't seem to go from anywhere or to anywhere, and it wound with no apparent reason, occasionally veering straight into obstacles instead of around them, but she followed it. It got more difficult as she went along, and for some reason the land around her seemed to grow darker as she did. Yet it also seemed to grow more solid, the misty feeling vanishing. She was heading down a hill, and the trees were growing thicker.
A moment later, she realized that the trees were not just getting thicker but were solidifying into the wooden wall of a building.
Stupid crazy dreamworld, she muttered to herself.
The sound of a train whistle reached her ears. The feel of the ground beneath her feet changed from packed forest earth to solid wooden planks, and a moment later, she found herself emerging in the familiar main terminal of Hogsmeade Station. Faint outlines of ghostly silhouettes appeared every now and then, the outline of some witch or wizard passing by, perhaps drifting at the edge of sleep as they walked, on their way to or from the trains.
"I'm dreaming," a weary voice next to Buffy suddenly spoke.
Buffy turned to see Draco Malfoy sitting on a bench next to her. "Um … no … actually, I think I am," Buffy observed.
Draco's eyebrows raised. There were faint, dark lines underneath his eyes here, but the piercing silver surrounding his irises was only accentuated by how ghostly everything else seemed in this place. Draco seemed almost as solid as in real life, almost as solid as Buffy herself here.
"Really?" he asked. "So you were dreaming of me?"
Buffy's face flushed briefly, but she steadied herself. "Not … actually," she managed. "I think I was looking for Lupin."
"Oh." Draco's voice was sad and weary again, and a lot of the usual fire and bite was gone from it. "I was really hoping you were dreaming of me."
Buffy's face flushed again. He's not real, Buffy reminded herself. Then, a moment later, Then why am I dreaming of a Draco that wishes I was dreaming of him? She forced that line of thought away from her mind; she didn't have time for this kind of thing at the moment.
Draco suddenly tensed, and quickly pushed himself to his feet. Buffy opened her mouth to say something, but realized that Draco wasn't looking at her; he was staring intently across the platform. Buffy followed his eyes, but only saw more misty shapes fading in and out of view. Her eyes narrowed. They were all indistinct, but one looked like a hazy image of Draco himself.
Suddenly, Buffy felt Draco's hand slide into her own and grip it tightly. "I really wish you were dreaming of me," he said. Buffy started and turned to look at him as he said that; that voice had sounded much more like his real one: lively, sharp, energetic. His form appeared a little more solid than it had a moment earlier, too.
The misty figures on the platform began to swirl and pulse as though disturbed by a rough wind, and the ambient light—it was too vague to call it sunlight—dimmed perceptibly. Several more figures appeared on the platform, the most distinct of which were two adult-sized and one child-sized one appearing near where the misty image of the other Draco was coming out of the terminal, and the swirling intensified. One of the adult-sized figures, more distinct than the other two, looked vaguely like a tall, dark-haired woman in a flowing black dress. There was a sudden mighty burst of orange, yellow, and red, and a rough wind suddenly erupted in Buffy's face.
"Down!" Draco hissed, suddenly wrapping his arms around her and throwing the two of them to the floor. The wind and the flash passed over them, and the feel of Draco's arms around her suddenly vanished, as did the warmth and the light of Hogsmeade Station.
Buffy roused herself, and was standing on a smooth, dark floor like polished obsidian. If there were walls nearby, she could not see them; the darkness around her was as thick as tar. There was no trace of either people or anything made by them in sight. The air was utterly odorless and silent save for the sound of her breathing.
At least I'm still breathing, she noted with a modest amount of satisfaction. That was always a good thing. Number one rule of Slaying. Don't die, she reminded herself.
"Hello?" she called softly. Her voice was absorbed by the darkness only a few steps from her lips.
"Lumos," she said. Nothing happened. She tried again, and once again, her wand might as well have been a stick in her hands. It was good to see that she still had her wand, and reached into her robes to find that she had a stake there as well. It was only then that she realized that she was somehow back in her school robes as well. She had no idea how either the stake or the robes had gotten there, but apparently whoever was costuming this scene had neglected to give her a flashlight.
Dammit, I need to see something, she thought.
The darkness in front of her faded slightly, as though a lane were opening up where her eyes were focused. That surprised her, and she took an instinctive step in that direction, but the darkness filled in again a moment later, and shifted with her so that she still had the same circle of vision around her.
She thought about that again for the moment, thought about what she had been doing and thinking the moment the darkness opened slightly.
Sight, she thought. I was thinking about seeing.
See, she concentrated. I want to see. Nothing happened. I need to see. She concentrated harder. You're not going to stand in my way, you blasted cloud. The darkness shifted again, and another lane opened up.
Lupin, she thought. I need to see Lupin. Now. The lane opened further, until she could see a black wall at the end of it. She moved forward toward it, and the darkness swirled around it again, and it vanished.
I need to see Lupin, she thought again. The lane opened again. She held the thought in her mind this time and approached the wall. She reached out an uncertain hand to touch the wall.
Immediately, the darkness around her shifted again, and she found that she could let go of her concentration and the wall remained.
All right, she said. So what is it?
It was a wall of some kind, that was certain, made of some black material that was neither wood, metal, or stone. It didn't look like it should even be solid, but it was. There were symbols on it, or in it, depending on how Buffy looked at them, that shone in the light … except that there was no light. An image of a wolf running on two legs, a regular wolf, a man, a complete set of the phases of the moon, a wand, a dog, a stag, a rat, a flaming bird, and a host of other symbols that Buffy didn't recognize.
She pushed on the wall. Nothing happened. She moved along it a few strides. The pattern of symbols repeated, then repeated again. There seemed to be no end to it. She returned her attention to the symbols themselves.
What am I looking for? she thought. I need to know. I need to see Lupin. I need to talk to him.
Suddenly, the images moved. Just a little, but enough to be obvious. Buffy concentrated harder, looking at that one.
"You need to find me," a voice suddenly whispered in Buffy's ear.
Buffy wheeled around. "Lupin? Lupin?!" There was no one there. She turned her attention back to the wall. The voice had been Lupin's, but distant and faint, like she was hearing his voice echoing up from the bottom of a canyon.
You need to find me, she repeated to herself.
"Well, they're all you, sort of," Buffy mused aloud. But a moment later, she realized that that was not entirely true. The rat certainly had a lot to do with him, but it wasn't him.
Her eyes centered on the image of the wolf running on two legs. As they did, the image seemed to brighten, and move towards the front of the wall, like an object rising to the surface of a pool.
"This is you," Buffy said aloud, putting her hand on the image.
The wall began to ripple like a pond disturbed by a shower of pebbles. Flecks of it began to chip away at the edges of Buffy's vision, and a large, mercurial piece of it clung to Buffy's hand as she moved to move it away. The symbols began to flash and swirl, briefly morphing into patterns that seemed to contain messages or significance of some kind, but then scattering away to re-form again.
The wall was weakening, Buffy realized. It had been like impenetrable glass before, and had felt as solid and deep as a mountain. Now, it was no more than sticky water, but more than that, it felt weaker. It felt thinner. Ready or not, here I come, she shouted inwardly as she lowered her shoulder and ploughed into the darkness.
The wall surged, and Buffy felt herself pushing through it like thick gelatin. Her hand, stretched out in front of her, felt a shift as it pushed through the far side of the wall. Then she was through.
She gasped, and cried out. She was on the plateau she had started on again, but it was night. Only it wasn't. There were at least twenty full moons in the sky, several setting over one horizon and several rising over the other. Lupin was in an enormous cage at the center of the plateau, and the cage was surrounded by as many dementors as there were moons in the sky. There was a woman there as well, on the far side of the cage, a tall, cold-eyed woman laughing shrilly. The air felt frigid, but Buffy knew that it was only her skin. She realized she had entered Lupin's dreams, but she could go no farther.
The despair was overwhelming; not her despair, Lupin's despair. She was reliving the worst memories of Lupin's life. She remembered times when she had almost gotten away from his friends at Hogwarts during the full moon, remembered reading reports in the paper of people being mauled and praying it wasn't himself, waking up in the Shrieking Shack with cuts, bite marks, and scars across his body, getting run out of wizarding communities across Europe, getting fired from Hogwarts. She was feeling his emotions, receiving his memories. For the first time, the idiocy of what she had done back in the Hogwarts Infirmary came into focus.
Suddenly, the woman at the far side of the cage looked up, and seemed to see her for a moment, and Buffy tensed. The sight of her touched a chord of memory in Buffy's mind somewhere, but the atmosphere here was so crushing that she couldn't concentrate. Then the woman looked again, and seem to dismiss whatever she had seen as a momentary trick of the light.
But then the world began shaking.
Moments later, she realized it was only her shaking, not the ground around her. Was she under attack? "Finite incantatem!" she cried.
"'Finite Incantatem' indeed!" a girl's indignant voice growled.
Buffy shook herself, and suddenly Hermione was there, and she was back in the Hogwarts Infirmary, her head just rising from Lupin's chest.
* * * * *
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.
"Bella," she said affectionately, a cold affection that came nowhere near to warming her heart. She appreciated Bella for her zeal, and for her loyalty. Those where what mattered to her.
The woman named Bella approached from the shadows. Her carriage was confident, far more than the two people Willow had seen previously. The light in her eyes was respectful, showing that she acknowledged Willow as her superior, but was not obsequious. Willow grinned coldly. She had always believed Bella to have the most potential among her followers.
"My lord," she acknowledged.
"You wished to speak with me."
"And I am grateful for the honor."
"Please ensure that it is not a waste of my time."
"Of course, my lord." She straightened. "I think the Slayer may be attempting to break into the wolf's dreams."
Willow tensed. Could the Slayer have such capabilities? It was possible. Little was known about the Slayer. Certainly none had ever been properly studied. This one had inhabited a Dark Node for most of her life, and it had been unlikely that she would ever leave it. Few lived long. The Summers girl was the first to even stay in one place for long; few took such risks. The Watchers' Council was a Muggle faction, and by convention, the Slayer had always been kept apart from the wizarding world. Dumbledore had broken a lot of traditions when he had brought her to Hogwarts, and would certainly have been criticized for it much more sharply had their not been a war brewing. There was little reputable scholarship on her. Yet her instincts and intuitions seemed to have an uncanny pattern of leading her in the right direction. Such a person could easily have dreams potent enough to do such a thing; she had been full of enough surprises already. One crushed and seven incinerated dementors' worth of surprises, at the very least.
"What do you think of another attack?" Willow asked.
Bella's brow furrowed. "It seems risky at this point, my lord. Dumbledore is not there now, which is good, but if Lucius' agent should fail …" she trailed off nervously, obviously wondering if she had made a mistake. Her confidence had its limits, it seemed, Willow thought.
"I do not espouse needless risks, Bella," she said, a faint smile touching the corners of her mouth.
"Of course not, my lord."
"If ten dementors fail, it is unlikely Lucius' agent would succeed. Lucius himself will take care of it. He is in a better position to succeed."
"Yes, sir."
Willow leaned forward. "Oh, yes, see if you can get access to the Malfoy family library. They have a repository of dream sorcery there."
Bella looked a little puzzled at that, but bowed her head in acquiescence. "Of course, my lord, though I am hardly a dreamweaver."
Willow grinned. Why am I grinning? I wish I knew. "With the Malfoy lore, you could be. It could help you keep the Slayer out of the wolf's dreams. Take a more direct hand if you must."
"Yes, my lord, but …"
"No buts, Bella," Willow interrupted fiercely. "Go."
"Yes, sir," Bella finished meekly, bowing her head and backing away into the dark.
Willow awoke and sat up. She stretched idly, wondering why on Earth she was awake; it couldn't have been more than an hour since she went to sleep, and she was still deathly tired. She rolled over, intent on going back to sleep, when the sound of running footsteps in the corridor outside reached her. A moment later, Buffy burst into the room.
Buffy caught her breath, and the two friends looked at each other for a few seconds.
"I just had the craziest dream," they both said at once.
* * * * *
Author's Notes: Draco may not be around for avid seekers of Buffy/Draco action, but that's nothing a little dream can't cure! This was my first chance at trying to work story elements into dreams, so sorry if it appeared a little cheesy. Nevertheless, however cheesy her intro, Bellatrix is now officially in the picture. Mwahahaha … drumroll please
lil badass: Thanks for the reviews (especially the ones from the earlier chapters); I'm not sure what I'm going to do with Origins, since I'm starting to think I should have separated it into two or three smaller stories than one planned mega-epic. I don't like leaving things unfinished, though, so I'll hopefully get back to that eventually.
Silver Warrior: The Prophet printing real news? You should know better. ;-)
Thanks again to everyone else who reviewed ch. 22, too! I forgot to mention that last time. It appears the Über-Buffy was a hit (she certainly left an impression on the dementors …)!
Coming Soon: Chapter 25, "Give Media Tension I Deserve." A reporter from the Daily Prophet begins to nose around Hogwarts. Hermione also starts asking a few questions of her own … and unlike the Prophet, she actually knows what she's doing. J
Hang with me a few more chapters … the action is going to start speeding up quite a bit pretty soon. (DragonKatGal, if you're still out there … no spoiling! :-P)
Sneak Preview:
Willow dove into the food with a vengeance as Buffy related everything she had heard from Snape, and then from Hermione. […]
"And now Hermione's getting really suspicious of us."
"So what do you think we should do?" Willow asked nervously.