DISCLAIMER: The characters aren't mine. I'm borrowing them from the esteemed Joss Whedon and J.K. Rowling.
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 25:
GIVE MEDIA TENSION I DESERVE
"So the same woman shows up in both dreams," Buffy said as Willow finished talking.
"Bella. Who I'm guessing is Bellatrix Lestrange," Willow added.
Buffy cocked an eye at her. "Is this someone I should know?"
"One of Voldemort's top hench … women? Is there such thing as a henchwoman? Anyway, she killed Harry's godfather," Willow finished grimly.
Buffy's eyes widened, and she put a hand to her mouth. "Oh my gosh."
"He mentioned her last night. This morning, actually, I guess. Goddess, I can't believe it's only been a few hours."
"Yeah, why did you leave early?" Buffy asked. She hadn't had time to ask that amid all the earlier excitement.
Willow shrugged. "Harry had to leave—actually, he was already kinda late getting back to his uncle's hotel back in Muggle London, since they had to go back to Surrey this morning. Not much reason for me to stay, really."
Buffy nodded. That made sense, particularly if there was a chance that these dementor creatures were after her. They didn't seem to go into the Muggle world; she'd never even run into them in Sunnydale.
"All right, well, Hermione's with Lupin now," she said. "I'm hitting the sack, if it's all the same to you."
"Mmmph," Willow responded, flopping back down on her pillow. Buffy leaned over her. She was already asleep. Well, from the sound of things, she had earned it.
Buffy pointed her wand at the door. She was fading quickly herself, but one last little necessity to take care of.
"Colloportus," she sighed, sealing the door. It seemed like forever, but it had only been hours since the Prophet had hit the newsstands. If anyone wanted to interview either of them, they'd have to bring a battering ram. There would be time for questions later. As an afterthought, she added a Silencing Charm, just in case anyone felt insistent enough to bang on the door to wake them up. They could bang away until she woke up on her own good time.
Buffy climbed into bed and stared at the ceiling. It had been a long day, and a long night, and even a long morning, though the sun was barely above the horizon, although it rose early this far north in the summer. Despite that, and despite worrying about Lupin and his nightmares, she felt good. She could still feel the warm afterglow of the battle spirit she had touched that night. It had felt good to fight again, to let loose a little. It had been four days since her duel with Peter.
She grinned at the ceiling, Ollivander's words coming back to her as they had that night. Quite a fighter's wand to begin with. I do hope you stay out of trouble at school.
Hey, only two fights and two rescues in four weeks, she thought, still smiling. Vacation, all things considered.
Within minutes, she had drifted into a peaceful slumber, undisturbed by dreams, either her own or anyone else's.
Buffy stretched languidly as she awoke. There was not a sound in the room besides the soft, steady rhythm of Willow's breathing on the bunk below. She opened her eyes sleepily. From the sun, it looked to be at least mid-afternoon. Her sleep cycle was going to be shot, but she hadn't gotten so much sleep in a long time. Physically, she felt better than she had in weeks.
Lupin's condition still ate at the back of her mind, however, so after a long shower and a welcome change of clothes … she couldn't believe she had gone to bed looking and smelling like that … she took her broom, slipped softly out of the bedroom, and headed for the roof of Slytherin Tower.
Snape was waiting for her.
Damn, she thought. Just what I need.
She must have given something away in her face, because the Slytherin Head of House's face twisted in a wry smirk.
"You don't appear happy to see me, Miss Summers," he greeted her. "Perhaps you were hoping to find Mr. Creevey?"
"Mr. who?"
He looked at her askance, apparently trying to gauge whether or not her ignorance was genuine. "Mr. Creevey is an investigative reporter from the Daily Prophet, Miss Summers," Snape explained patiently. "He is looking to get some … alone time … with you."
Buffy wrinkled her nose at the images that conjured up, but her stomach sank. Much as she had always wanted a little appreciation for what she did, this was neither the time nor the place—and somehow, she doubted this Mr. Creevey was here to give her another Class Protector award.
"So get rid of him," she said. "He's got no business here."
"Well said, Miss Summers, well said indeed. In fact, that idea is so brilliant we ourselves even thought of it. Unfortunately, school rules mandate that parents be allowed to visit their children during regular school hours. Mr. Creevey has a son in the fifth year in that tower over there," Snape gestured towards Gryffindor Tower, "and therefore we cannot … get rid of him until seven-thirty tonight, when the last regular classes end."
"Wonderful."
"Mr. Creevey is much less important a figure at the Prophet than he would certainly like to think, however," Snape continued. "As I told you some time ago, the Ministry and Hogwarts have both been exerting influence there to keep you out of the papers. You, however, seem determined to make that exceptionally difficult for us."
"Well, I'm sorry," Buffy began, then stopped herself. "Or actually, I'm not. Lupin was in trouble."
"Indeed he was," Snape said, with clearly mixed feelings. Buffy bristled. Snape continued, "but yours was actually not the important story in the Prophet. If you'll note, your name was kept out of it, and the details kept to a minimum, despite several of our more … exuberant … young Gryffindors spilling all manner of fantastic stories about you to the good paper's reporter."
"Right," Buffy said. "So this is about Willow."
"Sharp, for an American," Snape observed dryly. "But what concerns Miss Rosenberg also concerns you."
"Sure."
"So you need to hear this as well. The Prophet, of course, had no idea that Willow Rosenberg was indeed the 'mysterious red-haired girl' about whom they were reporting—if you can call what they do that."
"So they printed it."
"Precisely. And now there is going to be a great deal of scrutiny on the school from sources other than the Prophet. All things concerning our young Mr. Potter tend to attract … attention."
"You were going to say 'trouble.'"
Snape grinned mirthlessly. "You are sharp for an American."
"So what am I in for? Or is she?"
Snape's grin, humorless as it was, vanished. "As of right now, the only people that know of the … relationship … between Miss Rosenberg and Mr. Potter are the teachers at this school, a few of Potter's close lackeys, …"
"… I think he'd call them friends," Buffy interjected.
"… and anyone the two of you might have told," Snape finished pointedly.
Buffy thought for a moment. So that's what this was about. They wanted to know who else was in on the loop. She sighed.
"Draco knows," she said. "But I don't think he told anyone else before he left."
"I see."
"If anyone else knows, I don't know. I didn't tell anyone. Draco just saw. But the dementors got away, they could have told anyone working for … for Voldemort," she finished. She wasn't going to stoop to that infantile 'You-Know-Who.'
"Quite right, Miss Summers, quite right. They're blind and mute, by the way, but He Who Must Not Be Named still has ways of communicating with them, or he could not have enticed them to his side. Even he cannot communicate with them well. But this is not about them, or Him, strange as that may seem. He already knows about Miss Rosenberg, as you should recall, or we never would have brought the two of you here."
"Right …" Buffy processed that. "So what is this about?"
"As I said, Miss Summers, our aspiring paparazzi Mr. Creevey is at Hogwarts at this very minute. He is asking questions. It would be better if he did not get answers."
Buffy nodded. If someone discovered that Willow was dating Harry, then they'd want to know everything about the mysterious girl who snagged the wizarding world's most eligible sixteen-year-old mop-haired bachelor. That spelled trouble and every other word related to it. "So what should I do, besides not talk to him?"
"Just that, for the moment. It's good that you didn't tell anyone. I'll write to Mr. Malfoy this morning."
"All right then."
Snape grinned again. "Actually, you've chosen a good way to leave the Tower. It's likely our good Mr. Creevey is watching the main egress."
"The what-grass?"
"The exit."
"Well why didn't you just say so?"
"I just did."
"Anyway," Buffy brushed that aside, "anything else?"
"No, Miss Summers. Just take care with what you do and what you say."
"You know, I do know a thing or two about keeping secrets," she retorted pointedly.
"Of course, Miss Summers. See that you remember that."
Buffy nodded, and kicked off. Her mood had been sorely soured, but after a few minutes in the air, she started to feel better again. She made a mental point to herself not to let Snape, or a nosy reporter, get her down. However, she was growing uncomfortably curious about what others might have said. Snape had said Mr. Creevey had a son in Gryffindor, most of the students who knew about Willow and Harry were Gryffindors, and, much as she hated to stereotype the Houses, the Gryffindors seemed to be the worst of all the Houses at keeping secrets. They were all too honest.
She found herself spiraling closer to the library.
"'evening, Buffy," Hermione greeted with a knowing smile as Buffy approached. "You're not the one I expected to see here."
"I guess I'm not really the library type, much," Buffy admitted.
"Did you want to talk to me, then?"
"Well … yeah, kind of."
"I rather thought so," Hermione stated smugly, as though she had solved a great puzzle. She rose from her desk, and the two of them headed out to a little-used side corridor near the library.
"I heard about Creevey's dad coming to visit," Buffy said simply.
"Visit. Snoop. Whatever," Hermione said.
"So he has been asking questions about Willow."
"Well, no, because he doesn't know about Willow. But I think he'd really like to."
"Yeah, I kinda figured."
"We haven't told him anything."
Buffy breathed a sigh of relief.
"Ginny, Ron, and I are the only ones who know. They all understand. I had to do a little explaining, but I think they get it. Not even Seamus or Neville know."
"Are you sure they wouldn't … well, do you think they might slip sometime, if Mr. Creevey's son …"
"Colin," Hermione interrupted.
"Right, if Colin started asking?"
"I don't think so," Hermione sighed. "Though it's always a risk."
"Well, I guess … I guess you'd know better than me," Buffy finished diplomatically. She wasn't sure she entirely believed that. Ron in particular did not seem like the best keeper of secrets.
Hermione laughed. "I can tell you're worried," she said, "but don't be. McGonagall talked to all of us last night in the common room right after we left the hospital wing—mostly about not talking about what happened to Lupin, but she talked to the three of us afterward. That was why she had you take first shift over Lupin."
Buffy breathed another, deeper, sigh of relief. The woman was sharp.
"So we aren't talking," Hermione continued. "But … do you want to tell us why?"
Buffy started. "Uh, I'm sorry … what?"
Hermione's eyes narrowed. They had been walking gradually farther from the library, and Hermione drew Buffy into an unused classroom, checking to make sure that no one was watching first. Buffy already had a bad feeling about where this was leading. She had never seen Hermione act like this.
Hermione pulled out her wand.
Buffy instinctively put her hand on hers, though she did not draw if from within her robes, and Hermione raised her other hand placatingly.
"Shh," she said. "Retrosurveilus." There was a light rush in the air, but nothing else happened. Hermione gave a satisfied nod, and put her wand away a moment later. "Checking to see if anyone's listening. It's better than a Silencing Charm, because people can sense Silencing Charms active, so even if they don't know what's being said, they know people are talking about things they want to keep private. The Counterespionage Charm is over and done with instantly, so no one walking by from here on will sense magic active."
Buffy's eyes widened. "Wow, check out spy girl."
"Thanks," Hermione said. "But seriously. You aren't exchange students. Willow told us neither of you never even picked up a wand before coming to England. Your first time flying, and you fly as well as Harry, maybe even better. Three weeks later, you're fighting a Death Eater and winning. A few days after that, you pull off the Flaming Flood. Ron told me you carried Lupin like he was weightless—and I know he's kind of scrawny, but he's a grown man. Last night, both of you did something incredible, and the teachers all run around for the next few hours trying to keep it out of the papers. From the amount of details kept out of your story in the paper, I can only guess what kind of details have been kept out of hers … especially because one of the first things that happened afterwards was getting a warning from McGonagall not to talk about anything about Harry and Willow. I hadn't even heard about the Atlantis yet, but I now see that McGonagall must have."
"It was an attack on Harry," Buffy pointed out, though she had a feeling she was fighting a losing battle here. Hermione had Willow's intelligence and seemed to have Buffy's detective sense. "That kind of word would spread quickly, wouldn't it?"
"Certainly," Hermione said. "It's tempting. It would be nice to simply accept the paper. Harry defeated Peter and four dementors. He's strong enough to do that. I watched him defeat a hundred. But that still doesn't add up.
"I was with Harry the night we captured Peter. Harry had just figured out that Peter had betrayed his parents, and still wanted to take him alive. That piranha stunt is not his style at all. Also … why didn't Harry stay? Harry would have loved to capture Peter. If he'd done it, he'd have stayed. This story is all witness accounts. No one saw the actual fight. But Harry had to have been gone by the time the Department got there, or they'd have made him and Willow stay, and the Prophet would have gotten their photographs. So Harry defeats Peter, leaves the scene of the battle, and before the paper even breaks the story, I'm getting a speech about not telling anyone anything about it? Think of the resources involved here … the Ministry chose not to investigate why Harry left the scene of the fight. Details were kept out of the paper. McGonagall found out about it within hours, maybe even less.
"I could go on," Hermione said, her voice gaining heat, "but there's already more complete rubbish here than there ever was in Trelawney's class."
"I get the picture," Buffy admitted. Her mind was racing. How in the world was she going to explain this?
"Good. That makes one of us," Hermione said pointedly.
Buffy took a deep breath. Willow had told Harry everything about herself. Harry probably didn't intend to tell even Hermione, but Hermione was probably going to figure it out herself before too long, if she had figured out all this in one day.
Her mind drifted back to a conversation she had had with Draco on the train to Hogwarts. It was as good a place to begin as any. "My hometown was on a Hellmouth … I think you call it a Dark Node," she began.
Hermione's eyes narrowed. "I see."
"So I'd seen magic, and learned to deal with … unexpected things … and dangerous creatures, before I came to England."
Hermione thought about that for a moment. "I believe you," she said at length, "but it still doesn't explain the whole cover-up. The teachers telling us you're exchange students when you aren't. The papers hiding everything about you. Harry risking Peter escaping in order to get him—and, more importantly, Willow—away from the scene."
Buffy sighed again. This was not good.
Hermione's eyes suddenly widened, and an amicable smile crossed her face. "Yes, well, the Patronus Charm isn't something you can just pick up out of a book. It takes a lot of work. Harry's been trying to show me how to work it for some time now, but it takes more than just channeling power and chanting 'expecto …'"
"Hermione?!" Buffy hissed softly, but before Hermione even had a chance to give any kind of explanation, the door of the classroom creaked open, admitting the stern figure of Professor McGonagall.
"Ah, Miss Granger," the professor greeted.
"Oh, professor," Hermione acknowledged. "Um … were you looking for me?"
"Actually, I was looking for Miss Summers," McGonagall responded. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to steal her from you for a little while. I understand your wanting to learn the Patronus," she said, turning to Buffy, "and with Harry gone and Lupin … well, Hermione is probably the best student to teach it, but you can practice it later. I won't keep you too long, I promise."
"Of course, professor," Hermione said matter-of-factly.
Buffy had to concentrate to keep her eyes from widening. Hermione had to have been using some kind of spell to augment her hearing. She had heard the professor approaching before even Buffy's heightened senses could have. Her first impression of Hermione had been that the girl had been quiet, bookish, even a little naïve. Even the other Gryffindors had said that they didn't always understand how Hermione hadn't ended up in Ravenclaw. She reminded herself never to forget that Hermione was a Gryffindor, not a Ravenclaw, and the Sorting Hat had to have had a reason for putting her in the martial house.
"I'll be in the library until dinner," Hermione mentioned as she excused herself.
"Right, thanks," Buffy said absently. Hermione vanished from the room.
McGonagall waited until Hermione had had a chance to get some distance away, then turned to Buffy.
"Has Professor Snape already talked to you?" she asked.
"Yep. I got the whole lecture," Buffy answered.
"Good," McGonagall replied, "Fortunately, I believe Mr. Creevey has been able to take a hint. Quite surprising, actually. I think he will spend the rest of his visiting day here, but I do not believe he will return to bother you. Or us."
"Wow," Buffy answered simply. She cocked an eyebrow at McGonagall. "You didn't turn him into a newt or something, did you?"
"Certainly not," McGonagall replied stuffily. "Such things are completely against school rules. And I am not Professor Moody."
"Sorry," Buffy answered.
"Fortunately, in a way, anyway, there is a war brewing. So I was able to convince him that Dumbledore did not want any reporters in the castle, or information about anything that goes on here—particularly about Harry—to get out. Mr. Creevey, fortunately, is a strong supporter of Dumbledore and a former Gryffindor."
"Lucky us."
"Indeed. This time, anyway. However, I also came to say that it might be a good idea if you passed on dinner tonight. Mr. Creevey will spend the rest of the day here with his son, but if he were to happen to see you at dinner … well, his reporter's instincts might just get the better of his good judgement."
"Oh … OK," Buffy answered.
"Oh yes, and in all the excitement yesterday, I nearly forgot. Ten points from Slytherin for illegal entry into the Forbidden Forest." She was smiling, however, and Buffy held her tongue this time. "And another sixty points to Slytherin for saving the soul of a professor and a veteran soldier we're going to need in the months ahead." McGonagall sighed, as though she couldn't believe the words coming from her own mouth.
Buffy grinned. "Thanks, professor," she said.
* * * * *
The sun was already setting as Willow awoke, and she still felt she had run a marathon. For the sun to be setting already this far north, it had to be after nine. She had slept for upwards of thirteen hours. With a low groan, she realized she had managed to miss breakfast, lunch, and dinner in one fell swoop. And I didn't even get a doggie box yesterday, she thought wryly as she rolled up into a sitting position.
Buffy was seated at the desk on the far side of the room, scribbling away on a piece of parchment, but the sunny-haired Slayer put it down as soon as she saw that Willow was awake.
Willow gave her friend a wry grin. "I guess I was kinda tired."
Buffy grinned. "Well, hope you didn't get too much rest, 'cause it's almost bedtime."
Willow yawned. "Don't worry. I'll need it. Keeping in touch?"
"I guess so," Buffy sighed wearily. "This whole letter-writing thing is a royal bitca, but it actually has a kind of old-fashioned British charm to it after a while."
"You're writing? Who are you and what have you done with my friend?"
Buffy chuckled. "I know. Pretty soon I'll be moving up to bad poetry."
"Does this happen to be on its way to a certain silver-eyed faraway prince?"
Buffy sighed. "Am I that obvious?"
"No, I'm just your best friend."
Buffy smiled. "I was just sort of thinking I should tell him I dreamt about him, but then it just sort of grew, and now I sound all mushy and fuzzy like I'm back in high school for real again and I'm basically just babbling on paper."
Willow gave Buffy a knowing grin. She had been feeling the same way; she had a sneaky suspicion that the change back to teenagers had done something to their hormones. "Life is short? Seize the moment?" she prodded with a grin.
Buffy rolled her eyes. "Hey, it was supposed to be good advice …"
Willow chuckled. When she had actually been sixteen, she would have never believed she could laugh about a near-death experience, but she had had so many more since that first night of taking Buffy's advice at the Bronze—and getting a dramatic introduction to the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer for it—that there was really nothing else one could do but laugh at those kinds of things now. "Exactly. You don't want to miss days. Except when doing so allows you to catch up on much-needed sleepage."
Buffy laughed. "Well, on the bad side, you did miss dinner. And lunch, and breakfast, for that matter. But on the plus side, you missed some serious lectures by Snape and McGonagall. Especially Snape."
"Ick. I think I'm going back to sleep."
"You wanna eat something first?"
"What? Didn't you say I …"
"I had to skip dinner, too. A house-elf brought up some food. It's a little cold by now, but it should still be all right. The elf worked some kind of elfy mojo on it to keep it all the right temperature." Buffy pointed towards a small tray near the door, bearing a modest portion of vegetarian lasagna, garlic bread, and tomato juice.
"Sold," Willow replied greedily, putting a hand on her grumbling stomach as she pulled herself out of bed.
"Thought you might like that," Buffy commented affectionately.
Willow dove into the food with a vengeance as Buffy related everything she had heard from Snape, and then from Hermione. Willow had long since finished her food by the time Buffy had finished her story, ending with a brief note about McGonagall's interruption.
"Wow. Heavy stuff," Willow breathed as Buffy finally fell silent. She had managed to miss a lot in one day, it seemed.
"No kidding. I just sent an owl to Giles explaining, just in case anyone starts poking around Sunnydale. Besides, I hadn't sent him mail in a while."
"Good idea," Willow said, with a momentary pang of guilt that she hadn't sent anything in weeks, not since a few days after they'd arrived. It wasn't that she didn't miss them, she had just been always horrible about writing letters. In fact, she reflected, she'd never been the best at communicating in general.
"And now Hermione's getting really suspicious of us."
"So what do you think we should do?" Willow asked nervously.
"I wasn't going to without asking you first, but she's one of Harry's best friends, and I think she's going to figure it out whether we tell her or not. I think we should tell her. At least a little bit."
Willow sighed. There was more than enough truth to that. However, she had spent more time with Hermione than Buffy had, and Buffy's guess was more than spot on. It was an understatement. Hermione wasn't just the smartest girl in her grade. She was the most brilliant student Hogwarts had seen in more than five decades, according to McGonagall, who was generally sparing with her praise.
"I think we might want to think about skipping to explaining why we didn't tell her in the first place."
"Meaning?"
Willow lay back on her bed and began going through the mental routine she had learned over the years to relax herself. She trusted Hermione nearly as much as Harry, especially because she was such a close friend of Harry's, but Willow had a feeling that they weren't going to need to worry about telling Hermione about themselves by morning.
* * * * *
The moon was rising high above the horizon outside the windows of the restricted section of the library when Hermione finally slammed the last of the books in front of her closed and lay back with a weary breath. She checked the clock on the wall. It was after one. She had been here for close to six hours now. Even with Speedreading Serum, her access to the restricted section, and one special tool that few people at Hogwarts knew she possessed, it had taken a long time to find anything. North America was a wasteland as far as most European wizards were concerned, and while anyone who wanted to study it there was free to travel there whenever they wished, very few wizards did. Nevertheless, there was no better library of magical learning in the world than Hogwarts. It had taken a lot of time and energy, and some expensive ingredients, but she had not come away empty. Far from it. In fact, if her brain could have absorbed any more, she was sure that she could have kept on going until morning. Or longer.
Buffy had said that she had come from California. Earlier that evening, she had admitted to living on a Dark Node. As it had turned out, there were actually two of those in California, even though there were only three in the United States.
Cleveland, of course, was the third. That had hardly been a surprise.
A bit more surprising, though far from the greatest of the surprises that Hermione Granger had absorbed in the last few hours, was that Buffy Summers had lived in both of the others.
Los Angeles and Sunnydale were both largely part of the Muggle world, and even Hogwarts had very little in its library in the way of Muggle Studies. Hermione had an advantage over most of her wizarding competitors, however, that she had seldom used at Hogwarts. It had taken her four years to develop an eldritch balancing field capable of protecting it against the normal effects of Hogwarts on such objects. She was staring at the monitor of it at the moment, at an image of Buffy Summers from the Sunnydale High School Web site.
Class of 1999.
Her clock didn't tell years, but she was fairly certain it was 2002. Someone in the sixth year at Hogwarts should not have already graduated high school in the Muggle world.
She clicked that picture away as well, revealing another result, even stranger, from the Sunnydale Reporter of May 23rd, 2001.
"Funny," Hermione wondered aloud as she shut down her laptop. "She doesn't look dead to me."
* * * * *
A/N: Hermione the super-sleuth on the prowl!
Before anyone comments, it's been a while since I've read the books but I don't remember where, if ever, it said that electrical appliances don't work at Hogwarts. If there never was any such interference, then Hermione obviously never needed to do that little research project to find a way to shield her laptop, but then again, she might have done some pointless research just for the heck of it, anyway …
CharmedChick … I completely forgot the man with the cheese! Bloody hell. He definitely needed to show up somewhere. Maybe I'll work in another dream scene with an appropriate cameo.
Thanks also to ShadowElfBard, Peanut Gallery, pure insanity, Jadez Fire, DragonStar, Tiger Tiger2, Chrios, Silver Warrior, organized-chaos, Jedi Buttercup, ShawThang, and Kandice; you guys rock and are a real help in actually getting the gumption to keep writing and finish a work like this.
(Toast to fanfiction.net!)
To the rest of you wondering if it were "really" Draco that Buffy encountered in her dream … knowing grin … :-D
Coming Soon: Chapter 26, "Another Invitation." A little bit more lighthearted of a chapter as Buffy and Willow respond to Hermione confronting them with typical Scooby aplomb. Also, Buffy receives a little invitation to Malfoy Manor.
Sneak Preview:
"So … what's the what?" Buffy began lightly.
Hermione let out a breath, then another, then another. Then she smiled, and she shook her head resignedly as she took a seat beside Willow. "I wish I could tell you," she said. "But I got tired right about the time I found out that you died. That looked like a good stopping point."
"It is for most people," Buffy agreed lightly.