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!

      CHAPTER 36:

      REUNITED

      Willow knelt on a soft pad on the floor in front of her bed, breathing deeply.  It was taking a titanic act of self-control to keep her meditation going; there was far too much trying to run through her mind and disrupt the energy flows within her.

      She was practicing a mystically-enhanced brand of circadian meditation that she had learned from volume eight of Constant Vigilance; it had been a godsend to her over the two weeks since she had read it, allowing her to get the benefit of eight hours' sleep in three and remain at least partially alert to her surroundings the entire time.  However, she was finding it harder now than she had since her first night of trying.  It actually took quite a bit of concentration to think about nothing, and that was far more difficult that normal this morning.

      Dumbledore, it's three a.m., don't you ever sleep?

      Of course not, but that's a different story.

      She banished the wayward memory and forced herself to focus on her own essence, gradually, carefully resetting the flows and weaves that had been disrupted by the previous day's practice.  She and Tara had actually begun practicing something similar during their last year together, though they had never gotten as far.  With a mental flinch, she forced that memory and the baggage that went with it from her mind as well.

      She finally set the last flows in place and emerged from her trance, letting her energy settle.  Her shoulders slumped forward for a moment, and a warm, refreshing glow spread through her.  A lazy smile spread across her face.  That afterglow had always been the best part of the meditation.  She stretched languidly and purred softly.

      "Welcome back," Squiggles greeted her.

      "Mmm," she responded lazily.

      "It took sssomewhat longer today, yesss?"

      "I guess so," she answered.  "Though, all things considered, today, I'm surprised it didn't take …" her eyes suddenly widened in horror as a bell tolled in the distance.  It was already seven!  Breakfast was being served, and Harry's train would have already arrived!  The early-morning Express was timed to give people a chance to make it to breakfast at Hogwarts if they wanted.  She muttered a curse, quickly cast her Dressing and Grooming Charms, and bolted from the room, giving a quick farewell to Squiggles on her way out the door.

      She forced herself to walk slowly as soon as she reached the Slytherin common room, as from that point on, there was a fairly consistent flow of students toward the Great Hall, and she had a feeling they would all know something was up if she seemed to be in too much of a hurry.  Nonetheless, forcing herself to walk at a normal speed … well, all right, faster than normal but far slower than she wanted … was torture.  Her first instinct had been to fly down the great stairwell to the Entrance Hall.

      Eventually, she reached the Great Hall, and cast her eyes on Harry for the first time since that night at Diagon Alley.  He was already seated at the Gryffindor table, though he seemed to sense when she was entering the room somehow, because he looked up from his table and looked her in the eyes only seconds after she came into view.  Her heart lurched, but she was forced to give a helpless shrug and drag herself over towards her own table.  He gave her a shrug in answer, though his for some reason didn't seem as pained as hers felt, but she guessed that could just be her imagination.

      A few minutes passed, and Willow had only begun to pick at her food.  Food was the last thing on her mind at the moment.  She couldn't even get a look at Harry; the Gryffindor table was packed solid around him, with several students standing in the aisles behind him and across from him as well, welcoming him back and listening to his horror stories about his summer with the Dursleys.

      "Not hungry?" a gruff voice asked from beside her.  Willow turned, startled, as Professor Moody sat down next to her.  She had been concentrating so hard across the room that she had completely missed the sound of his wooden footfalls approaching.

      "You can have mine, if you want it," Willow answered wryly.

      "I already had a dozen turkey links, six eggs, four biscuits, two oranges, and half a gallon of milk.  I'll be all right until lunch."

      "That's nice."  That was more than Willow usually ate in two days.

      "Did you finish?"

      Willow sighed.  "Yeah, I stayed up late last night finishing the last one.  Couldn't really sleep anyway, and the circadian trance wasn't exactly working like it's supposed to, either."

      "You did arrive a little later than I expected."

      "Yeah, I finished just a minute before the bell sounded."

      "Ah, well.  This is my last day, you know."

      "So I've heard."

      "I think you're going to do fine here."

      Willow smiled, and turned to look at him at last, then.  She had still been watching Harry, or where Harry would have been were he visible through the crowd.  She shrugged shyly.  "Thanks," she managed.

      Moody looked into her eyes and held them, then, and his words flashed through her head without the need for him to move his lips, just as Dumbledore's had days earlier: And don't a'think he's a'forgotten about you, lassie, the thought came.  Don't even be a'thinkin' it for a minute.

      Willow smiled, and couldn't suppress a laugh.

      A flutter of wings overhead announced the arrival of the morning mail.  Willow didn't bother to look up; Harry was back at school, now, so it wasn't really likely she would be receiving anything.  Thus, she started when an owl floated down in front of her and dropped a pair of letters beside her plate.

      "Looks like your invitation's finally here," Moody observed, noting the first letter, much thicker than the second, which more an ornate crest with a calligraphic 'M' in the center.  The scarred professor quickly tossed the owl a few pieces of diced ham to send it on its way.

      "Guess I'm on the guest list after all," Willow observed, sliding open the letter and reading it.  It was not personalized, but the invitation itself was as ornate as the envelope, written in elegant letters of brilliant silver on Egyptian papyrus.  She smiled.  Well, it had been a little late in coming, so she wasn't exactly going to get any status out of it, but at least she felt a little more important again.

      The second letter had no return address.  Willow eyed it carefully, and actually scanned it for enchantments before slipping it open.  Her eyes widened.

      It was from Harry.  He had to have sent it the previous night, just in case.

      Willow,

      If you're ready for everyone to know about us, wait for me by the door of the Hall.  I'll be there.  If not, I guess I'll see you in the library.

      Passion,

      Harry

      "Interesting," Moody said slyly from beside her.

      "You were reading?!" Willow asked, stunned, and a little offended.

      Moody pointed at his magical eye.  "I can't help it sometimes.  But the look on your face would have been 'interesting' enough."

      Willow squirmed uncomfortably.

      "Anyway," Moody said, rising to his feet.  "I told you.  Oh, and could you stop by my office later for some last-minute things?"  He left it unsaid that he was going to want his books back; Willow knew him well enough by now to get the point, but he was cautious enough not to reveal that she had been borrowing and reading his books.  With a casual farewell, Moody clunked off back towards the teachers' table.

      Willow took a few deep breaths, and made up her mind.  He was back.  She had promised herself and promised herself that she was not going to keep up this masquerade once he was back, and she was not going to allow herself to back out of it now.  Only … it was so soon.  She had not been expecting him back for another week and a half.

      She got up from the table and walked slowly towards the back of the hall, not allowing herself to look over in his direction, not sure herself where her mind lay as she got closer to the doors at the rear of the hall.  It would be so easy to just keep walking through them, to keep everything to herself for just a few more days, just a few more hours.

      When she reached the doors of the hall, she took a deep breath.

      Then she stopped.

      She turned around at last.  Harry was more visible from this angle, and he was rising to his feet.  She felt her heart rise into her throat.

      Vowel sounds, she reminded herself.  Just manage a few vowel sounds.

      Harry was walking towards her now.  Willow swore a silent oath.  A lot of the Gryffindors were following him; apparently there had been some tacit agreement among them that breakfast was going to end whenever Harry left.  Many of them were leaving half-eaten plates, which was definitely not something for which the raucous warrior House was known.  Harry stayed several strides in front of them, however.

      Willow was half-leaning against one side of the archway from the Great Hall to the Entrance Hall as Harry approached the other side.  He stopped, and looked straight into her eyes then.  As he did that, Willow felt the same surge of confidence build within her that she remembered from the first time she had met him, when he had helped her through the barrier to the Hogwarts Express.  She smiled, then, a warm, golden smile that even she knew she had not shown in weeks.

      Harry matched it, the roguish grin spreading across his face and dissolving the last of her fear.  "It's good to see you again," he said.  "And … thanks."

      "I'm enjoying it on this side, too," Willow said, her voice nowhere near as calm as her posture.  Harry certainly didn't seem to have a problem with that, however, as his smile only widened as he heard the emotion in her voice.

      Suddenly, in two quick strides, they had reached each other, meeting directly under the center of the Great Hall arch.  She was leaning into him, and his arms were around her waist, lifting her from her feet.  She could feel the eyes of the entire Great Hall on her, and there was a collective gasp from every House at once, but Willow no longer cared.  She braced her legs on his thighs and held on for dear life.

      "Goddess, I've missed you so much," she cried softly into his ear.

      "I don't know how I made it through this summer without you," he whispered back.

      The Gryffindors that had been trailing Harry had all stopped, as stunned as the rest of the hall, as Harry and Willow had flown into each others' arms.  Suddenly, however, one of them, somewhere in the crowd, broke out into a laugh.  Another one followed a moment later.  Then the floodgates loosened, and a torrent of cheering, catcalls, and screaming burst from the Gryffindors, and a number of the Hufflepuffs as well; the Ravenclaws were a little more reserved, and the Slytherins, as Willow had guessed they would be, were totally thunderstruck, even awed.

      "You really know how to sweep a girl off her feet," she laughed weakly.  A tear dripped out of one of her eyes and fell onto his robes.

      "Actually, I think it's you doing that."

      "What?"  Willow pulled back suddenly and looked down.  She and Harry were floating a foot off the ground.  She hadn't even noticed.  "Oh, Goddess …" she whispered.

      Harry laughed, and pulled her back into his embrace.  Several of the other Gryffindors, having recovered from the shock and generally grinning wildly, were taking it on their initiative to cast small fireworks like those Harry and Ron had set off when Willow had Defenestrated Peeves, and Hermione and some of the more controlled older students were making sure that they didn't hurt anyone or set anything aflame.

      "You know, I don't think a day went by when I didn't dream of a different way I wanted to let the whole school know about us," Harry whispered softly, as a brilliant trail of red and gold spun around them.  "But this is better than any of them."

      Willow chuckled weakly.  She hadn't exactly had those kind of dreams, but that hardly mattered now.  "Just having you here again is all I dreamed about," she whispered back.

      "I know.  I've missed you so much," he said, tightening his embrace.  Willow sank into it appreciatively.

      "Good to hear," she nearly giggled.  She was not going to giggle!

      "Anyway," he whispered again.  "Do you maybe want to go somewhere more private?"

      Willow laughed.  "Read my mind."  Their feet touched the ground again as she said this.

      Harry backed away enough to give himself space for an extravagant bow.  He offered her his arm with a flourish as he rose, and Willow, more than willing to put up with a little bit of boyish antics at the moment, slipped her arm into his with a shy flourish of her own.

      Arm in arm, Willow and Harry walked from the Great Hall, to the mixed amusement of the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, the rousing cheers of the Gryffindors, and the stunned silence of the House of Serpents.

      Author's Notes:

      First and foremost, thanks for everyone who's been with this story from the beginning, and has been extremely patient with me during a long time during a Harry Potter crossover sans Harry Potter.  We'll see a bit more of him from now on, I promise.

      Second, my sincerest apologies that I haven't posted in a couple of weeks now.  My computer has been packed away, as I've sort of been busy GRADUATING!!!!  Woohoo!!  The Ohio State University has finally turned me loose!  (The world will never be the same …)  Then again, I just start up again in the fall again anyway (as many fanfiction writers have surely asked themselves on numerous occasions, what's so great about the real world anyway?), putting off that whole "reality" thing for another three years, hiding away at the University of Virginia Law School.  Hopefully they'll be merciful with their homework to leave me time for the more important things in life … sequels, spinoffs, that kind of thing … ;-)

      Coming Soon: Chapter 37, "Dinner and a Letter."  Harry and Willow catch each other up on events of the summer, and the Slytherin reaction to Willow's surprise is not long in coming.

      Sneak Preview:

      Harry took a quick look around to make sure they were alone, then tapped the map with his wand and announced proudly, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

      A brief message flickered across the surface of the parchment.  With a fox like that?  Who wouldn't be?