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 43:

OF FATHERS AND SONS

The Arcanum Malfi was as silent as a hallowed library should be. Only the faintest draft, perhaps a stray piece of air stirred by conflict elsewhere in the palace, rustled the exposed pages of a text that had been left open here or there. However, this was not the peaceful silence of a place of learning. This was a silence so heavy it could be cut with a sword, the kind of silence that passes for conversation between two people who are long past words.

For a long minute the father and son of the Malfoy line regarded each other. Draco had been waiting for this moment since the moment his father, Deggle, and Bellatrix had surprised him at Hogwarts Station. However, now that it was here, he was finding it hard to make the first move. His nonchalant challenge had long since died in the air. Everything from here on was unscripted.

"I got your message," Lucius said icily.

"You always did like checking to see how far I'd come."

"It was outstanding."

"Glad you liked it."

"Pity, however. It was too late."

Draco's stomach wrenched, but he did not let the ice in his silver eyes soften. "Too late? You're still here, aren't you?"

"Ah, indeed I am, but was I truly the one you were looking for?"

"You'll do for now."

"Oh, I'm touched. Stupefy!"

"Protego!" Draco snarled. The Stunner turned aside into a nearby bookshelf, knocking a few priceless tomes to the floor. Draco suddenly found himself breathing easier again, and the blood pulsing in his veins. The House of Serpents prided itself on its maneuvering, its planning, its organization, and its ambition, but when it came down to it, although they did not celebrate it with the same enthusiasm as the Gryffindors, all heirs of the great families enjoyed the forbidden passion of the duel.

"Impedimenta!" Lucius cried again.

"Impedimenta!" Draco cried at the same time, willingly stepping into the blast. Lucius' back was against a reading table; Draco was against a soft lounge seat. Draco rolled with the impact and collapsed into the couch, rolling it over backwards. Lucius tumbled ungracefully over the small end table with a loud crash. His long, ever-perfect flaxen hair was visibly disheveled as he rose to his feet.

"Mobiliarbus," Draco intoned as his father rose. The overturned ottoman that Lucius had stumbled over when Draco had loosed his Skyfire at him suddenly slid towards the elder Malfoy's knees.

"Reducto!" Lucius snapped, even before his balance was fully back. The ottoman was blasted to pieces.

"Accio Skyfire!" Draco snapped. Lucius was not expecting that. Draco's broom, which had flown past Lucius when Draco had launched it at him, suddenly came flying back from behind him and crashed into the back of Lucius' head on the way back to its owner's hand.

"Expelliarmus!" Draco spat while his father was unbalanced. He had no illusions about ending the fight that quickly; he had lost all respect for his father as a person, but not as a duelist. His father's greatest weakness, however, had always been underestimating his opponents.

"Protego!" Lucius barked, only barely deflecting the jet of light streaking for his hand.

Draco had been expecting that, however. He was already on his Skyfire as Lucius finished his movement, and a moment later, Lucius toppled backward as Draco leaned over and to the right, lowered his shoulder, and delivered a full body blow astride the fastest broom on Earth.

Draco was not finished, however. Draco had always envied the martial prowess of many of Gryffindor's greatest, but he was not of the House of the Lion. He had no problems kicking people when they were down. His father had fallen against the base of a bookshelf. Draco swooped around behind it, narrowly avoiding cracking his skull on the wall as he made the U-turn down the aisle next to the reading area where he and his father had been fighting. He swept his wand in an arc at the base of the shelf, right behind where he knew his father to be. "Reducto!" he barked. There was a blast, and sections of the shelf splintered and broke away, and the entire bookcase teetered dangerously.

The Crown Prince of Slytherin was not done, however. He was still astride his Skyfire, and quickly darted up and rammed into the top of the shelf. The bottom, weakened as it was, cracked and toppled like a tree with most of its trunk chewed away by a beaver. With a thunderous crash, hundreds of pounds of wood, leather, and paper collapsed atop Lucius Malfoy.

"Apparito!" Draco heard his father's panicked voice cry.

Bloody hell, Draco swore inwardly as the books and shelves collapsed on an empty patch of floor. He had never expected that. He lowered the anti-Apparition ward. Raising and lowering the wards was the privilege of the heads of the family, but they had not been lowered in more than nine hundred years.

Draco looked around. Lucius could have Apparated to Nepal, but Draco doubted that he would have gone far, though the elder Malfoy would not dash back into the battle quickly. Apparating took a lot out of a person, especially if done under stress, and Draco had scored a solid hit. More likely, Lucius had a stash of healing potions somewhere hidden somewhere in the manor and had gone to them to fix himself up before returning to the battle. Draco knew that he had not bought himself much time, and he had not had time to bring any of his favorite potions with him before he and Harry had had to fly from Hogwarts.

He quickly found the book, Avarice, muttered a quick thanks to whoever had cast the enchantments on it that made it impossible to remove from the library, and placed it on the stand atop the mantle. The fireplace slid open, and Draco darted through. He alighted just long enough to duck through the entrance, then he was astride the Skyfire again, darting down the passage as quickly—or perhaps even more quickly—as was safe.

As he approached the door to the vaults, a cold sensation began creeping across his flesh. Dementors, he realized. Lying bastard. You thought you could fool me. There was no way Voldemort would have left his dementors down here with the palace under attack without some reason, and there was no way it could have been to capture him. The heir of a great family was a prize for some, but Voldemort played for far higher stakes. Draco was just a pawn to the Dark Lord. Buffy, he now knew, was something more … even if he didn't yet know what. But they had risked a lot to capture him, and used him as a means to capture her. That meant that she was worth something to them.

And even if she wasn't, he had conceded, she was worth something to him. He had never gotten a chance to tell her that. That, more than anything else, had driven him mad during his weeks chained to the Chamber floor.

He reached the wide, semicircular antechamber to the vaults, and steeled himself. The dementors' presence wasn't too strong yet, but it was getting close, and he knew he was in for a shock when he opened the door.

He laid a hand on the latch, gripping his broom handle tightly to keep himself from quivering with impatience as the familiar lattice of light spread outward across the face of the door. A moment later, the door swung open, and he was through. He barely noticed the fact that the family wealth had been cleared out, and that the room now looked like a showroom or arena of some kind. The hallway that led to the smaller, inner vaults was guarded by a pair of dementors, and from the feeling in the air, there were more inside.

Draco alighted and faced them. They took a step forward, then stopped, then another, making their approach as ominous as possible.

Draco took a deep, serious breath. He had considered this possibility. He had even done what he could to prepare for it, ever since he had watched that showoff Potter do this at the O.W.L.'s, but he had never had to do it under pressure.

He raised his wand and pointed it at the dementors. He fixed the image in his mind of the first time he had caught the Golden Snitch, in his second year against Ravenclaw. Then he let loose a clarion call. "Expecto Patronum!"

A silver, watery light flowed from the end of his wand, resolving into the vague form of a winged, serpentine silhouette that floated toward the dementors. He cursed inwardly. It was nowhere near as good as that git Potter's had been, if that Granger girl had been right about him driving off a hundred of them at once. Nonetheless, his was good enough to handle two of them; they ducked aside quickly, just a few feet, but it was all the room he needed. He threw himself forward and brought his broom up underneath himself, and was past them before they had a chance to recover their balance.

The feeling of more dementors nearby got stronger as he entered the corridor. Soon enough, it was coming from a doorway directly to his left. Draco's lips compressed grimly. The Viewing Vault; it was where the Malfoys of old had kept their most beautiful treasures. That was why wide shelves had been built into the walls.

He put his hand on the latch. "It's me," he said. The door opened, and Draco darted inside.

He immediately swooped up and into the ceiling overhead; it was twenty feet high in here, more than enough to give him flying room. His precaution was well advised; cadaverous hands swooped out from both sides as he came through the door, but the dementors were blind. They had no idea he had come on a broom. He was through before their hands could reach him, and up into the air.

There she is!

Suspended in midair, unconscious, was the blond-haired girl whose face had been in his thoughts so often over the past two months. He gasped. She was bound and gagged more elaborately than he had ever seen anyone trussed, in a material that he tugged at his memory even upon looking at it for just a brief moment.

What in Hell have they been doing with her?!

He dove from the ceiling and turned himself upside down to grasp onto her, wrapping his arms about her waist from above, so as not to come within range of the dementors. He had no idea if they could jump, but fortunately, it didn't look so. They just stood there, now lined up blocking the exit, confident that their mere presence would bring him down eventually; it was a siege.

We'll see about that, Draco thought darkly, getting Buffy positioned on his broom. He chuckled grimly. The Levitiation Charm that was holding her aloft actually aided him now, as it was still affecting her, and she weighed next to nothing in his hands. He quickly turned her right-side-up; he had been upside down when he grabbed her, so she was now upside down after he had righted himself.

"Ennervate," he whispered. Nothing happened. Draco shrugged; whatever material she was wrapped in was probably highly magic-resistant.

He quickly set about freeing her, first from the gag and blindfold, then from the tight-fitting straitjacket. He gasped, and his eyes widened. A moment later, he cursed himself for looking and thinking such thoughts at a time like this, but it was hard to avoid. Voldemort had dressed her in the sai'ha, the ancient battle garb worn by sorceresses of the great families in Egypt and Mesopotamia millennia ago: loose harem pants and a form-fitting choli in matching silver, green, and black. With a start, he wondered for a moment about the purpose of the arena-like showroom that his vaults had become.

The gravity of their situation quickly forced him back to reality, however. "Ennervate," he tried again, and this time, Buffy stirred. She still did not recover fully, however, which made Draco wonder if he were more tired than he felt—if there was such a thing. He had been able to perform the Revitalizing Charm flawlessly since his third year.

"Buffy?" he whispered earnestly. Then, a moment later, remembering that the dementors were deaf and it really didn't matter if they heard him anyway, he repeated her name, a little louder.

"Wha …?" Buffy muttered groggily.

Suddenly, Draco jerked the broom and wrapped his arms tightly about the blond girl's waist; she gripped him reflexively. The Levitation Charm had faded as soon as she had begun to move on her own again.

"Gyaaah!" Draco gasped hoarsely, and spots danced in front of his eyes. It had never sunk in until this point that he and Buffy had never actually touched, much less embraced, in real life. He had never exactly pictured his first hug being like this.

She was strong.

"Wha …?" Buffy repeated, suddenly seeming to partially realize where she was, and that her hands were free. It was a bit late, however; she toppled over the side of the broom, and Draco, still dazed from the force of her embrace, could not catch her; it was all he could do to keep from crashing.

"Buffy, NO!!" Draco cried as she fell.

She hit the ground with a thud, and Draco prepared to dive, hoping she hadn't broken anything; she be lucky if all she got was the wind knocked out of her. It was a good fifteen feet to the ground.

When he dove, however, he came up empty. She wasn't there anymore.

The dementors had begun closing in as soon as Buffy had toppled from the broom. However, Buffy had not lain still on the floor for even an instant. With a feral, absolutely terrifying snarl, she had vaulted to her feet; Draco swished through where she had been a moment earlier and caught nothing but empty air. He swerved for a few seconds to reorient himself; Buffy's grapple had left him lightheaded, and his reflexes on the Skyfire were nothing like they had been moments earlier.

When he did finally get his eyes back in focus, however, he gasped at the sight below him.

Two dementors leaned forward to grab the blond-haired girl. She spun to the right and plowed one of them over, knocking it into its fellow like a domino. She swept the cadaverous legs out from the next, toppling it to the earth.

Then she rose to her feet. Salazar's ghost, Draco thought, she was just getting warmed up.

As she rose, Buffy connected with a crushing uppercut into the chest and jaw of the next in line. There was a sickening crunch, and the dementor was catapulted across the room and slammed into one of the creatures that had remained by the door. The one she had swept a moment earlier began to rise to its feet; Buffy grabbed it by one arm, swung it over her shoulder and brought it down in a piledriver atop one of the ones she had knocked over to start the fight.

"Buffy!" Draco called. There was no way she could win this. Could she? Dementors could take a lot of beating, and there were eleven of them in here and two more in the hall that would be here at any second; thirteen on one was too much for anyone, even if Voldemort had been doing something to make her stronger.

Had Voldemort? Draco's mind suddenly flashed back to one of the last conversations he and Buffy had had, on the roof of Slytherin Tower, and the acrobatic move she had done to throw herself onto her broom upside down in midair from a standing start. Then there was her first time on the broom, in the great stairwell. Has she been capable of this the whole time?

Buffy looked up at him then, and Draco backed skyward a yard; her eyes were blazing. Nevertheless, he steeled himself to meet her eyes, hoping that something would penetrate whatever rage she was in at the moment.

"Buffy!!" Draco called again, more earnestly, seeing that another dementor had used the opportunity a she looked skyward to lunge for her.

Buffy caught one of its arms with her own without even looking. Then she twisted down that arm, got behind it, and spun its head around on its neck with a sickening crack. Draco flinched, even as his awe heightened. Dementors were physically almost as tough as vampires. Breaking their necks was still not enough to kill them, but it still would have taken the strength of a giant to do it so casually. How strong is she? he wondered.

She was not done yet, however. The dementor flailed around uselessly as Buffy sprang into the air, landed on the dementor's head, and used that as a springboard to hurl herself skyward. Draco was almost too overcome with surprise to reach out to grab her.

She landed in front of him on the broom, seated facing him.

"You want to shift ar … um, Buffy?" he asked, as Buffy's nose was suddenly an inch from Draco's own, and her hand was suddenly dangerously near his throat.

"Buffy …?" Draco managed, slowly. Then, he remembered. Polyjuice Potion. Buffy couldn't be sure that he was actually himself.

"I've missed you," he said simply. It was the only thing he could think of to say.

Suddenly, without warning, she reached a hand under his chin and rubbed it. He cast his eyes down to see what she was doing, then gave her a puzzled look.

"Remember this?" she asked, her voice suddenly low and suggestive.

"Remember what?!" he demanded. Then, something in her voice when she said that caught at him, and his mind leapt to the worst conclusions. "Buffy …" he grated, his eyes glinting. "What did that bastard do to you?"

She met his eyes for a long, drawn-out minute. Then, she smiled. Once she smiled, her smile broadened. "Oh, gosh, it's a hell of a long story, but can I wait to tell it later?"

Draco looked down. "Good idea," he grated. He pulled out his wand and aimed it at the dementors. He braced himself. "Expecto Patronum!" he called. A silver light emerged from the end of his wand again, but it was hazy and indistinct. The first few dementors shied away from it, but only for a brief moment, and those behind barely budged.

"Bloody hell," Draco rasped. He looked at her. "Don't suppose you've got a wand?"

"That's what's left of it over there," Buffy said dejectedly, pointing at a place on the ledge at the edge of the chamber. Two broken pieces of wood lay there.

"You must be joking … he left it here?" Draco gasped. "Accio fragments!" The pieces of Buffy's wand leapt into Draco's hands.

"Not exactly," Buffy was saying as he did it, however. "He took the phoenix feather."

Draco had quickly realized the same thing. "Damn," he spat, slipping the fragments into his robe. He tried another Patronus, with little better results than the first.

"So now what?" Buffy asked. "Just sit up here 'til they find us?"

"'They' may be a little busy," Draco answered. "Willow and Harry are here. They're … well, a bit peevish."

Buffy's eyes widened, and a shade of true alarm sparked in her eyes. "Oh, no!" she cried. "Is Willow gone again?"

"Well, I don't know what you mean by gone, but I'd say …"

"Powerful, evil, ending-the-world kind of gone?"

"Meteor showers, flash floods, fighting Voldemort kind of gone."

"Dammit!" Buffy cried, spinning around to face forward on the broom. "Come on, we've got to get to her."

"A lot of really foul things between here and there," Draco pointed out.

"I can handle myself."

"Right," Draco sighed. She was strong, but she couldn't be thinking very clearly if she thought she was a match for Voldemort; the Dark Lord was far stronger than even thirteen dementors. Still, she had to have been down here with the corpselike creatures for weeks. That she could still think at all was a miracle. The girl had to have a will of pure steel.

He raised his own wand again and chanted, "Expecto Patronum!" but to little more avail than the last time. "Bloody useless," he spat as the winged serpent approached the dementors, causing perhaps three or four to move aside before it grew hazy and dissipated.

"No, it's helping … helping me feel …" Buffy whispered, a hint of a different note in her voice now.

"Feel like what?" Draco asked. Helping drive away their effects, he realized, remembering how long she had been down here. Just not enough to drive the things themselves away. It won't last.

Buffy … I can't keep this up forever …

"What are you thinking about when you do that?" Buffy asked suddenly. Draco arched an eyebrow at her back. There was something different about her voice, and about her carriage, too.

"Just a happy memory," he said, readying to try it again but beginning to lose hope. The dementors were beginning to get under his skin. He could feel it.

"I know that," she said impatiently. "What is it?"

"What … oh … er … just the first time I caught the Snitch, against Ravenclaw." It wasn't the happiest of memories, but he didn't have a whole lot to choose from.

"I see," she said. That annoying, knowing tone was still in her voice. The wand definitely seemed to be bringing some of her confidence back; she didn't sound half as frightened as she had a moment ago. "You know," she continued. "I never did get a chance to say thanks."

She spun around on the broom again then. Draco had about half a second to admire her strength and agility, and another half-second to see an incredibly mischievous glint in her eyes, completely out of place in this situation, and then …

He didn't even have enough breath to gasp as her lips locked against his.

The kiss was short, but it sent a thrill and a tingle up and down every nerve in his body. Warmth blossomed in his blood again, and the effects of the dementors receded momentarily; not even they could squelch that much emotion that quickly. Indeed, some of them looked like they were suddenly a little shaky, like someone who had eaten too much. Buffy pulled away and laughed a moment later, then acrobatically climbed around his side and planted herself behind him, her body pressed close against his back and her arms snug around his waist.

"Try it now," she whispered in his ear.

Moments later, Draco and Buffy were speeding through the tunnels beneath Malfoy Manor towards the faint echo of battle raging far above, while deep in the vaults, thirteen dementors lay twitching numbly on the ground, wondering what had hit them.

A/N: W00t!! Thanks so much for all the reviews of last chapter, especially the long ones from new readers! Welcome to my little project!

Naitch03: You're probably right about Dawn, but I never really liked her.

Marion: I know you were reviewing ch. 27, but I'm glad you liked my vision of the manor. I can't believe we haven't seen it in any of the books yet, but maybe it's being saved for a special occasion. Also, thanks for the compliment about Vincent. I always like good reviews about my OC's.

LilGreenImp: Wow! Nice opening review! Welcome to the fic, and thanks in particular for the comparison to Lisette. Quite an honor. :-) You'll find out about Dumbledore's package soon enough, I promise. And regarding what would have been more IC regarding Dawn … you're probably right, but I just sort of assumed that the teary and long-winded goodbyes would have happened in the week between chapters 1 and 2, and I didn't particularly feel like writing it. Not a real fan of Buffy's abiogenetic little sis. Don't apologize for the monster review at all, I love reading those! And I promise that all of the other things you mentioned are going to get resolved in the next few chapters. You chose a good time to arrive. I've been keeping my poor regulars in suspense for a while. Evil Anonymous, like you said. :-D

Coming Soon: Chapter 44, "Grudges." Harry Potter in the same room with Sirius' murderer and Voldemort's top lieutenant, Bellatrix Lestrange. "Grudges" sums it up.

Sneak Preview: Once again, no such luck. :-D Harry vs. Bellatrix! What more do you want?