DISCLAIMER: The characters aren't mine. I'm borrowing them from the esteemed Joss Whedon and J.K. Rawling. I'm not making any money off this; in fact, if I didn't do this, I could probably get better grades and make more money someday.

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 45:

THE LINE BETWEEN JUSTICE AND VENGEANCE

The corridors of Malfoy Manor echoed with the rumble of battle as Buffy and Draco sped through the north corridor on the second floor. Tired as she was, Buffy was outpacing Draco; the fresh taste of freedom, the heat of battle, and the assured feel of the Sword of Gryffindor were setting her Slayer's blood on fire.

"Wait!" Draco called suddenly from behind her.

She swung around impatiently to see him disappearing into a room on the north side of the corrider. Biting back a curse, she followed him; she hadn't felt the need for a broom as much as the need to get to the Hall of Wisdom, but she didn't want to let Draco out of her sight.

The door opened into a small suite. A spacious bedroom opened immediately past the sitting room, and Draco was there, heading for a large closet.

"Got it!" he cried, relieved that it hadn't been removed to somewhere; of course, Draco's escape from the Chamber was unanticipated and Lucius had been doing his best to pose as Draco. He pulled a familiar black-and-gold broom from within the closet and hurried back to meet Buffy in the sitting room.

"Thanks," she said as he tossed it to her, catching it and heading back for the door.

"Wait!" he called again, this time a touch of alarm in his voice. Buffy stiffened. She could feel something in the air, too. Even the sword in her hand seemed to be tense, alert to the presence of a new threat.

"Dementors," Draco hissed.

"It can't be," Buffy answered. She had been exposed to dementors for weeks now. She knew what their presence felt like. This sense was strong, but it wasn't getting under her skin the way the cadaverous creatures' spirit-draining powers had. Before Draco could try to stop her again, she darted back out into the corridor.

Buffy's eyes widened. Draco had been right. It was dementors. Buffy could see their cloaked shapes in the light of the crystal torches along the hall, perhaps another forty feet along the corridor, emerging from a pair of other rooms and turning towards the Hall of Wisdom.

Why did they feel different? They feel … weaker … Buffy wondered. Then, a moment later, They aren't coming this way? Oh, God, Willow! If those things get to the Hall …

The thought was so overpowering that she almost didn't hear the faint popping sound in the corridor behind her.

"Buffy, look out!" Draco screamed, diving into the hallway just as a familiar, despised voice behind her shouted "Stupefy!"

Buffy swung around just in time to see a red jet of light streaking for her chest. But Draco was there as well, diving out of his room and throwing his left arm out across the path of the bolt. With a strangled cry, he dropped to the floor and curled up against the wall, clutching his useless arm.

"Well, well, well," Lucius Malfoy mocked as he strode forward from the shadows. "Look who decided to stay for the finale."

Buffy stepped forward to get in front of Draco. "Wouldn't miss it."

"I'm afraid you may not have much choice, Slayer. Stupefy."

Buffy dove forward and under the jet, covering the distance between herself and Lucius as though it were an arm's reach, and thrust the sword straight at his heart. Lucius was faster, though, chanting "Apparito!" just as she closed the last few feet. She heard the pop as he appeared some distance down the hall behind her, behind the nearest row of dementors. The fighting had attracted their attention, and they were now advancing back down the corridor towards her. There had to be at least a dozen of them, about the same size squad as the one that had guarded her in the vaults.

Suddenly, Buffy became aware of a searing heat in the palm of her hands, though it somehow did not burn. It had been growing ever since Draco had announced the dementors' presence back in his chambers, but suddenly heightened as she confronted the dementors head-on. Wonderingly, she spared a brief moment to release one hand from the hilt of Godric's sword. The rubies embedded in the hilt were glowing with a fiery red-golden light.

She looked at the blade in her hands. McGonagall's words about dementors suddenly echoed in the back of her mind. It takes a lot to destroy dementors. Lots of fire, a supernova of positive emotional energy, or the Killing Curse. Maybe Godric's sword and a few other weapons, I don't know.

Maybe, indeed, Buffy thought as she spun towards the dementor leading the group.

She sensed Lucius' alarm, sensed him realize that something he had not counted on was happening, heard him shout "Stupefy!" from behind the advancing creatures.

The sword in her hands reacted before she even had a chance to think, as though it felt her instincts, blocking the red ray of light that came slicing through the group of black-cloaked figures and turning it aside like a mirror. It barely even slowed down her move, and Buffy and the Founder's blade spun together, thrusting out at the last instant and piercing the chest of the first dementor.

There was a blast of flame and oily smoke, and the dementor collapsed in a heap, a voiceless scream sounding in the corridor as the necromancy that bound the dementor's empty animus to its body was severed like a taut thread.

White magma spread up Buffy's veins from the sword in her hands as it tasted battle again. A feral grin spread across her lips as the sensation reached her chest and spread throughout her body. She was almost touching the dementor and was within strides of ten others, and they were having no more effect on her than an autumn wind. She could feel power flowing into her again. She could feel that the sword wanted to fight again as much as she did, and the two of them were feeding off each other as the warrior spirits simmering within them blazed afresh. She twisted the sword in the dementor to allow her to use the few exposed inches of the blade that had not sunk into the creature's body as a mirror, and her smile broadened at the sight of her eyes. They were glowing golden, burning with power she had last tasted on the outskirts of Hogwarts, and before that, not since a climactic night long ago in the depths of the Initiative.

As the collapsing dementor freed the line of sight between herself and a stunned Lucius Malfoy some distance down the corridor, she turned a predatory grin on the Death Eater. "You have no idea what's about to happen to you, do you?"

She wasted no more words, as the other dementors were rapidly recovering from their surprise and closing on her. She was surprised to see that they could be surprised at all; she had thought that they were largely mindless.

With a ferocious battle cry, she lunged forward with her knee and braced it on the corpse of the fallen dementor to give herself leverage to sweep her sword free. It came out in a long, graceful arc, and Buffy laughed as it burst into flame as it came free of the dementor's body. The blade was a dance partner, reacting to the slightest touch, knowing what the other was doing and moving as one. She followed the momentum of the sweep forward and slashed both hands off a dementor that was reaching for her, the flaming aura of her sword setting the thing's robes on fire as well. She followed up with a devastating roundhouse that sent it flying clear up and over the dementor behind it.

Buffy dove aside as two more lunged for her at once, somersaulting off the wall and wrapping her legs around the neck of the nearest one. She held herself like that atop the dementor for a brief instant as she coiled herself, then spun, blocking Lucius' incoming ray, sweeping the head off the second dementor, and pile-driving the one locked between her legs up and over herself all in one fluid motion. She righted herself quickly and spun in a blindingly fast full circle, sweeping out with her sword and disemboweling the next two approaching creatures, leaving a long trail of fire behind the path of her sword. Almost as an afterthought, she stabbed behind herself without even turning around, thrusting through where the eye would have been on the dementor that was just getting to its feet.

The last six dementors that had advanced on her were regrouping a few strides away, and Lucius was beginning to regain his composure. "Celeritas!" he cried, sending his power out in a wave over the dementors in front of Buffy.

Buffy tensed. It was a Haste spell. The dementors came at her again, this time en masse and far faster than they had been moments earlier.

She pulled backward and sideways away from the lunging arms of the first one, slashing it across the back as it passed, setting its cloak aflame but only scoring a nick on its body. She dove to the ground and rolled out of the way of the next two, who were moving so quickly that their momentum carried them right by her.

Her eyes widened in alarm. She was only a few feet away from Draco; if any of them decided to take a break from pursuing her …

She darted forward, feinting and drawing in one of the trailing creatures, then stepping forward for real and thrusting through the stomach of the creature as it moved in. She planted her foot on the creature's chest to pry her blade loose as it fell away from her, sweeping back towards one of the ones that had rushed past her and was now coming back from the other direction.

"Impedimenta!" she heard Lucius chant behind her. She had been forced to turn her back on Lucius to meet the dementors coming back down the hall.

"Damn!" Desperately, she twisted aside, and Lucius' blast flew right by her head, shearing away a good piece of her hair that flipped out behind her as she twisted. Oh, that will so not be the look this fall, she cursed to herself.

The twist had carried her off-balance, however, and the nearest dementor managed to crash into her, nearly managing to grapple her. She stumbled; they were almost as strong as vampires, and they were moving quickly because of Lucius' Haste. Fortunately, running into her had unbalanced the creature as well, and she was able to thrust her sword in under its chin before it could regain its balance.

Coiling herself again, she sprang up and off the wall, somersaulting out over the heads of the approaching dementors to draw them away from Draco. She flipped in midair and clove the head of one more of them as she passed.

"Impedimenta!" Lucius cried again, just as she was about to land. Buffy had to turn her sword aside to deflect the blast, and the three remaining dementors used the extra second to close on her. She swept her sword back as quickly as she could, but one of them dove in under the slash, aiming for her legs.

Buffy screamed as she felt something sharp pierce her calf.

"Finite Incantatem!" another voice cried. Buffy's eyes widened. The voice was Draco's; he had pulled himself into a leaning position against the doorway of his bedroom. The dementors suddenly slowed to normal speed.

With a cry, Buffy swept her sword back and swept the head off the dementor that was clutching her leg with its claws and had just pressed its mouth to her calf. Its claws and fangs tore long gashes in her leg as the corpse fell away.

Panic welled up in her for a heartbeat as images of what had happened to Lupin flashed across her mind, but a moment later, she realized she was still mobile. The dementor had only barely pierced her skin, and only for a split-second. She was not sinking into torpor.

Something else was happening.

Red rippled across the gold in Buffy's vision, and her heartbeat thundered in her ears for one immeasurable second. A low, dangerous, predatory growl escaped her lips. To her left, she suddenly heard Draco give a frightened gasp. The sound made her blink, and the feeling receded slightly.

Lurching forward, desperate to do as much damage as she could before Lucius could cast another Haste spell, Buffy half-stumbled and thrust her sword past the outstretched arms of one of the two remaining dementors, striking true and piercing its chest.

The last one, despite being in its death throes from the fire that she had set to its cloak earlier in the fight, seized the moment as she stumbled and her sword was lodged in its companion to fall on her sword-arm.

"Impedimenta!" she heard Lucius cry.

She twisted wildly and braced herself for the impact; she had no attention to spare for dodging the attack, all her attention was focused on keeping the creature's mouth away from her arm. With a wild burst, she tore free, but the creature's claws raked across her arm as she did so, and the sword of Gryffindor tore free of her grip. The force of her twist threw her away from the dementor, and she tumbled to the floor. Pain shot up her leg as she landed hard on her left thigh, though the hiss that escaped through her clenched teeth was more angry than pained. The red feeling that had subsided momentarily had suddenly welled up in her again as Godric's sword had been pried free of her grip. The wound on her calf pulsed. Brutally, she forced the feeling aside, trying to pour all her focus into the battle.

The blast from Lucius never came. Eyes wide, she saw Draco dive back into his room as his father's beam blasted away a piece of the doorframe where he had been standing moments earlier. Draco stumbled to the ground, but managed to stay in a sitting position, and was still within sight of Buffy, as she had sprawled just outside his door.

The dementor, now completely aflame, took one more step toward her before collapsing on the floor. Buffy was hardly breathing easier, however; Lucius and his one remaining dementor were still there, and unless she could get back to her sword …

"Accio sword!" Lucius chanted. The sword of Gryffindor pulled free of the dementor's corpse in which it still rested and floated down the hall towards the smirking Death Eater.

"No!" Buffy cried. She could feel the golden light in her eyes beginning to fade, and the cuts and burns she had sustained in the fight were beginning to take their toll on her.

"Reparo," she heard Draco's voice chant from within his room. Reparo?! What the hell is he fixing?! she wondered, and she nearly involuntarily turned to look what he was doing when a scream distracted her.

As the sword of Gryffindor settled into Lucius' hands, there was a sizzling hiss, and Lucius gave a scream of pain and dropped the Founder's blade, as well as his own wand.

"Didn't like you, huh?" Buffy challenged. "Can't say I blame it."

"It doesn't matter," Lucius hissed, rubbing his wrist. His anger was breaking free of his control. "You'll still never get to it." He motioned the dementor next to him forward.

"Buffy!!" Draco's voice cried from within his room urgently. Buffy's head jerked up. That was not the despairing cry of someone defeated, or witnessing someone dying. She swung her head and torso around to look, and her left hand jerked up as she saw something flying at her face. She caught it.

It was her wand.

A surge of power ran through her body as her fingers closed around it, and there was a rushing sound like a stiff wind blowing through the corridor that was almost identical to the sensation she had felt at Ollivander's. But there was more; there was music on the wind like a full military band playing for an army marching to battle, and the wand blazed at her touch with a pinwheel of red and gold light like that which had so recently burned in her eyes.

The dementor behind Lucius had only taken two steps forward as Buffy suddenly propelled herself to her feet, spreading her legs to give her as much balance as she could. Lucius' hand was only just closing about his wand again.

The red feeling rose from within her chest and swept across her vision again, this time so quickly and forcefully that she had no time to react or resist, a massive deluge behind an already weakened dam. She focused all her attention on control. She was in control. She was in command. She had been waiting for this moment for longer than she could remember.

"IMPERIO!" she shouted, driving her wand forward and sending a wave of power down the hall.

"Protego!" Lucius shouted desperately, wheeling his wand around.

"Buffy, NO!" Draco cried from within his room.

There was utter silence for a few stunned moments. Even the dementor, now level with Lucius, had stopped moving. Buffy could feel more than see Draco out of the corner of her eye, approaching the door of his room hesitantly. The only sound she could hear was that of her own breathing.

A smile crossed Lucius' face a moment later, however. "Weak, Slayer, weak. The Great Curses are not to be used lightly."

"Buffy …" Draco managed. "I'm sure he deserves worse, but …"

"I know."

Something in her voice gave both Lucius and Draco pause. Their was a finality in it, which was only augmented by the wrathful vermeil burning in her eyes. It was a death sentence.

Suddenly, Lucius gave a startled cry as bony, cadaverous hands gripped him around the torso. The dementor next to him had lowered its hood. The cry turned to a terrifying, bloodcurdling shriek as the dementor's mouth pressed to the lips of Draco's father. Even though Lucius' mouth was covered, the shriek was somehow not cut short. Instead, it died away even as Lucius' face craned skyward in a grotesque rictus, as though the Death Eater were falling away into a bottomless abyss.

"He only felt the fringe of it," Buffy explained as she watched it happen. "He was never the target."

Silence fell as Buffy finished speaking. Draco's mouth was agape. Buffy's eyes suddenly widened, and the flame faded from them. "Oh God," she gasped suddenly, as the primal Slayer's rage faded and the enormity of what she had done came crashing back down on her. What happened? What came over me?

Then Draco was there, his arms encircling her from behind and cradling her. As though the last cords that had held her upright had been severed, she collapsed into his arms. The pain that her rage and adrenaline had been holding at bay returned with a vengeance. Her restored wand fell from her hand as she clutched onto Draco as best she could.

"Draco … I'm so sorry … your father …"

She felt him tense. A moment later, a mirthless laugh shook his throat.

He let go of her with one arm and pointed his wand down the corridor. "Mobilixifus," he chanted. Godric's sword suddenly sprang to life and floated into the air, skewering the last dementor, whose mouth was still pressed to Lucius' throat. One last soundless shriek filled the hallway, then was gone.

"Draco …"

"All you did is succeed where I failed."

"He was …"

"He kept me locked in the Chamber for months. He was going to kill me next week, after he had been inaugurated in my place. His master killed my mother, and he didn't even care, as long as he could get his property back. The Ministry would have given him the Kiss themselves if you'd got him alive—if the dementors hadn't rebelled, anyway."

"Still …"

"The game is always the most bitter between family."

"Draco, not that stupid game ag …"

"And he hurt you." Draco had been leaning forward so that he was now whispering in her ear, and there so was so much emotion there that it cut Buffy's protest off in mid-sentence. "He used to visit me down in the Chamber, once a week, sometimes twice, just to tell me some of the things he was doing to you and hint at worse, enjoying how helpless I was to do anything."

"Draco, I …"

"Shh," Draco cut her off. "Come on. Let's get you inside."

"No … Willow …"

"You're in no shape to fight," Draco pointed out.

"I'm a Slayer," Buffy retorted. "I'm always in shape to fight." She reached down and clutched her wand with her left hand. "Accio sword," she chanted. The Sword of Gryffindor slid out of the dementor's corpse and along the floor, sailing the last few yards back to her outstretched hand.

"Gaa!" a gasp escaped her lips as the hilt settled into her hand again. Before, the sword had helped her block out the pain of the wounds she had sustained and the effects of the dementors; now, somehow, it had gone to sleep again, and the legendary sword was now a dead weight in her wounded hand.

"Come on," Draco said, slipping one arm behind her knees and other behind her back as he lifted her from the floor. He carried her quickly back into his chambers and laid her out on the couch in the sitting room, a concerned look on his face as he noted the blood that spilled on his clothes and couch as he did so. She was already too weak to resist strongly as he took her sword and wand from her and laid them on the coffee table.

"Accio brooms," he chanted, waving his wand into the hallway. His own Skyfire and the Nimbus 2001 hopped back through the door. A moment later, he chanted "Mobiliportus" to close the door and, then, finally, "Colloportus." The door was sealed.

"Draco …"

"Shh," Draco said quickly. "Panacea minor."

Buffy felt a little bit of life flow back into her limbs, and the bleeding slowed. She started to sit up, but Draco gently pushed her back down on the couch. There was a look of wonder, as well as more than a touch of respect, in his eyes.

"I have no idea how you're still conscious," he said, "and you may be a … a Slayer … but neither of us are in any shape to take on Him."

Buffy gritted her teeth. He was right, but she was still not about to quit while she could still walk. Of course, at the moment, she couldn't walk, but that wasn't the point. Willow was still in trouble. As if to emphasize the point, another rumble shook the stone and wood of the manor around them.

A/N: Sorry it's been so long since the last update! No, I haven't abandoned this fic. My writing computer has been disconnected from the Internet for a while, so I had to wait until a good opportunity to transfer the files over and upload.

P.S. I know what Buffy did might have been a touch out of character there. Patience.

Thanks again to everyone who reviewed Chapter 44 (even if that was so long ago now you've forgotten you did)!

Shabopo: ironic that I updated the last ones so quickly, all things considered.

ShadowElfBard: I know. I'd be a Slytherin if I were in Hogwarts. Much too evil to be anywhere else. ;-)

IceBlueRose: Thanks for the props, and glad you enjoyed it (even if it did mean a bit of lost sleep …); appropriate if you came from one of DragonKatGal's fics, since I've lost more than enough sleep reading hers.

Seoid: I know, I usually can't stand Buffy and Harry either. Minor characters are generally more fun. (Hence the general Willow-centrism of this fic.) But Buffy and Harry have their better sides as well.

PhoebeOtaku: Wish I could hear you talk to your roommate. British accents are definitely spiffy. (Smashing, baby!)

NixiNox: The Tara element is definitely one of the things I didn't focus on as much. There just wasn't much of a way to fit her in. I thought of somehow writing her in as a ghost that had ended up at Hogwarts, but that would have required a whole plotline in and of itself.

Additional shout outs to Blondi Gurl, Draco's Slytherin Vampiress, BIGHARRYFAN, becky, lazybones, Silver Warrior, DragonStar, kms, Morena Evensong (even if you do think the chandelier bit was cliché!), pamie884, ShawThang, Marion, Malaika Pyralis, narmolanya, Chaotic reign, fabala, and Raclswt. Thanks for your support!

Coming Soon: Chapter 46, "Branches of the Tree." The lesser battles are out of the way. Willow vs. Voldemort is up next. I promise I'll update more quickly than last time.

Sneak Preview:

"What's wrong?" Voldemort taunted. "You didn't come all this way only to back down now, did you?"