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 46:

BRANCHES OF THE TREE

"Neither am I."

The echoes of the Dark Lord's mocking statement hung in the air for a few brief seconds, then died away. Still neither of the two moved from where they stood gazing at each other across nearly the entire length of the ancestral throne room of the Malfoy lords.

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

Willow's face remained neutral for another few seconds as she allowed that remark to die in the air as well.

Then, between one heartbeat and the next, she struck. Her expression never flickered, and she did not chant or even raise her wand; her attack came completely without warning. A stream of fire coruscated forth from the depths of her eyes, arching across the hall to where the Dark Lord stood.

The flames struck an invisible wall around the Dark Lord, and the roar of the flames was drowned by the roar of Voldemort's laughter.

Voldemort countered with a shower of shards of ice. Willow coldly held up her left hand, and a glow appeared in her palm. The ice shards melted and vaporized as they passed through a mass of superheated air only a few yards from Willow.

The battle was on.

Willow took advantage of the cloud of steam that Voldemort had conveniently provided.

"Praestigia corpi!" she shouted. What emerged from the cloud was then not one form of the redheaded wiccan, but twelve, all sailing through the air towards the Dark Lord. As she flew, she built up her power within herself for her next attack.

"Good try!" Voldemort snapped, aiming a blast of fire straight at Willow's face. She swatted it aside with her hand, but the illusionary forms of her winked out.

Willow was not finished, however. She grabbed the tail end of Voldemort's blast of fire with her left hand, gripping it as though it were solid. With a snarl, she swung it around, molding it as she did so until the flame had been molded into a flaming whip, which whirled and hissed as she snapped it towards the Dark Lord.

"Finite!" Voldemort snapped as the tip of the whip closed on him. The whip shattered into fragments of flame scattering in all directions, but Willow let go of it at the last minute before her molding spell snapped, so she was not burnt. In addition, she had crossed nearly the entire distance between herself and Voldemort; she was at the base of the dais now. She flexed her knees briefly, then sprang forward and skyward. She had cast the same spell she had used to make herself as strong as a Slayer back in Sunnydale, and she closed on Voldemort with the speed of a striking snake, her left fist streaking for Voldemort's jaw.

Suddenly, her fist connected with flesh, but not that which she was aiming for. Voldemort had caught her fist in his hand, his reflexes every bit as snakelike as Willow's. His grip was like a steel vise, as well. Willow's arm jarred from the force of her arrested impact.

"Concussimi," Voldemort chanted.

Willow's eyes barely had time to widen before the impact of Voldemort's detonation struck her at point-blank range. Off-balance as she was, she was thrown backward and into the air, arching high towards one of the pillars.

"Ethereate!" she cried. Her body became translucent an instant before she would have been crushed against the marble, and she sailed through the pillar like a ghost, landing and rematerializing beyond the row of columns a moment later with the pillar in between her and Voldemort.

"Did you think I was so accustomed to using magic I had forgotten the feeling of battle with flesh and bone?" Voldemort laughed.

Willow gathered her power with a scream and swept her wand before her in a wide arc. There was a thunderous rumble of tearing stone as the middle of the pillar tore free and sailed across the room towards Voldemort. Voldemort laughed again, leapt high into the air and forward, and came down on the pillar in mid-flight. From there, he sprang high into the air again, nearly to the ceiling, and began descending towards Willow, a sword appearing from within his robes as he did so.

Eyes blazing, Willow did not wait for his attack, but leapt to greet him, a red-gold sword of flame appearing in her hands as she leapt. They were still at least fifteen feet from the ground as they passed each other, and a flash and a roar like thunder announced the meeting of their blades. Willow's sword shattered at the impact, but she and Voldemort were already past one another. Voldemort's blade held, and left a small crater in the floor as he struck a moment later.

Willow alighted atop the dais, her eyes narrowing as she turned to look at Voldemort's sword. It was not metal. It looked more like bone, and it was curved, a katana.

"Dragon's fang," she observed icily.

"Himalayan Elder," Voldemort confirmed with a grin. Willow's eyes narrowed again. Dragons were naturally incredibly resistant to magic, and the elder wyrms of the subcontinent were among the most potent in the world. He would be able to tear apart any weapons of pure magic she made with that. Of course, she could always make more, but that would drain her eventually.

She flicked her wand at the glowing fragments of the pillar scattered across the hall, and a shower of stone shards leapt across the room at Voldemort.

With an equally effortless flick of his own wand, Voldemort conjured a wall of earth in front of himself, blocking the attack.

Willow's eyes narrowed as she felt a disturbance in the air behind her, then widened. She could feel the wards still active, but there was no mistaking what the Dark Lord was doing. Without even turning around to give warning that she had realized what he was doing, she pointed her wand backward over her shoulder.

"Pugna zephyra," she hissed. A series of staccato bursts filled the air as fists of wind lashed out from the tip of her wand, driving the Dark Lord backward just as he appeared behind her on the dais. He finally managed to steady himself only a step before he would have toppled over the side of the dais.

Willow helped him the rest of the way, aiming a Reductor at the stone at Voldemort's feet. The side of the dais crumbled, and Voldemort toppled backward, five feet downward to the main floor of the Hall. He was on his feet a moment later, but Willow had already sent another barrage of the Fists of the West Wind in his direction. He was driven backward another few steps until he finally managed to slice through the fabric of one of the bursts with his dragon-fang sword, breaking the spell.

Willow's eyes narrowed. That sword was going to get annoying.

"Electro!" Voldemort barked, and a bolt of lightning leapt from the end of his wand.

"Magneto!" Willow countered, conjuring a magnetic field in front of her that bent the lightning bolt aside and sent it right into the throne, blasting the high back off the chair. Voldemort had accomplished what he wanted, however. He had bought himself enough time to Apparate again; Willow had no idea how he was able to Apparate within these wards, but it was giving him an incredible advantage. If her senses had been any less keen, she would have had no idea where he was moving.

She turned and aimed another fire bolt at where Voldemort was appearing, then another as he tried to Apparate again too quickly for her to follow. She grinned at the frustrated expression on his face as he appeared the second time only to meet a fire bolt heading straight for him; there was no time to Apparate again, and he was forced to hold still and shield her attack; she had made her point. He would think twice before trying that again.

"What's wrong, Mr. Mort?" she jibed. "Pet trick didn't work?"

"Oh, it worked just beautifully against your friend," Voldemort answered casually. "But I should have known …" he cut off to deflect a furious blast of fire with his sword.

"Dear, dear, temper, temper," he chided as the flames abated.

Willow took a deep breath to steady herself. She was not going to let her fury get the better of her. She was not going to let him goad her. Methodically, she forced her shoulders back and down, forced the muscles in her chest to relax. Then she extended her left hand, calmly knocking aside another lightning bolt from Voldemort with the wand in her right.

With her hand aloft, snapped her fingers.

A blast like a thousand Howitzers reverberated through the hall from her hand. The ground shook, and the four nearest pillars cracked, splinters gouged loose by the force of the impact. Every window in the hall was blown outward, and the wards on them as well. Rain drove through windows on the north side, and the wind of the storm outside suddenly roared in the hall.

Voldemort barely flinched; he backed up a step at the force of the impact, but then braced himself and buffered himself against the shockwave.

"Quite a noise," he taunted. "All bark and no bite?"

Willow grinned as an orange spark came into view in the sky outside, just parting the overhanging clouds. "Oh, I bite," she said, and she launched another stream of flame at Voldemort, this time a wide blast seeking to engulf him.

He blocked it on the flat of his blade, and it parted and scattered rather than wrapping around it to engulf the Dark Lord, but Willow's grin, had Voldemort been able to see it, was triumphant. His sword was pinned, and the cone of flame blocked his view for a brief second.

"Protego!" she screamed as the meteorite sailed through the window at her. There was a flash as Willow's spell made impact, then the meteor bounced away as though she had struck it with an immense baseball bat.

She bounced it straight at the sword in Voldemort's hands.

Caught off guard, and still pinned down by the tail end of the cone of flame, Voldemort had no time to move. However, he had his wand in his other hand.

"Protego!" he cried, so quickly that the word was barely recognizable.

"Finite!" Willow snapped at the same instant, targeting not Voldemort, but his Shield Charm, channeling an enormous amount of power into it to speed it across the room faster than the meteorite.

The meteorite, Voldemort's sword, Voldemort's Shield Charm, and Willow's counter-charm all impacted at the same instant. The stress created another riving detonation in the atmosphere, and a cloud of meteoric dust filled the space where Voldemort had been standing. A split-second later, another detonation shook the atmosphere from within that cloud of dust, this time accompanied by a blinding eruption of green-white light. Willow was already grinning as the wind billowing through the hall cleared away the cloud of dust, revealing Voldemort getting up from the ground against the great front doors of the manor. The hilt of his sword was all that was left of it in his hands. There was a look of mixed curiosity and surprise in his slitted eyes.

"Magnificent," he breathed as he straightened.

Willow took another deep breath. That last combination of spells had taken a lot out of her, and the only thing that saved her was the fact that they had taken a great deal, perhaps even more, out of the Dark Lord as well. He was making no hurried moves to press his attack, at any rate; he was on his feet by the time the dust cleared, but he was clearly breathing heavily as well.

"I learn quickly," she grated.

"So I've heard, dear Willow. I would expect no less."

"I'm not really all with the caring what you expect," Willow said.

"Ah, but you should," Voldemort said. "Knowing your enemies' expectations is one of the greatest advantages in the Game."

"Yeah, I was never all for the getting involved with this whole Game thing, either," Willow seethed.

"Do you sincerely believe that?" Voldemort asked insinuatingly. "I suppose it shouldn't be too much of a surprise." There was a knowing note in his voice.

Willow gave a level stare in response.

"The Game binds us all, Willow. Especially us, here. Everything you touch, everyone you meet, will be drawn in. It is our fate. That is who we are."

"You have no idea who I am."

"Do you, then?"

Willow gave Voldemort another stony stare, more piercing than her last, meeting the Dark Lord's slitted eyes without blinking. The insinuating note in his voice had gotten stronger, and despite the fatigue in his voice, she could see excitement and anticipation in his eyes, as though he had been looking forward to this for a long time.

"I'm just a girl," she said flatly.

"Taking life in stride, as always." Voldemort sighed. "Ah, dear Willow, you were never 'just a girl.' Have you never wondered how it is that you grew to such power in Sunnydale in only four years? That you were so able to absorb the Dark Arts … literally, when you chose? That you were able to sense the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets? That the Potter boy can sense you, like me, through his scar? That the language of the serpents comes unbidden to your lips? That it was my wand, forged by my own hands to be so like my own, that chose you?"

A dark suspicion was beginning to blossom in the back of Willow's mind. "What are you getting at?" she demanded, the ice in her voice showing signs of thawing for the first time.

"Have you ever wondered why your parents raised you so strictly? Why they were so overprotective? Why they never wanted you to leave Sunnydale, despite all the strange things that always happened there? Particularly your mother?"

"I don't think that's any of your business!" Willow shouted angrily. They just wanted to be good Jewish parents, she thought, trying to banish the thought, to refuse to allow Voldemort to distract her, but the thoughts were flying unbidden to her mind. That's all. Mom had trouble being accepted as a kid. We never really talked about it.

"Did you ever notice that they seemed to have no idea what to do with you? One moment interested in everything you were doing, the next moment leaving you on your own for a week at a time?"

"They were trying!" The words were forced from Willow's lips.

"Indeed they were," Voldemort agreed. "Far more than my own Muggle father did when he found out that my mother was a witch. A freak, he called her before turning us out on our own."

"Oh, spare me the troubled family story," Willow spat.

"With pleasure," Voldemort replied, "but you must have wondered, nonetheless."

"I think I'd know my own family."

"Would you indeed? Then you have probably accepted, of course, that your mother was so strict because she is the daughter of a convert. Jewish lineage is passed through the mother. She always felt she had something to prove."

He'd been checking on her parents. The back of Willow's eyes burned. There was no way she could deny what he was saying; if he knew that Grandma Amy had been a convert, his sources were good. "Voldemort, if you've done anything to hurt them …"

Voldemort laughed. "Little Sheila is a true Muggle, a true daughter of her father Isaac. Almost none of the proud blood flows in her veins. I have no interest in her. Though, had she taken after her mother, finding you might have been much easier."

"Her mother? Wait, Grandma Amy?"

Voldemort gave the most predatory grin Willow had seen him give yet. "I knew her as Aunt Amoret. Her birth name was Amoret Phoebe Marvolo, second and youngest daughter of my grandfather, Julius."

She could almost hear the Bloody Baron laughing at her. You'll find the Game is hard to escape.

"You begin to see, yes? Your grandmother harbored the same aversion to the Game that you do—indeed, to the entire wizarding world. She was looking for something else to absorb herself in, for something to provide her with another identity, to take her as far away from her old life as possible, and the orthodox religion of her Muggle husband gave her that. Her only child—an accident, born late in life when she thought she was past pregnancy—was a Muggle as well, and they moved to Sunnydale, the magical no-man's-land where even wizards are harder than normal to sense. As far as I could tell, she had vanished from the face of the Earth. Until recently, I thought her dead."

"No," Willow whispered.

"But, dear Willow, the Game will not be denied, and the blood of Slytherin may sleep, but it never dies. It reawakened in you the instant you were conceived on a Dark Node—a Hellmouth. And, last spring, when you touched a shade of the fullness of your power, I felt what I had never expected to feel again—the power of another Marvolo at work."

Willow shook her head numbly. No. She couldn't even sound the word again.

"From that moment, I knew that this day would be inevitable. The curse of the Marvolo line is inescapable. Blood against blood, family against family, power and loneliness both so vast that mortals have never devised words great enough to describe them. It is such that my mother, Malecasta Marvolo, and your grandmother both married Muggles and attempted to flee the wizarding world entirely to avoid it. Yet, to no avail, as here we are."

"Stop." Willow's voice was a faint croak.

"By now you certainly know that I am the Heir of Slytherin. But did you ever stop to ponder who was second in line? Perhaps you fancied yourself some kind of heroine coming here, coming to slay the dastardly villain and save the damsel in distress? Don't flatter yourself. You can never run far enough to escape the Game, nor hide from your own blood, nor fight against the darkness we all carry. Like quicksand, the more you struggle, the more it will pull you in. You have tasted the darkness and power that have made me what I am today. You can defeat me and take the title of Heir of Slytherin for yourself, or it can fall on your shoulders whether you would have it or not. But you are a Marvolo, Willow, and always will be. The Game is your past, present, and future."

"NO!" Willow shrieked. Her back arched, and a bolt of pure red fury burst forth from her outstretched hands.

Voldemort's form blurred and became smoky for a moment, and he drifted aside, solidifying again a moment later.

This can't be true! Willow screamed into the silence of her mind, matching Voldemort's tactic to dodge his counterattack. Then, a moment later, Why can't I concentrate?

What's going on?

She could not force Voldemort's words out of her head, could not force herself to concentrate. Somehow, his words continued to echo in her mind as if given a life of their own, despite the fact that Voldemort himself was in the same room with her, which should have driven everything else from her mind.

A moment later, an image of Tara flashed across her consciousness. A moment after that, it was followed by the memory of driving a car careening out of control into a wall with her best friend's little sister in the passenger seat. She suddenly became aware of the faint touch of cold on her exposed flesh, a cold that had nothing to do with the temperature of the air, which had been thoroughly heated by fire and lightning by now.

She turned to see cloaked figures slowly emerging like animated corpses from alcoves along the walls, and more appearing on the second floor balcony, coming in from the exterior balcony overlooking the main entrance of the manor. All the mental guards she had built up were fraying and dissolving; she tried to think of … someone … but the thought wasn't there.

"When Tara fell," Voldemort put a touch like a caress on that name, "you began to stir. But you did not come into your own, not until you attacked those worthless fools you called your friends and absorbed the lore that truly reawakened your blood. We both know that never died when you were stopped at Kingman's Bluff. It's still in you. Show us that, Willow. Show us who you really are again."

Somewhere deep within the whirlpool of darkness that was swallowing her, the part of Willow that was still herself began to scream.

---------------------

High in the archway leading into the Hall of Wisdom along the second-floor balcony, Harry Potter watched, transfixed. He had thought to get involved, but he was drained, and had needed to disperse a squad of dementors in the hallway en route to this place. The fireworks of the last few minutes had made Dumbledore's duel with Voldemort look like a child's show. He would have been incinerated before he got anywhere near enough to Voldemort to use anything to invoke Priori Incantatem.

"Willow …" he whispered desperately as he felt the dementors beginning to appear. His voice was a croak.

He began to inch his way forward from his hiding place, desperate to do something. Suddenly, however, he stopped and leapt back into the cover of the door with a strangled cry.

His scar was burning, burning like it had after Dumbledore had driven Voldemort from the Department of Mysteries, burning so that Harry was amazed that there wasn't smoke curling up from his forehead. His hands clenched uselessly on the archway, barely keeping him from falling. Images, thoughts that were not his, flashed across his consciousness again for the first time in months. One was an image of his girlfriend standing on the dais below, seen through the eyes of the Dark Lord. But there was another, a thought that could not be Voldemort's. It was an image of the Dark Lord, seen from nearly at floor level. His eyes widened in horror as he realized whose thought that was.

A change was coming over the slender redheaded girl down on the floor below. Voldemort had not lowered his wand, and it was clear that he still expected to fight, but the expression on his face was somehow already one of victory. A pinwheel of velvet shadow and baleful violet light erupted at Willow's feet and curled up to embrace her. Her clothing transfigured into a somber black ensemble, regal and elegant but dark and lifeless. The lustrous red faded from her hair, replaced by a deep abyssal ebon that went well beyond black; it absorbed light, blending into a streaming field of shadow. There was a subtle change in her posture. When she spoke, her voice was suddenly cold and unfamiliar.

"So you enjoy games, do you, my lord?" she asked.

Voldemort raised his wand in salute before leveling it at her again. "Welcome back, Countess Marvolo."

"Then let the games begin."

"WILLOW!!" Harry's desperate cry was drowned out by the earth-shattering impact as Willow and Voldemort launched themselves at each other again.

A/N: Uh-oh ... Even Darker Willow's back! To preempt any confusion: remember, there were two levels of "Dark Willow" in S6, one right after Tara got shot, and another 'Even Darker' level after she sucked up all the black magic books in the Magic Box. (Though I added onto that in the description this time. One of the good things about writing ... the special effects budget is measured in imagination, not dollars.)

Thanks again to everyone who reviewed! They really make all this worth it (since the pay isn't quite as rosy as it is for the original authors). And, to be nice, I'll even include the rather unflattering review from "John" in that. Always nice to have a few critics. They make life interesting. :-) So I'll start there:

John: You say that Buffy wouldn't regret the death of Lucius at all (basically that she should have killed him), but Buffy's always drawn the line at killing human beings. That's why she and Faith were on opposite sides after Faith killed the Deputy Mayor.

Chaotic reign, SnowyOwl-17, pamie884, IceBlueRose, Silver Warrior: Thanks for the props on the battle scene writing, those have always been some of my favorites to write. (Typical male, I know.) ;-)

pamie884: I hadn't really thought about spending a whole lot of time on the background of the sword; I just thought that Godric Gryffindor's weapons ought to have some powers that a second-year student (even a Gryffindor destined for great things) simply couldn't handle, and which the sword would therefore not let him use. A ticked-off Slayer with Buffy's experience and survival record, however, would likely be a completely different story.

DUH Rocker Girl: Sorry to hear that about your computer. That really sucks. Nevertheless, welcome back, and glad you found this again!

ShadowElfBard: Um ... what exactly does this 'potty dance' look like ... or do I not want to know?

COMING SOON: Chapter 47, "Words of the Serpent and Lion." Voldemort has brought World-Ending Willow back, and both still have a lot of fight left in them. Also, Harry finally becomes more than a spectator, and we'll see one more incarnation of Willow. Would hate to give too much away.

SNEAK PREVIEW:

It was strange the things that peril could make someone admit to themselves.

His last cry had finally attracted Voldemort's attention, however, as the Dark Lord's baleful gaze swung and fell on him across the length of the balcony. "YOU!" he snarled.