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 47:

WORDS OF THE SERPENT AND LION

The preternatural thunderstorm and meteor shower were beginning to abate and the sky above Malfoy Manor was beginning to clear. The summer sun was finally below the horizon, and the silvery moon, only a day past the full, was beginning to peek its face once again through the parting stormclouds. Frightened villagers in the hamlet of Salazar's Crossing began to peek out of their shops and houses once again, and an awed crowd began to assemble at the foot of the long hill leading up to their liege's manor. Clouds of dust hung in the air atop the hill, and the manor's massive glass windows had been blown outward; light blazed within like a star struggling to come to life in a whirling nebula.

Deep within that cloud, Countess Marvolo and the Heir of Slytherin were locked in a clash of titans.

A comet of violet-blue light leapt from Willow's outstretched hand, only to be swallowed by the swirling of the Dark Lord's tenebrous cape. Voldemort countered with a shockwave that sent fragments of stone hurtling at the raven-haired sorceress; Willow melted the fragments in mid-flight and melded them into the shape of a wyvern, sending the magma creature sailing back at the serpentine sorcerer. Voldemort pointed his wand at the ground, and the stone split as a wall of dry ice burst skyward to block the fiery automaton's path. There was a roar and a hiss of steam as the superheated rock met the bitter cold, and a fierce wind blew out in all directions from their meeting. If Willow or Voldemort felt it, however, they gave no sign.

Back and forth the battle raged, while the dementors huddled against the walls, doing their best to duck as stray bolts and fragments of stone and conjury fell among them.

Harry Potter, half-concealed at the entrance to the great hall that ran along the balcony ringing the hall at the level of the second floor, looked on with wide-eyed fascination even as the scar on his forehead burned like a hot poker. His teeth were gritted, but the spectacle below would not permit him to avert his eyes. He had thought he had seen what she was capable of when the dementors had surprised them with their bold, public attack at the Atlantis restaurant. He was only beginning to understand how much of an underestimation that had been.

Which brought one burning question to the surface of his mind. Why did he bring this out of her? It wasn't in Voldemort's character to seek more powerful opponents; he could hold his own against Dumbledore but never sought out the aged wizard. The Dark Lord wasn't doing this for thrills. Voldemort had not once attempted the Killing Curse, and Harry had no illusions about Voldemort's willingness to use such a spell on a member of his own family, even if what he had said about Willow's lineage was true.

Several minutes passed—perhaps only two, but it seemed like longer—and the intensity of the battle began to abate again as the two combatants began to tire again.

A cloudy shadow blurred to the dais, just behind the ruined throne, and resolved into the figure of Willow. She held her wand in a perfect fencer's stance, but she was not pressing her attack. Voldemort appeared a moment later, coalescing from a dark cloud on the second floor balcony at the far end of the hall, just in front of the door that led onto the observation balcony outside.

"Not done already, are you?" Willow challenged.

"You know better," Voldemort answered. "Are you?"

"What you said," Willow returned.

"You're learning."

"Yeah, don'tcha just hate that?"

Voldemort's smile was amused. "Hardly, Willow, hardly. If anything, I regret that you've learned so little."

"Ooh, the 'rank, arrogant amateur' speech. I've had that one before."

"Not an amateur, Willow. But that doesn't mean you don't have a lot left to learn."

"There's a decent library where I come from."

"Indeed," Voldemort agreed, "but not the greatest. Search yourself, Willow, you know you're beyond that. None of the Founders save Godric ever sent their greatest secrets to the school. Slytherin never trusted the others, and the others never trusted him."

"Imagine."

"Of course," Voldemort continued. "But they left ways by which their successors could uncover their deepest secrets."

"You going somewhere with this?"

"I am knocking on the doors of unlocking Slytherin's greatest mysteries. Every week, I am closer. With them, Dumbledore and his fools will never be able to stand against me, not even in the school. Hogwarts will fall. There is still time for you to decide what side of the gate you wish to be on when the inevitable comes to pass."

In the shadows of the balcony, Harry gasped, but Willow didn't even flinch. "First you try to kill me, then you offer me a job?"

"Have I been trying to kill you?"

"Looked pretty convincing to me."

"You know better. I was never aiming to kill. The blood of Salazar is not cheaply spilt."

"Hmm."

"Look around you, Willow. Look at yourself." The Dark Lord pointed his wand at the floor, and Willow tensed again, but Voldemort merely transfigured the surface of the dais into a mirror, allowing Willow to see her appearance. "They'll never accept you back now. The Aurors will have you in irons within an hour. Frightened peasants will demand that their sons and daughters not be placed in danger ... meaning anywhere near you. Is that what you want? To go back and be just another lackey of that fool Dumbledore, even while his other lackeys cringe at the mere sight of you?"

"Heard he cleaned your clock a few months ago."

Voldemort's eyes flashed, but he kept his voice level. "He did," he admitted painfully. "But that Muggle-loving fool's star is setting, and will not ascend again. Meanwhile, I grow with every passing week, even without the key to the lore of Slytherin."

"Yet I don't remember him abducting my allies."

"The Slayer is unharmed; indeed, she may be more potent than ever. One does not throw away such a precious asset, especially one whose nature is more to our cause than theirs."

"Meaning?"

"The power of the Slayer is rooted in darkness. She has no more business working for Dumbledore than you."

"Aw, and here I thought you did it all for me."

Voldemort grinned mirthlessly. "Oh, I might have," he admitted. "But I now know she has far more potential than I had imagined. I have been refining and tempering her over the past few weeks while I waited for this moment. I have great things in store for her. Indeed, Salazar hid some of his secrets in a place where your ally is one of the few who can tread."

Willow's eyes narrowed imperceptibly. "The dreamworld."

"Indeed."

"And my other allies?"

"Would not have been harmed had they not followed you here. Perhaps they still live; heirs of the great families do not die easily within their own demesnes, and the Potter boy has a remarkable ability to avoid death."

Willow grinned. "He takes after you."

Voldemort's eyes burned. "Vexingly so." He was clearly keeping his voice tightly controlled.

Willow was silent for a moment, and Harry's eyes widened. They didn't know he was there. He had assumed that they had to have seen or sensed him somehow, but there didn't seem to be any faking from either of them. They were too intent on each other to know that he was there—and it sounded like Voldemort didn't know that Draco had succeeded at rescuing Buffy, either.

A steely look entered his eyes, even as the pain from his scar and the cold of the dementors continued to eat away at him. Voldemort was not omniscient. Anything that was not omniscient could be fought. He began to reach back in time to what little he had gained from his aborted Occlumency lessons from Snape, even as his attention never left the two combatants facing each other across the length of the cavernous hall, and his fingers began to relax about the base of his wand again.

"Forgive me if I'm still a little skeptical of why you're giving this to me."

Voldemort grinned. "Even after all this," he said with a gesture around the room, "you still underappreciate your own worth. And … giving? Willow, you should know me better. I am giving you nothing. The power of Slytherin is your birthright. I am only revealing the opportunity to claim it."

"Still."

"Listen to your wand, Willow. Feel it. It has guided you to this. It knows. You know you cannot run from this. The Game will not let you. It has never been kind to Marvolos who deny their birthright—nor their families, nor their friends. It will control you, if you do not learn to control it … and I am the only one who can show you how. Without my help, the burden will only grow as your power waxes, and you have only begun to test the limits of your potential. Dumbledore and his camp followers can offer you nothing, can teach you nothing. All they will do is keep you from realizing who you really are. I have brought you closer to that in the last hour than they have in the past season. Salazar himself used to duel with his greatest protégés, knowing nothing less could bring out the true power of their bloodlines. You are the Countess Willow Marvolo, and by birthright and by potence, your place is here." Voldemort held out his right hand by his side.

Willow took a slow, almost unconscious, step forward.

"NO!" Harry screamed, lurching forward into the room, scraping together all of his meager knowledge of Occlumency just to fight off the pain in his scar and the chilling effect of the dementors below. Their combined force hit him in the head like a hammer as he came fully into the room again, but all he could think of was that Willow would be lost forever if she took even one more step in Voldemort's direction. He had no idea what he was going to do, couldn't even scrape together enough seconds of rational thought to form a plan, but he had already sat and watched one loved one be lost forever. He would never do that again.

Loved one.

The force behind the most powerful countercurse.

If … for any reason, Willow might be about to do something foolish, I think it would certainly not be me that would have the best chance of stopping her.

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.

Harry quickly held up his wand, reminding Voldemort of the risk of getting into a Priori Incantatem contest of wills. The young wizard's mind was racing—that part of it that was still functioning, anyway. I need to get to her. Just for a minute. Just for a second. But there was no way he would get there on his broom; any one of the detonations Willow and Voldemort had been setting off as easily as snapping their fingers would have thrown him the moment he left the ground.

His eyes widened. He knew another way. Draco had unknowingly let him know about it. But can I pull it off …?

"Good try!" Voldemort barked. "Reducto!" With a lurch in his stomach, Harry realized that Voldemort had not aimed for him directly. He had aimed for the stone arch above his head. There was a terrific cracking sound, and then a shower of stone was bearing down on him. There was no time to dodge. He reacted instinctively.

"Apparito!"

Countess Marvolo spared a glance out of the corner of one eye for the new arrival that had distracted Voldemort.

Harry!

She quelched the thought immediately. Where had that sentimental burst come from? There was no time in the thick of a duel for such distractions, especially from the side of her that was unprotected from the effects of the dementors lining the walls.

She tensed for a moment as she felt Voldemort building power for a spell to send after the new arrival, hoping that he would overextend himself and leave her an opening. A moment later, her lips compressed in a tight grin. A simple Reductor, almost effortless, sparing almost none of his attention. She knew that she shouldn't have expected him to do anything so careless; he had not earned his status in the Great Game by luck, after all.

"Apparito!" she heard the boy on the balcony cry. Willow's eyes raised, and she instinctively sent her awareness out for the brief second she needed to verify that the anti-Apparating ward had somehow been dropped from the manor. It had still been active as their fight had begun.

The momentary distraction prevented her from feeling the power eddy right next to her. She lost another fraction of a second as she reined herself in from lashing out instinctively; she might have given Voldemort an opening if she had. She thought of a less draining spell …

Then Harry was kissing her.

She was so surprised that she gave a startled gasp as his lips covered hers, which somehow only added to the intensity of the kiss. The darkness enfolding her, the shield she needed to protect herself from the lifeless creatures against the walls, roiled and began to dissipate. The part of her that she had suppressed suddenly stirred again, and more than stirred. She suddenly found herself responding to his touch, realized that her arms had folded themselves around the back of his shoulders, regardless of the awkward position in which it had put her wand. She could feel the darkness melting like ice under a desert sun, feel the forgotten part of herself rising within her like magma streaming towards the surface of a volcano.

Harry pulled his lips away, though his arms were still wrapped tightly around her chest. "Don't do this, Willow," he breathed. "I love you."

He kissed her again.

The volcano erupted.

Voldemort had just trained his wand on them again when a mass of blue-white glowworms spiraled out and around the intertwined bodies of Harry and Willow. A heartbeat later, a wave of energy burst outward from the two of them, a brilliant white radiance accompanied by a rushing wind that billowed their hair and clothing in all directions and ethereal music that echoed triumphantly in the arched chamber. The dementors were caught in the blast and burned like kindling. Voldemort's curse was turned aside by the leading edge of the wave, and he was forced to Apparate behind a pillar to avoid seeing what would happen if he allowed himself to be caught in it.

The kiss seemed to last forever, and Willow found more and more that she was not complaining, even in the midst of a fight for her life, or worse. It had been forever since she had felt like this; even when Xander had stopped her at Kingman's Bluff, this feeling had been absent. She had never felt anything like this since Tara had been alive. She sighed, and felt the last remnants of the darkness she had carried within her for so long dissipating.

She was free.

Eventually, Harry pulled away, breathless. His face seemed to be illuminated by a kind of angelic light, and a serene smile crossed Willow's face.

"Willow …?" There was a mixture of concern and complete wonder in his voice.

Willow spared a brief glance to look down at herself in the mirrored floor that Voldemort had so obligingly provided. The light that had illuminated Harry's face had not simply been in Willow's mind. It had quite clearly been in her body as well. Every inch of her skin and every fiber of her clothing shone like a newborn star. The sight suddenly made her realize how much power she was holding, without a trace of darkness in her eyes or the feeling that someone else was in control of her mind. Even the wand in her hand, Voldemort's own creation, was pulsing with a pure, clean energy that mirrored the power coursing through her veins.

Voldemort reappeared a moment later in the middle of the room, now much closer than he had been on the balcony above the entrance. Willow, who was facing in that direction over Harry's shoulder, shouted a warning and pulled back, readying her wand, but suddenly pulling away from such an entangled position unbalanced both of them, and Willow had been holding her wand awkwardly during their embrace.

"Detonacio!" Voldemort roared.

Willow threw up a shield, but off-balance as she was, she could not deflect all of Voldemort's blast away from both of them. The shield crackled and sparked as a riving detonation shook the atmosphere in front of them, and the remains of the throne were pulverized. Willow's argent hair was blown out behind her by the wind from the blast, but she otherwise weathered it. Harry had tried to duck away from the blast with his back to Voldemort, however, and in doing so had unknowingly moved partially out of range of Willow's shield. The blast lifted him from his feet and catapulted him off of the dais. He rolled as best as he could as he landed, and years of Quidditch training had taught him a thing or two about how to land, but the floor here was solid stone, not sand. There was a rough thud as he landed. He rolled weakly to the walls, crawling dazedly into the alcove in the wall that had previously housed the Malfoy chessboard. It was clear that he would be doing nothing else for a while.

Willow sighed and turned back to Voldemort. "Looks like we've got to finish this."

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks again for all the feedback!

defyingravity: I'm flattered, and I'll definitely check out your story if I get a good chance.

Lils: Yep, I'm still around, law school has just been hectic so I haven't been as able to make time to get new chapters uploaded.

Morena Evensong: Good guess!

chaotic reign: Well, neither one are supposed to be pushovers ...

Pamie884: That's a compliment in as many words!

Naitch03: Yeah, I couldn't really see that, either. Willow's more of a solitary player.

COMING SOON: Chapter 48, "The Second One He Ever Feared." White Willow vs. Voldemort! As the saying goes … you ain't seen nothin' yet!

SNEAK PREVIEW:

"Finish this?" he hissed again mockingly, more intensely. "You're just like Dumbledore and his fools. You can't finish this. Your foolish ethics won't let you." His eyes narrowed dangerously. "But mine will."

She felt him building a massive amount of power, and his eyes blazed as though a fire had been lit behind them, now tinged with green amid the red. She tensed, realizing what was coming.

"Avada Kedavra!" he shouted, driving his wand forward.