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 48:
THE SECOND ONE HE EVER FEAREDBuffy was only half-conscious, and fighting to maintain that. She smelled something like herbs nearby, and managed to force one eye open long enough to see Draco preparing something in a small cauldron over the fireplace in his room. He definitely seemed to be hurrying, but to Buffy, any moments spent away from the fight were too much.
He seemed to sense her eyes on him, because he turned around and gave her a concerned look. "Take it easy," he whispered, softly but intensely. "It'll be ready in a minute."
"What is it?" she whispered back, weakly.
"Blood restorative," he answered. "Brewed a little quickly—Snape would throw a fit—but it should do something."
Buffy was about to say something about that, but suddenly opened both eyes as wide as they could go and darted bolt upright in bed, staring in the direction of the Hall of Wisdom as though she could see through walls. Draco didn't even notice, or if he did, he was too distracted to say anything; he was staring in the same direction as Buffy, gaping like a fish. A wave of power seemed to course through the very stone of the walls and floor, sending a warm, almost passionate tingle up and down Buffy's spine as it flooded through the couch and past her. She could tell from Draco's suddenly heavier breathing that he had felt the same thing. The resonance of the power emanating from the front of the manor suddenly changed; half of it was still dark, tainted, but there was suddenly a different feeling in the air as well. Pure, clean, and powerful, it swept through the air in the room like a fresh spring breeze into a house grown stale and moldy with cobwebs over the winter. Buffy would have almost sworn she heard soft music playing somewhere just at the edge of hearing.
The wave passed, and Buffy and Draco snapped out of their trances and looked at each other in amazement.
"Wow," Buffy groaned, slumping back into the couch as her wounds reminded her of their presence.
"Buffy!" Draco cried earnestly, and she heard the sound of a ladle being scraped through the cauldron. A moment later, the silver-eyed Slytherin was kneeling by her side.
"Here," he whispered softly, holding a small silver chalice to Buffy's lips and tilting her head forward so she could drink.
Buffy drank; it was thick, and tasted of mint and herbal tea. She could immediately tell that it was working, but agonizingly slowly, at least for a battle. The feel of power still hung in the air like static electricity, emanating from the Hall of Wisdom at the end of the corridor, but at least the tremors had subsided for the moment.
"How … how did you fix this?" Buffy asked, tightening her fingers around her wand. She had been meaning to ask that for a while now and had simply never gotten a chance.
Draco grinned lightly. "One of my father's Impediments took off a few pieces of your hair," he answered, gently stroking the Slayer's golden tresses, including a decidedly unattractive part where more than just a few pieces had been sheared away. "I still have no idea what a Slayer is, but I figured if unicorn hair works and veela hair works, a Slayer's hair might work as the core of a wand, too."
Buffy gave a wan smile in answer, and reached out a hand to his shoulder. "I'm sorry I never told you about that."
Draco was silent for a moment. "No you're not," Draco replied softly, taking her hand and cupping it between his. "And you don't need to be. I wouldn't go around flaunting it if I were you, either."
"I don't. But I still should have told you."
His eyes flashed with icy memories for a moment. "You never got the chance."
"Maybe."
He ran his hand over the place on her forearm where the dementor's gangrenous claws had raked across her flesh. The wound was almost closed, and the new skin growing in was pink and healthy.
"Looks like it's working," he breathed. "Can't believe there's no infection."
"Yeah, we don't infect easily," Buffy said, thinking that was probably a good thing. She remembered the study session on dementors she, Willow, and Hermione had shared the night before her capture; dementors' claws were known to carry a rotting, gangrenous disease of some kind. She couldn't remember Hermione's description of it exactly, she had simply filed it away as 'ooky' and let it go at that.
"Looks that way," Draco agreed. "Hopefully, you'll be ready to go before …"
His words were cut off by a thunderous roar, and the ground shook suddenly as though the entire continent were splitting down the middle of the room. Buffy was thrown from the couch right into Draco's lap, bowling him over and landing on top of him. A series of thunderous booms shook the ceiling as though titans were pounding on the roof.
"Go now?" she asked, working furiously to catch her breath.
Draco's silver eyes took a mischievous glint for a moment. "Not yet," he said, and he reached behind her and leaned up to plant a kiss on her lips.
Buffy suddenly became very aware of the position they had landed in and the sai'ha that she was still dressed in. She flushed. Nonetheless, a wry smile blossomed on her face, and she shook her head helplessly.
"Okay," Draco said with a grin. "We can go now."
"I guess we've got to finish this."
Voldemort displayed no reaction to Willow's challenge, though his eyes burned with livid rage. He simply backed slowly away from Willow towards the front doors of the manor, keeping his wand trained on her, daring her to make the first move. Willow held her ground, motionless except for the ends of her silver-white hair that fluttered lightly as though caught by the faintest of breezes.
"Finish this?" he repeated in a whisper intended to be heard throughout the hall. "You presume much."
"Really? Isn't this like the sixth time that Harry's stopped you cold?"
Voldemort's eyes blazed, and she felt him building his power again. "Your son-of-a-Mudblood boyfriend is in no condition to save you now," he spat, "and I am not 'stopped' yet."
He raised his wand. "Imperio!" he shouted.
"Apparito!" Willow shouted at the same instant, vanishing and reappearing several yards to one side.
Her stomach wrenched a moment later, however, as she saw a ball of baleful violet energy streaking from Voldemort towards the alcove where Harry lay; he had fired it off immediately after his Imperius, knowing that she would be Apparating.
"Protego!" she cried in desperation, flinging the deflector across the hall and turning the ball aside just as it was about to enter the alcove; it burst against the wall, tearing a massive hole in the marble. She quickly started strafing sideways towards the alcove, keeping her eye on Voldemort but anxious to get a better angle on any future shots of his intent on finishing Harry.
"Suddenly thinking Apparating might not be a wise idea?" he mocked. She knew he was right; if he had set that up any better, or if she had Apparated any farther away, she might not have been able to stop him from killing Harry.
She still did not reply for a moment. The white radiance still burned around her, and she was holding even more power now than she had been when her darkness had taken control.
She took a breath and made a crisp motion with her wand.
"Expelliarmus," she chanted.
"Protego!" Voldemort snapped contemptuously. Suddenly, however, a loud gasp escaped his lips, and he seized at his wand with his other bony hand. A loud crackling erupted in the atmosphere in front of him, and a ring of mystical lightning erupted from the meeting of their two simple spells. He held it for a moment longer, then, with a sharp detonation, he was thrown backward; he kept his grip on his wand, but barely, and his slitted eyes were clearly flustered as he clambered to his feet.
He regained his composure—mostly, at least—a moment later, however.
"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.
"Serpensortia!" Willow cried in answer. The Dark Lord's eyes widened in naked shock. A king cobra sailed free of the tip of Willow's wand, intercepting the malevolent green beam bearing down on her. The Killing Curse could not be shielded and could tear through any counter-curse or other spell, but it still only struck one target. The snake was lifeless before it hit the ground, but Willow did not even budge.
A serene smile crossed her lips as she noted the amazement in Voldemort's eyes. Care to try that again? she thought, but she did not voice it aloud; she was past bantering and taunting. She could keep that up all day; there were second-year students at Hogwarts who could pull off the Cobra-Conjurer, while the Killing Curse was among the most draining spells known.
Voldemort was taken aback. He clearly had not expected his Killing Curse to be countered so anticlimactically; even Dumbledore had needed to Apparate around the Ministry antechamber to avoid it. Nevertheless, the look in his eyes said that he was far from defeated.
He brought his wand forward and held it vertically in front of him, breathing deeply, even though it no longer seemed as though he were tired. Willow wondered if he had managed to slip in a rejuvenating potion during the time he had vanished behind the pillar, while Willow was … distracted.
"You have grown strong, young one," he called. "Our ancestors would have been proud. But I have dealt with ancient magics since long before you were born, and I long ago learned to ward myself from them."
Voldemort's eyes blazed again, and a scarlet aura erupted around him. Willow threw up a shield, but quickly realized that Voldemort was not attacking her. Yet.
He was changing.
His wand seemed to shrink and absorb into his flesh, and his hands and feet lengthened and curled into powerful claws. Great, scaly, webbed wings of silver and violet sprouted from his back as he leaned forward, and he began to grow. And grow. And grow. He grew to the point where his wings pressed against the ceiling of the chamber, a ceiling which moments later tore free as the Dark Lord reared against it with his scaly, ridged back, sending fragments of stone off into the gardens and courtyards below. Willow watched, wide-eyed, as where the Dark Lord had stood moments earlier, she was suddenly staring into the enormous eyes of a fully grown Himalayan Elder, one of the mightiest dragons in existence.
Voldemort was an Animagus.
"Ssso what will you do with your powersss now?" he taunted in Parseltongue. Silver flames rumbled in the back of his mouth and the depths of his nostrils as he spoke.
Willow took a deep breath. Her powers would do her no good now; dragons in general were highly resistant to magic, and the ones of the storm-tossed peaks of the subcontinent were all but invulnerable to it. However, she matched his stare evenly, keeping her nerves steady, even though she had never done what she was about to try. She had been thinking about it for months, however.
"Nice," she said simply. "My turn."
A bright spiral of argent and emerald energy whirled out and around her. The point on her neck where the cobra had bit her flared and tingled, as did her hand where she had cut it on the fang of the dead creature in the Chamber of Secrets.
An instant later, she began to change as well.
Her legs blurred and fused together, and she felt her teeth lengthening. Her skin, still glowing, took on a greenish cast that hardened quickly into an iron, venomous green hide. Her vision took on a yellowish cast, like it had in the Great Hall only hours earlier, only sharper, more pronounced, and more potent. She curled her legs around underneath her as she grew, and raised her head as her neck lengthened, until at last she was meeting Voldemort's eyes at eye level, high above the floor, near where the ceiling of the chamber had been moments earlier.
The enormous eyes of the Himalayan Elder across from her widened in astonishment as they found themselves staring back into the eyes of one of the queens of all serpents. The spiraling energy around Willow vanished with a burst as her body finishing lengthening, now nearly the length of a Quidditch pitch; her massive green coils, thicker than the mightiest oaks of the Dark Forest, undulated with her breathing.
The Dark Lord screamed fire and averted his eyes; apparently a glance was not enough to kill an elder dragon, but a basilisk's gaze was still a potent weapon.
Voldemort lashed out blindly with one massive foreclaw; Willow turned it aside with a sweep of her massive tail, crumbling two more glowing pillars in the process. The Dark Lord countered with a blast of fire that obscured both of their visions, hoping to block Willow's line of sight, and with it, the potence of her gaze.
Willow didn't blink. She coiled herself and lunged straight through the flames. Pain seared up her back, but basilisks were not easy to burn, even with the infernal flames of an elder dragon. She cleared through the cone of flame a moment later, and Voldemort had obscured his own vision along with Willow's with the wide blast.
Another flaming shriek, far louder and more desperate than the last one, burst from the Dark Lord's jaws as Willow's fangs sunk into the his right wing. He spasmed wildly, and Willow was thrown free, but a triumphant hiss burst from her lips.
With a great, heaving lunge, Voldemort threw himself through the ruined ceiling and into the sky, spreading his great wings. The massive span proved equal to the task of keeping him aloft, even with the envenomed wound.
Willow lunged skyward in an attempt to get one last nip in on him as he fled, but he was already out of range. She was half of a mind to pursue, but he was flying towards the village, and she was likely to kill half the population of Salazar's Crossing if she bulldozed through it in her current state. Her venom would keep him out of action for a while. In addition, she was physically and spiritually drained, and the burns on her back were starting to make themselves felt. She kept her head aloft above the roof of the great hall just long enough to be certain that Voldemort had no intention of coming back.
As she settled back towards the floor, studiously keeping her eyes away from the alcove in the wall, the argent aura began to envelope her again, and she began to shrink. Soon, the familiar form of the human Willow, still surrounded by the angelic light, remained amid the ruins of the great hall of Malfoy Manor, kneeling quietly on the stone and breathing softly but deeply.
"Willow?" a soft voice half-whispered behind her.
She turned to see Harry, nursing his wrist tenderly, approaching her tentatively. He had obviously had enough wits to have worked some healing spells on his wrist while in the alcove, but there was a look of complete awe, almost reverence, in his eyes. He reached a cautious hand towards her.
Abruptly, the enormity of what she had just done came crashing down on her. The surreal calm surrounding her suddenly winked out, and with it, the argent aura. She suddenly toppled over from her knees, and Harry darted forward to catch her, cradling her gently and shifting around until her head rested comfortably in his lap.
She continued to breathe deeply, and looked up into his eyes with a light, familiar smile, enjoying the answer she got from them.
Suddenly, she giggled. "That was nifty!"
Author's Notes: Sorry, it's been ages since I updated this! The last few weeks of the semester were absolutely crazy. Still no excuse, but I appreciate all the feedback for the last few chapters that's trickled in in the meantime; I should be a lot better over the summer.
Morena: I was really disappointed that we never got to see White Willow fight in the series, too. I think this isn't going to be the last fic that I have that motif in. There's so much potential there that the series left untapped, ripe for fandom to flesh out.
unknown reviewer: I know it was campy. Then again, wasn't most of the Buffy series somewhat campy? Ah well.
Pamie: Heh. Don't worry. We're all entitled to cheesiness now and again. Especially in the world of fanfiction.
Sloane: I do like the pyrotechnics.
Thanks again to everyone else who reviewed!
Coming Soon: Chapter 49, "Aftermath." So what have Draco and Buffy and the rest of the Hogwarts crew been doing while Willow and Voldemort have been duking it out?
Sneak Preview:
"And, more seriously, guys …" Willow continued. "… thanks for coming."
"I wouldn't have missed it for the world," Harry said, drawing Willow into an embrace that mirrored the one Buffy herself was in.
"Oh, that's right, speaking of the world, I've been meaning to tell you … I almost destroyed it last spring."