Disclaimer is in chapter 1.

The rest of the day was spent catching up with Jessie and Willow, just hanging out mostly. They did some shopping, much to Jessie's confusion when Xander insisted on hitting a plumbing story for a large variety of brass fittings and the like.

"Dude, are you taking plumbing classes over there or what?"

"Extra-curricular project," Xander replied with a smile.

"You want to fix toilets as a hobby?"

"Just let it go, ok?" Xander asked, chuckling.

"Sure, whatever. So what do we do tonight?"

"Movie night?" Willow suggested.

"Eh. Seen everything showing, went with Jon and Warren last week." Jessie shrugged.

"Well I've got to hit some movies for sure, but I can wait. Bronze?" Xander asked.

"Sounds like fun I guess." Jessie replied, smirking suddenly.

Xander looked at him, confused for a moment, until Willow spoke up.

"Oh God, Jessie, you're not still chasing Cordelia are you?"

Xander choked.

"Cordelia?" He sputtered, "As in CHASE?"

Jessie flushed red, rubbing the back of his head, "Uh well, you see..."

"He thinks she's 'hot'." Willow said, rolling her eyes.

"But... the 'we hate Cordelia club'!" Xander hissed, "Jess, you were the Vice President."

"She grew... up?" Jessie managed.

"He means she grew *out*." Willow corrected helpfully.

"Willow!" Both Jessie and Xander sputtered, Xander half laughing as he looked at his suddenly blushing redheaded friend.

"Well... she did." She said, sounding a little petulant.

Xander couldn't help it, he started laughing hard, wheezing in his attempts to breath. He hadn't laughed so hard in months.

"It's not funny!" Willow and Jessie called out together, leaving Xander to hit the ground and roll as his laughter redoubled.

Once he'd calmed down the rest of the day moved along quickly, though Xander took every opportunity to torment Jessie over his new 'lady love'. That got even more pronounced that night at the Bronze when Cordelia did, in fact, show up and Jessie proceeded to chase her around like a bog chasing a bitch in heat.

A comparison Willow actually made, bringing another roar of belly laughs from Xander when she continued on to say, "It's no wonder he's acting like that, since she IS a bitch and, you know, acts like she's in..."

"Stop. Please stop." Xander moaned, hammering the table with his fist as he tried to breathe through the laughter.

"Will someone put a leash on this mutt." Cordelia Chase said as she appeared by Willow's side, glaring at the redhead. "He's yours, right? Keep him away from decent people."

Xander howled, tears were running down his cheeks as Willow turned beat red and seemed caught between giggling or sinking under the table in embarrassment.

"What are you laughing at, Loser?" Cordelia demanded, eyes turning to Xander.

Xander just shook his head, unable to speak.

Cordelia tilted her head slightly, eyes narrowing, "Xander? Is that you? Like, when did you get back?"

"Yesterday." Xander croaked out, wiping his eyes desperately.

"I heard you were in an institute for delinquents."

Xander choked, thoughts of laughter gone as he stared at her with wide eyes. "Huh?"

Willow grimaced, "She means she started that story, she didn't hear it."

"I'm sure Cordelia didn't..." Jessie offered from behind the brunette.

"Shut it, dweeb." Cordelia snapped, then glared at Willow, "I don't need to start rumors, mouse. I start trends."

"Private boarding school, to be precise," Xander said, climbing to his feet and standing a little over Cordelia. He'd learned while dealing with Draco that sometimes you needed to take the high ground, any high ground you could. "I spend my winters in Scotland."

"Chyaaa." Cordelia muttered, disbelieving. "What boarding school could you get into?"

"One that only accepts students from less than one percent of the population," Xander shifted mentally into his 'pure blood' tone, unaware that as he did his accent took on a slightly British overtone. "Willow was accepted as well, for your information, but her parents didn't want her to be that far from home."

Cordelia felt a shiver run up her spine as the person in front of her changed from one second to the next, then glanced at Willow who was nodding glumly in agreement with Xander's statement. She knew that the redhead was a certified genius, even smarter than she was and Cordelia knew that her own IQ was nothing to be remotely embarrassed by.

She hadn't known that Xander was anything special, though. He'd never acted it, yet now he's apparently been spending the last three years in an exclusive boarding school that had tried to recruit Rosenberg as well.

"Well, it's been a pleasure, Miss Chase," Xander said, still deep in the persona he'd cultivated for shutting Draco down, "however I'm here to have a little fun. Willow, would you care to dance?"

Willow flushed again, but nodded dumbly as Xander extended a hand. She took it and he led her out to the dance floor as the band swung into a heavy hitting tribal sound.

"That was great!" Willow yelled in his ear to be heard over the music.

Xander grinned, dropping out of the 'pure blood' act and looking a little goofy again, "Thanks. It was kinda cool wasn't it?"

Willow nodded as they danced, grinning widely.

All in all it was a fun night that Xander regretted having to end early due to his scheduled meeting with Robert, Sam, and their friend Tommy Falcon in the morning.

A morning that came all to early, Xander found, when Sam woke him up and gave him five minutes to get dressed before hustling him out of the house and into the car that took them to Roberts place just north of LA.

"Alexander." Robert nodded once in greeting.

"Hey Robert, how's it going?"

"Fine. I'd like you to meet an old friend of mine." Robert nodded to a six foot two tall American Indian beside him, "This is Thomas Chayton of the Sioux Tribe. I believe Sam told you a bit about it."

"A bit," Xander nodded, "but I don't really know much about it and all. I mean, the Proud are like what? The FBI?"

Thomas nodded, "Somewhat. The Proud are the Federal level Auror organization for the American Ministry. From a non-magical point of view they are more accurately compared with the US Marshals of a hundred and fifty years ago, except that The Proud have much, much, tougher requirements to join. The federal mandate for the group limits them to precisely one hundred members."

"Thomas served for thirty years," Robert said, "Which means that in his first year he beat out over eight thousand applicants for the position. In the remaining twenty nine, he continued to place above all other applicants to hold his position, and retired by his own choice four years ago."

"I was slowing down," Thomas admitted with a shrug, "I would have been replaced in a few years anyway."

Xander blinked, then whistled. "Whoa. And you're going to show me how to fight?"

"If you wish it," Thomas nodded. "It will not be easy, but if you're willing we can drill the basics into in a few weeks. True skill takes years, but even the basics can level the field of combat for a few seconds."

"And in a fight, a few seconds is often all you get." Robert spoke up.

Xander nodded, swallowing, "I'm willing. I know the shield charm and..."

"We won't be using that." Thomas said, shaking his head.

"But... it's one of my best spells." Xander blurted.

"I tell you what," The former Auror said with a slight hint of a smile, "When you can shield a curse, then return fire in the same second... then I'll start teaching you proper shielding techniques. Until then, shields are only useful if you're withdrawing from the fight, and while that is often the intelligent thing to do, there is little I could do to teach you how to do that any better than you should already know."

"Oh." Xander said, trying really hard not to pout, "Then what do we work on?"

"The three C's," The Native American said, "Curses, Conditioning, and Consciousness. We work on your spell repertoire, your physical and magical strength, and your situational awareness."

"Ok." Xander blinked. "Which will mean what?"

Sam snorted, grinning, "Pain. It'll mean pain, kid."

Thomas spared the former Seal a glare, then looked back at Xander. "He is correct, but that is an unfortunate side effect. For the Curses segment we'll work with the most useful tactical spells for beginners. What are your best offensive spells?"

"I'm a decent hand with the Stunner, but I prefer bone splitters." Xander replied.

Thomas nodded in approval, "Good picks. The Stunner is very useful in crowd situations, members of the Proud are trained to open with wide area stunners when we have targets in a crowd. Taking out civilians is the primary intent, but if we get a Crim or two it's a bonus. In a straight up fight against medium to large numbers, however, stunners are less effective because the enemies can be enervated."

Xander nodded, it made sense.

"The bone splitter is a damn good pick for a kid," Thomas went on, "Most tend to think of the Reductor curse, which really requires a very good wand hand to use safely. We'll teach you the Bone Fragmentation curse to go with it, though, because while it's harder to fix a split bone than enervate a stunned target, it's still a tactical option."

Xander stared for a moment, unwinding the words, then nodded. "Uh. Ok."

"So, out spell training will be... Bone fragmentation, splitter, the Severing charm, and Leviosa." Thomas decided, mentally making notes.

"Wait, Leviosa?" Xander blinked, "A Levitation charm?"

Thomas smirked slightly, "one of the most useful combat spells to learn, kid."

"I'm going to drop people off cliffs or something?"

"You'll see." The Sioux Indian said, "If you're really good, I'll even throw in the banishing charm to complete the combo, but you'll have to show me that you're serious and know what you're doing."

"Uh... ok." Xander just looked confused.

"Don't worry, you'll get it. For conditioning, well half of that will be easy enough I hope. Sam here tells me that you've been training with him?"

Xander nodded, "Yeah, and I've tried to keep it up in the winter too... but it's hard. Scotland gets damn cold."

Sam snorted, "Kid, you've got a lot to learn."

"That's fine, we'll work it out." Thomas cut off a rant from the former Seal. "Magical Conditioning will be covered in our fight training for the most part, though we'll work with some high power spells to see just how far you can go. Mostly we'll just be trying to determine your limits, but if you keep up Magical Strength Training you'll be able to squeeze another ten percent out of your core, maybe twelve. Understand?"

"Like working out, right?" Xander said questioningly.

"Precisely. Though you tend to get less out of it with MST compared to heavy duty Physical Conditioning, you also won't lose it once you've gained it." Thomas explained, "Magical core levels never drop unless affected by an outside source."

"Cool."

"And that brings us to Consciousness," The former Auror said, "We'll start that today, though we probably won't see much out of it anytime soon."

"Why?"

"It begins with Occlumency, which is a method of meditation and organizing your mind. It'll take you weeks or months just to get the basics down." Thomas explained, "Then more months building mental defenses, then more months reorganizing your sense feeds."

"Bwuh?" Xander was completely and totally lost, and didn't mind admitting it.

Luckily for him Thomas hadn't expected him to know any of what that meant. "Occlumency has several initial benefits that you'll see fairly quickly, this includes an apparent increase in intelligence."

"Cool." Xander said, eyes wide.

"You won't actually be any smarter," Thomas smirked, "But you'll process information faster and more efficiently. The next benefit is something approaching total recall, though not quite as effective as the phenomenon known as 'photographic memory'. You'll be able to remember just about anything you need to, but unless you already have a perfect memory you'll need to pause a moment to center yourself."

"Still cool."

"Next is the ability to sense intrusions into your mind and begin to defend against them. Mind readers, Possession spirits and demons, and so forth. Useful, but not commonly needed, which is one of the reasons Occlumency has faded into obscurity." Thomas said, "At this point you'll begin to train in Legilimency, often mistakenly called the art of mind reading."

"Whoa, like Prof X? Triple Cool!" Xander grinned.

"Legilimency is high restricted." Thomas snapped, glancing at Robert who just shrugged. "Normally I would never show it to a civilian, especially not a pubescent boy. However, you have powerful patrons, which will probably be enough to keep you out of prison as long as you don't do anything spectacularly stupid."

Wide eyed, Xander slumped and fell back a step. "What's so bad about it?"

"Legilimency can be used to violently tear through someone's mind, causing mental and emotional trauma best compared to being raped." Thomas said remorselessly, glaring at Xander and daring him to be excited about that.

"Whoa. Ok, I don't think I want to learn that ok?"

Interesting. The former Auror looked at the boy, taking in everything about him, and concluded that he meant it. Most would be promising not to abuse it, not refusing to learn it. He softened just slightly.

"It can also be used as part of an extended awareness of the world around you." Thomas said, "taking in more information... temperature shifts, sounds above and below normal hearing range, powerful thoughts being broadcast by people who are excited or nervous. All of these things are very useful in a fight, and in other disciplines. They're also perfectly legal and considered morally acceptable."

"Oh."

"We'll begin with Occlumency meditations for the next hour, then you'll run. Tomorrow we start spell training. Agreed?"

Xander swallowed, but nodded. "Yeah. I'm in."

"Good. Robert?"

"Have a room set up for you inside."

"Thank you."

Xander followed the big man into the house, mind whirling as he once more wondered how he got himself into these things and, perhaps more to the point, what had he gotten himself into.