Disclaimer is in chapter 1.
"Man, I have such a headache." Xander bitched as he slumped into his basement studio of sorts.
Occlumency work was a pain, and running afterwards was worse. The entire time he'd been trying to meditate and clear his mind, Chayton had been doing what he called 'probing'. Xander called it shoving hot needles into his mind's eye. It felt like he was being forced to relive memories, but just for an instant before suddenly his mind would be his own to control again. Chayton said he'd have to learn to keep off those light probes before he could begin any kind of mental organization.
Something about having to have a mind that could hold more water than a sieve before he started trying to decide what went where.
Xander's problem with the situation was Chayton's use of the term 'light' when he referred to the probes. If that was what he called light, Xander didn't want to know what heavy was.
He grabbed a bottle of tylenol from the bathroom and swallowed a couple tablets on his way over to the ratty old couch that decorated the basement. His parents wanted to put in new stuff, but he'd told them to forget it. Half his magical projects exploded or worse, so why waste good money?
Xander looked over at the mound of stuff he'd gathered for his latest idea, mournfully staring and willing himself up to work on it. Will power failed a moment later, however, and Xander just curled up on the couch and closed his eyes as he tried to block out the light that was sending spikes of pain through his skull.
"Hello? Xander?"
Willow let herself into the darkened basement, hesitantly looking around. Xander's mother had said he was down there, but it looked like the place was empty.
"Xander?" She turned on the lights, taking a step down.
"Ow! No lights." A voice moaned up at her.
"Xander? Are you alright?" Willow asked, now really concerned.
"Brain hurts. Lights off." He mumbled at her.
Willow turned off the lights, then slowly moved down the stairs. "Better?"
"Much."
Well, he sounded better anyway. Not much for conversation, though, Willow thought. "What's wrong?"
"Brain torture." Xander mumbled, sitting up in the dark. "Then the sick son of a..."
"Xander!"
"Mother..." Xander finished lamely, "made me go running while my head was pounding."
"Someone tortured you... then made you exercise?"
"Bingo bongo."
"Doesn't sound like a torturer to me."
"You say physical conditioning coach, I say torturer, it's all perspective." Xander sighed, tossing back another couple tylenol.
"Oh. Is it really bad?" Willow asked tentatively, now having a better idea of what was going on.
"Not so much with the throbbing pain now," Xander admitted, "mostly the light hurt my eyes. What time is it?"
"Just after supper."
"Oh. I've been out most of the afternoon," Xander said wearily.
"Is this going to be your summer?" Willow asked, kind of afraid of the answer.
"Oh god, I hope not." Xander got up and went to the bathroom, wincing as he turned on the light and started running water to wash his face, "You can catch the lights now."
"K." Willow said as she did just that.
She was looking over the pile of stuff Xander had been collecting since he got back, impressed and confused by the quantity and quality of it. "Xander, why do you want so many brass plumbing things?"
"Cause it's easier to transfigure stuff permanently if I'm just changing its shape and not its molecules." Xander answered.
"Oh. That makes sense. So why do you need the brass?"
"It's pretty easy to enchant," Xander said, "And I have a couple ideas I want to try."
"For wands?" Willow asked eagerly. She'd been carrying her two pack of wands since the summer before, but rarely got a chance to use them because she was worried about both her parents and the statute of secrecy stuff.
"No, well some yes." Xander said, pulling a stool up to the table. "I do want to try some different wand sizes. I'm thinking I want to see how small we can make them, you know for backup use."
"Small wands? Hard to flick, don't you think?"
"Yeah, but not for all spells. I'm thinking about emergencies," Xander said, "Shield charms barely flick at all, and stuff like stunners and stuff are almost just straight line slashes."
"True." Willow nodded, "Ok, we can do that. What else do you want to do besides wands?"
"Kick a certain Indian's ass." Xander muttered.
"Xander!"
"No yelling please." Xander winced.
"Don't disrespect the Native Americans," Willow huffed, "They were here first and we..."
"Yeah, yeah, stole the country. I remember thanksgiving at your place, Wills." Xander mumbled, remembering the last and only time he'd spent a major holiday with Willow's parents. Honestly, it was better to deal with his mom and dad fighting than listen to them preach.
She glared at him for a moment, then looked over the rest of the stuff. "So what's this all for?"
Xander smiled a bit, the first genuine smile he'd managed since early that morning, "That's a secret, Wills."
"Humph." Willow grumped, "I don't like secrets, mister."
"Too bad." He grinned, winking at her.
Willow flushed red, swallowed, and changed the subject. "What were your classes like this year?"
Xander smirked, recognizing the real Willow peeking out and demanding information on what he'd learned. "We mostly followed the listed stuff this year."
Willow nodded, relieved. The previous year she'd studied almost all different books than Xander, and while he insisted that hers were better she wasn't sure she really believed him.
"I think we got a little ahead in charms, a little behind in transfiguration overall," Xander went on, "Defense was mostly about magical creatures this year, though, so you're not going to be caught up well there. Too much practical work you couldn't do."
She winced, "Damn."
Xander arced an eyebrow at her, causing Willow to go red again.
"I mean darn. Darn tootin." She blurted, then sighed, "Look, Jessie's been getting a little weirder ok? He hangs out with Warren and those guys a bit too much."
Xander nodded, knowing that Mears wasn't exactly the cleanest mouth around. He was still amused by Willow's descent into potty mouth, but he could understand it. Not that he would let her get away with it without some ribbing, of course.
"Sure. I believe you, Wills." He said patronizingly, "millions wouldn't but I know my bestest pal..."
"Xander!" She screeched, right about the time he reached out to pat her on the head.
That drove a spike of pain through his still slightly throbbing head, and Xander grimaced as he pulled back and held his temples.
"Serves you right, Mister." Willow folded her arms as she glared at him.
"Man, I so have to kick that cigar store..."
"Xander!"
"Ow! Stop yelling!" Xander glared openly at Willow this time, "Damn it, Wills, that hurts."
"Then you stop being a... a... poopy head!"
Xander couldn't help it, pain and all. First he snorted, then snickered, then started openly laughing even as his head throbbed at him.
"I said stop being a poopy head!"
Oh lord it hurt, but it hurt so good at the same time.
Sirius Black was bored.
This was generally not a good thing for anyone within a hundred and fifty meters of his position but, as had been the case for the last 12 years, he was without a wand and rather limited in his pranking capabilities.
The American Ministry had seen fit to provide him with low level bureaucrats as companions, probably an Auror trainee or two in the mix but he hadn't noticed much difference between them. Other than that, though, they'd been remarkably generous with him he supposed. Room and board which, while not luxury, was miles above what he was used to say the least, not to mention the protection they were giving him from going BACK to what he was used to.
For all that, though, he was still really bored.
"Hey, Sammy."
Samuel Winston looked over, sighing, "Yes Lord Black?"
"God, stop calling me that. Exile and all, remember?" Sirius moaned, "I just want to know if I can get out of this place."
Winston shrugged, "You're still wanted to be on hand for questioning, but you're no longer under house arrest since the court proceedings closed."
"I can do the questioning thing anywhere, though, right?"
"No, you'd have to be in Washington, New York, Los Angeles, or San Francisco."
"Any of those in California?" Sirius asked.
"The last two are, yes. Why?"
"I was thinking about checking out a place called Sunnydale." Sirius said candidly.
Winston stiffened, eyes widening as he stared at Black.
"What?"
The croaking voice surprised Sirius, and he paused, "Are you ok?"
"Why do you want to go to the Hellmouth?"
"Hellmouth?" Sirius paled, "I... That's in Sunnydale?"
Winston nodded.
"The kid who saved me, he lives there! You let a kid live on the Hellmouth!?"
"Whoa, not our business where someone chooses to live, Black." Sam defended himself. "This is a free country. Besides, the place is only a little dangerous to your average Wizard. If you're going there, though, I should ask if you know your Vampire control methods?"
Sirius blinked, "Sunlight spells, cutting curses, and pure white magic right?"
"Plus wooden stakes, holy water, and so forth."
"Those don't work on Vampires."
"Not the Clans, Black," Sam said after blinking for a moment, working out what Sirius meant, "demon breed."
"I thought those were mostly hunted out."
"Not in places like Sunnydale," Sam shrugged, "They breed faster than we can cull them, and even faster when we try. We keep them out of most major cities, but some places like the west coast generally just reach a stable population point. We don't go out of our way to eliminate them any more unless they're being stupid. Just wastes time."
"Not to the people they'd otherwise kill, I'll bet."
"I told you, they breed faster when they're being hunted heavily." Sam replied, "Kill dozens of times the number of people they feed on normally. Magic is like that."
Sirius nodded, recognizing the truth. Magic had a habit of working to protect itself, in whatever form it existed in. Dark creatures were especially good at it, since they didn't give a damn what they had to do in order to live. Lighter creatures, unfortunately, were more vulnerable which is why many species like Unicorns had to be protected by Wizards and such.
Which, Sirius supposed, could just as easily be magic protecting them in its own way.
"I'd like to go to Sunnydale, anyway then. Just to say hi to the kid, if you don't mind."
"I'll set up a portkey to LA and we'll get you settled in there. Three Angels will be a good place to live for you, and you can run up the coast to Sunnydale from there."
"Thanks."
Xander tried to ignore the throbbing that had become his near constant companion over the last few days as he delicately transfigured one of the brass fittings into a grill plate. Doing magic while your head was pounding was TOUGH, so much so that Xander was putting off the complex work with the protean charm until later on when he was feeling better.
Honestly he had a lot of prep work to do before he got there anyway, and his original plans just weren't shaping up the way he'd hoped. Still, the new direction it was taking was sort of cool too, so he'd see where it took him.
The custom wand project was a little further ahead, though, since Willow could help him more with that one.
When he'd tried one of the mini wands he'd made, a carbon fiber shaft about four inches long, the results had been decidedly mixed to say the least. They'd used their normal procedure, and wound up with a wand that was pretty much useless for almost everything.
It was the ways it was useless that somewhat confused Xander.
With the Stunner, the wand didn't even manage sparkles, so it was obviously no good for curses. Given the small size and the fact that the core was Unicorn Hair, Xander wasn't so surprised at that.
Still, with that result he hadn't expected anything from the charms tests and, for the most part, had been proven correct.
Leviosa cast with the mini wand was shaky, unsteady, and basically too underpowered to levitate a feather with any security. Most charms were similar, but when he'd tried the Protego he'd received a bit of a surprise.
Xander and Willow had expected a thing, filmy, shield a little smaller than normal. Basically, a worthless waste of energy from an unfocused wand. What they had gotten instead was a remarkably solid shield that was roughly the size of a small dinner plate. It could actually block a fairly strong curse, Xander determined, but you'd have to be Darth Vader or someone to get the damn shield into the right place to intercept the oncoming spell.
Well, at range it would be simple to block slower moving spells, he supposed. Still, at range he could more easily move out of the way if it came to that.
So, sadly, Xander and Willow had shelved the mini wand concept for the moment and moved on to the redhead's dual core ideas.
That had resulted in a series of nasty explosions that blew the glass out of houses for half a block. Xander still grimaced at the memory.
A few days earlier.
"Xander?"
Xander grunted from where he was laying, covered in debris. His head was aching more than should be allowable by all the laws of man and nature, and he wasn't sure his ears were still attached since all he could hear was a dull echo of the world.
"Are you alive?"
He grunted again, sitting up, and glared at Willow. "If I'm not, I swear, I'm here to haunt you."
"How was I to know!?" She wailed, "I couldn't have known!"
"Note to self," Xander muttered, shaking his head, "Dragon Heart string and Unicorn hair do NOT mix."
"Christ! Boy! Are you ok down there!?"
"We're fine, dad!" Xander called out as Tony Harris picked his way down the stairs.
"What happened here?" Tony asked, looking around with wide eyes.
"A little mishap with magical components," Xander sighed.
"I'd hate to see a big one." Tony muttered, "This isn't going to work, boy. Another blast like that and we'll have half the neighborhood ready to string us up."
Xander winced, but nodded in agreement. "Sorry dad."
Tony shook his head, looking around, "Maybe we should look into a new place."
Xander brushed himself off, shrugging, "What are the restrictions on using the money from the trust Sam set up?"
"I think we can put money down on a place, but it would be in your name." Tony said, frowning as he thought about it, "but I was thinking about your mom and me. We've been fixing this place up, maybe we should sell it before you blow it out from under us."
Xander scowled at the smirk on his dad's face, "Funny dad, real funny."
"Property is cheap in Sunnydale, I think I'll start looking."
"Have a ball, Dad. I'm going to clean up."
"You do that. I'll try and explain to the cops that are no doubt about to knock on our door that my idiot son doesn't know better than to smoke around a gas leak."
"Hey!"
His Dad had been right, the neighbors were not thrilled with the loss of their windows, and it cost Xander a good chunk of his allowed spending money from the trust account to smooth things over. That left him a little strapped for cash, but he had most of his materials already so it wasn't bothering him a lot.
His additional training with Chayton was taking up most of his time anyway, leaving him with little left to spend on projects or even hanging with his friends.
That was chafing on Xander, a lot. What the hell was the point of summer if he was going to spend it all training like this?
Yet, he'd agreed, and Xander was loathe to go back on an agreement. Especially when he had an idea of how much Robert had put out to get Chayton to come down and offer some training. Plus, he was learning some really cool stuff too.
It was going to be a rough summer, no matter how he cut it.
"Kid has potential, Robert." Thomas Chayton said as he settled back and took a sip of the herbal tea he'd brewed. "I can see why you're interested."
"He's an outsider," Robert nodded, sipping at his own coffee. "The families want to play him like a plywood violin. He's proven that he's valuable to them, but most of them will toss him in the gutter when they're done with him."
Tommy nodded. He had some experience with the actions of the Families himself, and knew that they would use up and resource they could, and throw out what was left. It wasn't that they were all evil bastards, though some of them were, but most of the old families had adopted a frighteningly pure version of the American Dream as their creed.
Capitalism was a poor substitute for Honor, in Chayton's opinion, but one that had been adopted by the Harris Family in particular.
It wasn't surprising, he supposed. The American branch of the family had been established by a few individuals who had been exiled from their homes by shifting political winds. They'd been thrown to the wolves, in some cases literally, with only what they could carry to their names. From that kind of loss and poverty, you developed some serious issues, as the modern parlance went.
The Lavelle's weren't as bad, but they were also more Old World in nature. From a French line, the family had strong ties with Gypsy blood through Eastern Europe, and tradition was more than a word to them. Whatever Matriarch Lavelle had in mind for Xander, Chayton doubted it would be particularly pleasant. Family duty rarely was.
The Sioux Warrior looked over at his old friend, and wondered what Robert was playing at in this little game. The Squib was from one of the branch families of the Harris Clan, but had no real power in the magical world. Well, nothing official anyway. He was a politicing old bastard, though, and was probably owed a few favors similar to the one Chayton himself had owed him.
Robert was one of the more influential voices in the community of Squibs that inhabited North America, however, particularly within the military sub community of the United States. That was a powerful little clique, since it generally included a frighteningly high percentage of Generals, Admirals, and former Military personnel within any given Administration.
To be honest, the boy wouldn't add much to Robert's influence anywhere that Chayton could see. Though, one supposed, that another favor owed by a potentially talented Wizard was a very good thing.
"You're wondering why I'm so interested," Robert said, smiling as Thomas looked up, startled.
"Yeah, I am."
"Xander is family, for one, and I'm from and older school of thought than the current Harris elders." Robert said after a moment's thought. "You don't turn your back on family. I learned that in the military. I also think that Xander is from the same school of thought, though his definition of family is a little different from most."
"It's very close to the military definition, I'd say."
Robert smiled slyly, "Isn't it, though? If he can, he'll pay back any investment I choose to make... and then he'll keep paying. That's the way he is."
"I see. A good investment, then?"
"Very good, I believe. Especially if the families spend some time cultivating his new contacts in Britain. He'll be highly placed by default."
Thomas nodded, understanding the reasoning. He considered it for a while, then shrugged to himself. Mostly, it wasn't his concern what games the Families or Robert played. He had served with the Proud because he chose to, and not because he had some stake in the American Ministry. The one good thing about the Ministry for Magic here in North America, in Thomas' opinion, was the fact that they rarely meddled in the affairs of the communities they governed.
His own home was a small magical village within a Sioux reservation back East. As a general rule, they never heard from the Ministry, as they had their own constables and local government. The magical government never went through the unifying period that the railroad brought on the non-magical world, though he supposed that it wasn't surprising.
Thomas personally knew at least two people who had been present when Thomas Jefferson had given the speech in which he said that which governs best, governs least. Magical lifespans were long, generations equally so. The Magical world had not yet had time to forget that lesson, unlike those who ran the non-magical side of things.
He supposed that the Magical world was about two hundred years or so behind the Non-Magical, at least in terms of culture. In many ways the Magical world existed in a state very similar to that of the Old West. Most governmental power was spread out thinly, with local lawmakers largely in charge of their own areas.
It was, to his mind, exactly the way he wanted it to be.
Thomas shook his mind free of the wanderings and looked back to Robert, "Alright. The kid has potential, good reflexes, decent mind, solid power. He won't be a duelist in the time we have, by any standard, but he'll be a pretty fair wand hand for his age."
"Good, good."
"One thing," Thomas said after a moment.
"What's that?"
"Those wands of his, the ones he makes?"
Robert glanced over, "Yes?"
"Get him a registry signup as a wand crafter."
"I thought they weren't as good as normal wands?" Robert frowned.
"They're not, though they may be some day. That's not the point, though. A wand maker is legally permitted to carry heavy in any member nation of the ICW." Thomas said, "they have to be able to show their wares, after all. Britain restricts wand ownership to one registered wand, though they have all kinds of loopholes for legacy wands, of course."
"Of course, wouldn't do for pure bloods to have to give up their parents wands."
Thomas nodded, "I don't know if his experiments with carbon fiber of all things will be of any value, but carrying heavy is. He can make working wands, so he'll be able to pass the registration test."
"Got it. Alright, I'll get paperwork pushed through, shouldn't be too hard." Robert shrugged, "The family will be looking for anything they can use to make Alex more valuable to them."
"Good."