When Ivy Met Buffy

Summary: After defeating Voldemort, Ivy Potter leaves Britain, unable to remain where so many friends died and where her heart had been broken. Since the Dursleys never took her anywhere, she decides to travel the world, starting with America, and along the way she meets a very interesting blonde who's been struggling with responsibilities and powers as great as her own.

Crossover: Harry Potter/Buffy: The Vampire Slayer

Pairing: Ivy Potter/Buffy Summers

A/N: I've long been a fan of Buffy; indeed, her role as the hero is part of what inspires my use of a female Harry in my own stories. So I have a lot of incentive to write this story, but I don't want to just rehash Buffy episodes. I need some sort of new problem and goal for Ivy in order to disrupt the sequence of events in Buffy. I have some ideas for introducing Ivy to the Scoobies, and there's a lot of potential here with Buffy and her friends helping Ivy recover while Ivy helps Buffy get a better handle on her destiny, but I'm not sure if that's enough.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, JK Rowling does. I don't own Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, Joss Whedon does.

Chapter 01 - Chosen Ones

Somewhere in California.

It was the same dream again.

It was always the same dream, yet always different — a mixture of memories, good and bad, from seven years of friendship and adventures. That was all I had anymore, memories. Good and bad. I wouldn't trade them for anything.

But I'd give almost anything to be able to close my eyes and not have that dream, the same dream I'd been having every night for the past five weeks. Every night since I'd left Britain and started hitchhiking across America.

Especially since my dream always ended the same shitty way, just like my life in Britain had.

"You're a great witch, you know."

"Not as great as you," I replied, feeling myself blush for some reason.

"Me! Books! And cleverness!" Hermione said. "There are more important things, like friendship and bravery and..." She trailed off for a moment, then wrapped me in a tight hug — the first hug I could ever remember having received.

"Oh, be careful, Ivy!" she said desperately.

When she held me tight like that, I felt a tingling all over that I wouldn't understand for several more years...

.

..."I get it — you choose her," Ron spat out. My heart soared when Hermione nodded, but broke a little when Ron threw aside the locket and stormed out of the tent, abandoning us.

It broke even more when she spent every night crying over him, and I had no idea how to comfort her — at least not while keeping my own feelings a secret...

.

..."How did you get into my vault, mudblood?" Bellatrix bellowed, and I could hear Hermione screaming. "Tell me! Tell me what else you stole or I'll carve you up into little pieces and feed you to Greyback!"

"Hermione! No!" I cried out impotently. Her every scream tore through me like a knife, more painful even than when Voldemort put me under the Cruciatus curse...

.

...The three of us were fighting our way through Hogwarts, helping the others while trying to get to the girls' bathroom so Ron and Hermione could get a basilisk fang from the Chamber of Secrets. Every so often I would take a quick look at Hermione out of the corner of my eye — her hair was a disaster, she had dirt and blood on her face, and her clothing was in tatters from the months we'd spent on the run.

Merlin, she was beautiful...

.

...I didn't look back as I walked alone into the Forbidden Forest. She said she wanted to come with me, and I knew she would have, too, if I'd let her. But I couldn't. I was doing this for her — so that she could live and have a chance at a happy life. So she could live without being hunted or spat on.

I wrapped my arms around myself and fought back the tears as I tried to hold on to the memory of Hermione's hug goodbye, the last hug I'd ever get...

.

..."She's dead, mudblood!" Voldemort taunted. "The Girl Who Lived is no more, and you're next!"

"It... it doesn't matter!" Hermione replied. "It doesn't matter because we'll never stop fighting!"

"If she couldn't beat me, what makes you think you stand any chance?" Voldemort said with a sneer. "Avada Kedavra!"

"No!" I shouted, pushing Hermione out of the way as I threw off my invisibility cloak. Voldemort gaped in shock at seeing me, alive and healthy, which gave me the time I needed to start hurling curses at him. I knew this would be our last fight, and I wasn't going to let him walk away, no matter what happened to me.

I'd already died once that day — what did it matter if I died again?...

.

..."I... I'm sorry, Ivy," Hermione said in a hoarse whisper. "I had no idea you thought about me that way."

"Of course you didn't," I said as my eyes burned. "I did everything I could to hide it. I know I don't deserve that kind of love from you — I just felt lucky that you were willing to be my friend."

"No, Ivy!" Hermione protested, grabbing my hands in hers. Normally I'd have relished such contact, but now it was all I could do not to pull away. "That's not true. You do deserve to be loved like that. It's just... well, I can't be the one to give it to you. I... I mean, you're pretty and all, but..."

"But you're not into witches," I finished.

"No," she whispered as she looked back down at her feet. "I'm sorry, Ivy."

"Don't apologize," I said as I stood, and she allowed my hands to slip out of hers, allowed me to slip away as I took a couple of steps back and wrapped my arms around myself, hoping to hold in the tears of frustration and despair just a little longer. "Never apologize for who or what you are. Never apologize for who you do or don't love," I whispered.

I wanted to say more, so much more; but no words came to me, and I wasn't sure I'd even be able to speak without breaking down. So I just took a deep, shuddering breath before turning and walking away for the last time...

"Hey!"

"Hey, kid!"

I felt a hand shaking my shoulder and bolted upright in my seat, looking around wild-eyed and only just barely avoiding having my wand shoot into my hand.

"You alright, kid?" the truck driver asked. "You were jerking around, moaning like you were in pain."

"Just a bad dream," I replied as I forced myself to breathe more evenly, trying hard not to think about how it had ended — both the dream and my life in Britain.

Everyone had called me a hero, just like when my parents had been murdered; but if I was the hero, where was my happy ending? Weren't heroes supposed to get a Happily Ever After with the girl? Or did that only apply to boy heroes?

"Some dream," the driver said, looking at me with more than a little pity. I hated being pitied, but he was one of the nicer ones who'd given me a ride, so I bit back the sarcastic reply that automatically came to mind and instead focused on my surroundings.

"What's wrong?" I asked when I noticed that we were no longer moving. "Why are we stopped?"

"Oh, well, I've got to start heading north at this point. If you still want to go to L.A., though, you'll need to head south."

"Is there a town nearby? It's getting late."

"Yeah, sorry about the late hour, but traffic in this state is absolute murder," the driver said, looking sincere. "The city limits are only just up ahead." I nodded and grabbed my bag before opening the door. "Hey, listen," he continued, putting a hand on my shoulder to stop me. "I've, uh, heard some odd things about that town. I'm sorry about how late it is, but I recommend that you find a place to sleep as soon as possible. And don't stay too long. Move on to the next town as soon as you can — you'll be much safer in L.A."

I looked at him quizzically, wondering how this town could be more dangerous than Los Angeles, before nodding and jumping down from the cab of his truck. Slinging my bottomless backpack over my shoulder, I headed south towards the town and waved politely when I heard the truck driver blow his horn. After a couple of minutes, I was standing in front of a cheery yellow and blue sign that cast long shadows across the highway:

WELCOME TO SUNNYDALE

Enjoy Your Stay!

Sunnydale, huh?

I sighed as I readjusted the backpack and resumed walking into what looked like the quintessential California suburban town. It seemed like it was trying very hard to present a positive face to the world, but in the wake of the dream, it didn't put much of a dent in my mood.

I used to be the Girl Who Lived, and now I was the Witch Who Won. Inside, though, I felt more dead than alive because I'd lost the only thing that had really mattered to me. The phrase "Neither can live while the other survives" had always implied to me that if I'd managed to defeat Voldemort, then I'd finally be able to start living and enjoying a real life. For some reason, that hadn't happened. I was so lost in my own despair that I didn't think I'd ever find anything worth living for again.

Sunnydale, though.

Sunnydale had other ideas.

The more I walked, the antsier I grew, though I couldn't put my finger on why. There was something very wrong about the town, something that I started feeling soon after I'd passed the city limits. It hadn't been obvious at first, but after a bit I realized that there was something going on that seemed to be just beyond my senses. It felt like a faint buzzing at the back of my mind.

On some level I understood that it must have been magic, but it was unlike any magic I'd ever encountered before. There was something dark and dangerous about it, and I was tempted to hang around so I could learn more. Then I snorted and chastised myself for such thoughts, remembering the truck driver's warning and resolving to follow his advice about getting out of town as soon as possible. Whatever was going on, magically or otherwise, couldn't be good for my health.

Encountering so many graveyards in such a short span of time certainly didn't lift my spirits. Of the two experiences I'd had with graveyards in my life, one had been horrific enough to still give me occasional nightmares, while the other with Hermione...

No. Not going there.

Of the two experiences I've had with graveyards in my life, neither one bears thinking about right now, I told myself firmly. Those other two had nothing to do with Sunnydale — nothing to do with anything anymore, really.

But seriously, why would a town need so many graveyards?

It wasn't until well after the sun had set and I came upon the fourth graveyard that things started to get really strange. That's where I saw two people fighting: one a petite blonde girl and the other a really large, strong-looking bloke. I debated with myself about whether I should intervene in what appeared to be an amorous encounter gone wrong, but the whole "saving people" thing had gotten me into a lot of trouble over the years, and I wasn't sure that I wanted to get in the middle of other people's problems again.

I managed to walk a couple of steps in the other direction when the noise from the fight got my attention and I instinctively stopped to look back. I couldn't help but be impressed at how the little blonde was still struggling while being wrapped in a bear hug from the big bloke, but I could tell she wouldn't last much longer.

I sighed, knowing there was no way I could leave her to be assaulted — or worse — by that gorilla, so I walked back and hopped over the wall into the graveyard, dropping my backpack behind an old mausoleum. As I got closer, I started running because I realized that this wasn't just a simple case of a boyfriend refusing to take "no" for an answer.

That was a vampire she was fighting.

I may not have entered the auror training program like so many had expected, but I felt that as a witch I had some responsibility to protect muggles from magical threats which they couldn't possibly understand or defend themselves against. Being magical didn't give someone the right to bully or hurt people, whether muggle or not.

Knowing that I needed to do something didn't mean that I actually knew what to do, though. The best way to take down a vampire was with fire, but with the vampire now trying to choke the girl, I'd kill them both if I cast a fire spell — and that was assuming I wanted to risk breaking the Statute of Secrecy with such obvious magic. I also didn't know the laws in America very well and didn't want to run afoul of them. Nevertheless, I'd do it if I absolutely had to.

That's when I started hearing a soft, whispering voice. The first and last time I'd heard it was during the final battle at Hogwarts, telling me which spells to aim where. I'd hoped that maybe it had just been the stress. We were, after all, fighting for our lives after spending several months on the run with too little food and sleep. No such luck, though, because here it was again, telling me what to do.

"Sagittas Profundo! Aim for the heart."

Hermione had warned me once that hearing voices was bad, even in the wizarding world, but I couldn't deny that the advice sounded appropriate. It wasn't like I had any better ideas, so I incanted softly, "Sagittas Profundo," and a wooden arrow shot out of my wand. It impacted the vampire in the back, right where I thought the heart should be, causing the dark creature to explode in a cloud of dust and leaving behind a very surprised young woman.

I let my wand return to my wrist holster as I approached her, hoping to find that she hadn't been bitten. She was about my age, shorter than me despite wearing heels, and carrying a wooden stake in one hand. Not exactly the normal sort of gear a girl carries on a date (not even when intending to sneak into a graveyard for a bit of snogging), but I never professed to understand Americans.

"Uh, thanks, Robin Hood," she said as she picked up the arrow, looking at my hands then at the ground behind me in confusion. "I could have handled it, though."

I raised one eyebrow as I looked down at the stake in her hand. "I'm sure you thought so. That's an odd sort of tool to carry around for self-defense. Is that an American thing, or just your own kink?"

She quickly tossed it behind her as if it had burned her. "Oh, I just found that here on the ground. But really, I had it handled. Lots of experience with handsy boyfriends."

I was about to politely inquire how often those boyfriends exploded into dust when I heard more hissing and growling that sounded ominously close. I looked around and realized that dozens more vampires were coming out of the woods and crypts that surrounded us.

The blonde saw the same thing and quickly picked the stake back up from the ground.

"You run, I'll take care of this," we said in unison. We then traded expressions that said equally clearly, Are you crazy?!

"No, really, I've got this," she insisted. I had to hand it to her, she did sound confident, even if her confidence was completely misplaced.

I snorted, thinking that there was no way that a muggle like her stood a chance against so many magically strong and magically fast vampires. Rather than say that out loud, though, I chose to be more diplomatic. I'm not nearly as bad as Ron, after all.

"Please, you're not even big enough to be an appetizer to one of these vampires. I, at least, know what I'm doing."

Given the look of outrage on her face, I guessed that my response hadn't sounded nearly as diplomatic as it had in my head. Maybe Ron had been more of a bad influence than I'd realized?

She finally found her voice and spluttered, "I may be short, but I... I... I'll have you know that I'm a lot stronger than I look! Great things come in small packages!"

I looked her up and down, finally noticing just how toned her muscles were... and the six pack she had peeking out from under the crop top she wore beneath her leather jacket. I shook my head, trying to banish the images that suddenly started racing through my mind. I doubted that I'd ever be ready to look at another girl that way, not after Hermione, and we had more pressing matters to deal with. "OK, I'll grant you that," I conceded, "but it's not going to do you much good against these idiots."

"Hey!" one of them complained, but we ignored him.

"Like you could do any better!" the little blonde girl retorted, her hands on her hips. "You're thin as a rail, with no muscle anywhere. On top of that, it doesn't look like you've slept or eaten for weeks! You wouldn't last five seconds against these morons, and then you'd barely qualify as a snack!"

I huffed indignantly at that and was about to respond when one of the vampires called out, "Excuse me!" We both looked at him, and I noted the annoyed look on his demonic face. "Um, we all came out here for a fight, not to listen to the two of you bitch at each other all night. Now are we going to do this, or what?"

"Fine with me," the blonde said, holding the stake in front of her while pulling out a second and shoving it in my direction.

"No, thanks," I said, letting my wand shoot into my hand and holding it out in casting position. "I've got my own."

For some reason, she found that funny and started sniggering.

"What?" I asked, feeling a bit self-conscious.

She gestured at my wand with her stake and said, "Are you sure you want to use that? Mine's, uh, a bit bigger."

"I'm just fine, thanks," I replied with a frown, then turned back to the vampires, many of whom were also sniggering. "And what are you lot laughing about?" I demanded.

"Her wood is bigger," one of them said, causing the rest to start laughing out loud. Even the girl started to giggle again.

"It's not the size that matters," I insisted, "it's how you use it."

"I've heard that before," the girl said under her breath. Before I could respond, she reached out and pulled my shoulder down, throwing the stake past me and into the chest of a vampire that had been sneaking up behind us. "And besides, I know how to use mine quite well."

"I'd say so," I responded, feeling new respect for her. Small though she may have been, she did seem to have some skills. But would they be enough to help me against such a large group of dark magical creatures?

"Sure you don't want one?" she asked as she pulled out yet another stake from her jacket. I was tempted to ask how many she had squirreled away in there, but movement behind her drew my eyes away from her clothing.

"I'm sure," I said, pulling her aside and incanting "Incendio!" creating the magical equivalent of a flame thrower. That fire spell is normally only useful for a second or two because it can't be held for very long by most witches and wizards. I'm different, though. I've always been different, but I became a whole lot more different during the final battle. I hadn't yet figured out why.

Regardless, I now had power to burn. Literally. A dozen vampires went up like Roman candles, filling the graveyard with a cloud of ash and dust.

The girl looked at the exploding vampires, then turned back to face me, her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open. "I know how to use mine quite well, too," I said to her, smirking just a little.

"Get them!" one of the uncooked vampires shouted. My fire had intimidated most of them enough to get them to back away, but whoever had called out managed to rally their courage, and they began advancing again.

"Shall we?" I asked.

"Let's," the blonde replied with a grin. "Make mine extra crispy."

And then we started destroying vampires. Most of the time we fought back-to-back, me lighting up the graveyard with fire and her staking individuals that got close. Even though we didn't know each other, we somehow managed to work together as if we'd been doing it for ages: when she saw a group large enough to overwhelm us, she'd call my attention to them; when I saw individuals that were closing quickly, I'd direct her to the approaching threat.

I'd only ever experienced that level of easy coordination with Hermione (not that I really wanted to think about that comparison), and once we were done the girl didn't look like she'd exerted herself at all. "I hate vamp dust," she said as she bent over away from me to shake out her hair, giving me an amazing and unexpected view of her rear.

"Uh, yeah," I mumbled, not really paying much attention to her rant about having to wash her hair again. "I've never fought so many at once for it to be an issue, though, to be perfectly honest." Merlin, did she paint those pants on herself, or what?

"Oh, it's not, usually," she responded as she stood back up straight. I whipped my head around to look in another direction so I wouldn't be caught ogling her. "It's worse when they get burned, though. It creates ash to go with the dust. Really gritty ash, too. That's one reason why I prefer stakes."

"Oh, I, uh... sorry," I said, swallowing thickly and trying not to look at her. Blondes had never been my thing. Not even Fleur. So why was my stomach doing flip-flops? Why were my palms all sweaty?

"No, don't apologize, I appreciate the help," she said. "You did really well. I still think I could have handled them all, but it was definitely easier with you here."

"Thanks. You, uh, did a good job, too."

"Not too small, then?" she asked, putting her hands on her cocked hips and giving me the brightest smile.

"No, not too small," I said a little hoarsely, noting again how short she was. I'd always been the shortest student around, usually shorter even than those in the year below me, so it was a little weird talking to someone who seemed to be my age but whose head only came up to my eyebrows.

"So," she said hesitantly, "I'm guessing that was magic?"

"You know about magic?" I asked with a frown, and as I started to focus on her words rather than her looks, more questions started occurring to me. "And what did you mean, you prefer stakes? You didn't seem at all surprised by all these vampires, so you must have done this before? But how?"

"That's a long story," she said. "I'm aware of the existence of magic, but I've never seen magic like what you did. My best friend is learning magic, and I'm pretty sure that she's never mentioned anything like that. If Willow even suspected that it was possible to magic up a flamethrower, she'd have been working on it by now."

"Oh?" I had no idea what to say to that. It seemed plausible that there were other sorts of magic than what I had learned, but I had never thought that America wouldn't be pretty similar to Britain. "Well... I'm British?"

"Really? I never would have guessed," she said, and I rolled my eyes. "No, really. Aside from the cute accent, you're nothing like what I'd expect from someone British. I know a British guy. He's all stuffy and tweedy. But you're... cute."

"Thanks," I mumbled, hoping it was dark enough to hide my blush as I ran one hand nervously through my short, black hair. No one had ever called me cute before. That was a compliment, right? It had to be better than tweedy, at least. I didn't even own anything in tweed.

"My name is Buffy," she said, holding out her hand.

"Ivy," I said, taking her hand and shaking it. Her grip was surprisingly strong. Or maybe not so surprising.

"I take it you're new in town? Normally people who've been here very long don't wander around the streets at night."

"Been hitchhiking across the country. I just walked into Sunnydale a little before sunset," I answered. "Haven't seen a hotel yet."

Buffy looked at me intently for a moment before she seemed to reach a decision. "Why don't you crash at my place tonight? I'm sure my mom won't mind."

"Oh, I don't want to impose..."

"It's no trouble! At least come by for a soda. If you still insist on finding a motel afterwards, I can drive you, then you won't have to wander around alone."

"OK," I finally said, realizing that it would make things a lot easier on me. I waved my wand and cast a silent summoning charm, causing my backpack to come flying from where I'd left it on the other side of the graveyard.

"Wow, that is handy," Buffy said with a glint in her eye.

"It can be," I agreed as I followed her. Under the street lights, I could see her a lot better and couldn't help but start checking her out — especially when I let her get ahead of me and could see her butt again.

It would be quite a while before I learned that she was doing the same thing to me.

"So, are you going to stay the night?" Buffy asked as I sipped my soft drink. When I didn't answer, she continued, "My mom will be really disappointed if you don't. She'll give you her patented Sad Mom Face, making you feel guilty for days and days. She's really an expert at it — I should know."

I snorted. "OK, fine, I'll stay."

"Good, because I'm pretty sure she's already making up the guest room for you."

I just rolled my eyes. Joyce Summers reminded me of Molly Weasley in so many ways — I hadn't been in the house for five minutes before I knew that she wouldn't be letting me out of there to go to a hotel that night. She fussed over me as if I were her own daughter, despite not knowing me, and made all sorts of disapproving noises about me leaving my home to hitchhike alone across a foreign country. She wasn't overbearing, but I still appreciated it when Buffy pulled me outside so we could sit on the steps of their back porch and finally have that soft drink.

"We should probably talk about what happened," Buffy said after the silence started getting awkward.

"Probably, but I don't know how much I can tell you. There are some things I'm not really supposed to tell others. Though, the fact that you already know about the existence of magic probably helps."

"Ditto," Buffy replied. "You saw what I can do, so I can probably tell you more than I would otherwise be allowed to."

"So either we both break some rules, or this is going to be a really short and unsatisfying conversation."

"I don't know about you, Ivy, but I've never been very good about following the rules."

"My Head of House said the same about me more than once," I commented, smiling at some of my more pleasant memories.

"Head of House? Is that anything like a Watcher?"

"Could be," I said with a shrug. "Though she wasn't very successful at keeping an eye on me."

"Well, I'll start," Buffy said after another silence. "My name is Buffy Summers. I'm the Slayer. That means I've been chosen by Fate or Destiny or something to protect humanity by killing vampires and demons. There was even a prophecy about me. I'm supernaturally strong, supernaturally fast, and supernaturally tough."

"You're the Slayer?" I asked, surprise and wonder filling my voice. "I wasn't sure if that was just a legend or not."

"You've heard about me?" she asked quizzically. "I didn't think that anyone outside the Watcher's Council knew about Slayers.

"Yeah, I... well, no, Her... uh, a friend of mine read about the Slayer in Vampires: a History, and told me about it."

"Where would you get a book like that?" Buffy asked.

"In the library of a magical school," I answered, thinking back to happier times spent studying in the library with Hermione. "I'm afraid I don't remember much of what she said, but I always thought it was really impressive that a young girl could do such amazing things. It was... it was kinda inspirational, to think that there was another girl out there, somewhere, who was not only carrying such a burden, but doing it successfully." Whenever I started feeling overwhelmed by what I was facing, I'd think about her, the Slayer, fighting single-handedly against hordes of vampires and demons. It helped me realize that if she could stand and fight, then surely I could as well.

It almost looked like Buffy blushed for a moment before her brow furrowed. "Another?" she asked. "So what's your story?"

I sighed, not really sure how much I should tell her. I certainly didn't want to tell her my life story, but for some reason she was willing to trust me with some things about herself that I was sure she was supposed to keep secret. The least I could do was show her a similar amount of trust. "I'm Ivy Potter, a witch. I used to be a student at the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry in Scotland."

"Hogwarts?" she asked, scrunching up her nose. "Sounds like a nasty skin condition."

"I suppose so," I said with a smile, "but it's a beautiful castle located in the middle of beautiful countryside." I then paused and frowned. "At least, it was beautiful."

"What happened?"

"War," I said softly. "Magical war. It... wasn't pretty. So many people hurt, so many deaths. I was the subject of a prophecy, too."

Buffy slid across the step, putting her much closer to me. "Do you want to talk about it?"

I shook my head and set my glass down. I didn't feel like drinking it anymore. Except for the dreams about Hermione, I'd managed to avoid thinking about the final battle, the prophecy, the deaths, the destruction... my own death. I wasn't really ready to face those memories again. Not yet, at least. It was much too soon.

"That's OK," she said as she put a gentle hand on my shoulder. "But if you do want to talk, I'll be here. I know what it's like."

I looked up into her bright, blue eyes and could see that she was telling the truth. Outside of those who had been through the war in Britain with me, I didn't think I'd ever run across anyone who could understand what I'd gone through. Who could understand what it was like to struggle under the weight and responsibilities of a prophecy. Who could understand what it was like to have friends follow me into battle despite my best efforts to convince them to stay away from me for their own safety.

But when I looked into those eyes, I saw someone who might be able to understand.

Maybe it was worth staying a while in Sunnydale after all. I mean, how bad could it be?