Never Normal
Rating: PG 13 – FR 13
Pairings: Buffy/Harry, Ron/Hermione
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Buffy characters, series storylines, etc - they belong to their respectable creators.
Timeline: Post-Chosen for Buffy. Post-OotP (fifth book) for Harry Potter… therefore no DH spoilers. This would be because it was after this book that I wrote this. Buffy was 22 at the end of the series, so we'll say that she meet Harry shortly after and married him. Their daughter is about 3 and Harry and Buffy are about 26-28. This means Harry has been gone for nearly a decade. (He ran off after Sirius died, I believe).
Summary: Buffy and Harry Potter have long pretended to be normal, their past secrets hid from the other. But reality came into play as their daughter is kidnapped, husband and wife must try individually to find a way to bring her back, while pretending to be normal for the other.
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Last time on Never Normal
"Buffy, Willow's taking the next flight out. She'll be here soon. But in the meanwhile, I believe you should go home and rest. I'm sure Harry is just as upset as you."
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"Are we waiting for something? Or can we get to the place you last saw her? We need to find something to start on!" Hermione impatiently exclaimed.
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Buffy heard a faint crack coming from the upstairs and she guessed was coming from, her daughter's room. The sound itself didn't matter much to Buffy, but she sensed that the crack wasn't natural. She sprinted up the stairs and came to her daughter's closed door. She grasped the doorknob, twisted it, and pushed.
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Chapter 3:
Lost
The old golden trio appeared in obviously a child's room. The walls were a cloudy pink shade and the soft carpet was a lighter shade of the same color. Toys and stuffed animals littered the floor and the white-accented furniture. Hermione's eyes scanned the room landing on a child's painted picture frame holding a beautiful picture within it. Hermione took a step forward, careful to not step on any stuffed toys, to look at it. She instantly noted her friend, his face bright, tan, and smiling. His arms were wrapped around the other two in the picture. In his lap sat an adorable young girl with golden blond hair and leaning against him was a beautiful woman with the same hair as the child. Hermione noted all their smiling faces and softly spoke, "Your family is beautiful, Harry. You're all so happy."
Harry brought his eyes to the picture and smiled longingly at it. "We were on vacation this summer… in Rome, visiting my wife's sister…" Harry whispered, "Oh God, tell me we'll find her, tell me she's okay."
Hermione took her gaze from the picture and looked at her friend. "Harry look at me," she ordered softly. His eyes brought themselves away from the picture and back to her. "We'll do everything we can, I promise."
Before Harry could speak, Ron beat him to it, "I hear someone coming." Harry spun around cursing under his breath as the door flew open. In the doorway, Hermione instantly recognized its occupant as the woman in the photograph.
"Buff? Are you alright?" Harry immediately asked forcing a smile on his face and stepping the few feet between them. She nodded her head weakly, the sweat and tears still evident on her face. Harry looked at her with sad, concerned eyes and brushed a loose strand of hair that had stuck to her face and brought it behind her ear. Buffy briefly looked up at him and quickly looked away once new tears were starting to fall. Harry instantly wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head trying to comfort her. Buffy fell into the embrace and let all her strength vanish as she allowed herself just this moment to be held in the strong arms of her husband.
Ron watched the two and couldn't imagine the pain they were going through. He walked over to his own wife and wrapped an arm around her on instinct. Hermione rested back against him and smiled at her friend and his gorgeous wife, who looked hours past broken. He deserved love, the love he had with his wife, she thought. He didn't deserve losing his child. No one deserved that. Not even Voldemort, if he could actually father a child that was.
"Buffy, this is Ron and Hermione, they're here to help find Lily," Harry softly told his wife. She had expected him to call people to come and find her. Buffy nodded her head and inside her mind she cursed at trying to think of a way to explain what was going to happen to all of them. Buffy sighed before she lifted herself out of his arms, forcing herself back into control.
She clenched her teeth together, a way to prepare herself, to ready herself to be strong yet again. "I'm Buffy," She introduced herself shaking their hands as they greeted her warmly. She instantly noted the English accents and on the flip side Hermione instantly noted Buffy's American one. It was then that Hermione realized that she had no idea where exactly they were. She had just assumed that they would still be in England. But maybe Harry had had the bright idea to leave the entire country, which would now be conspicuous if the two detectives Harry "hired" were English as well. Hermione's thought processes kept going wild.
While the two women stared at each other curiously, Ron stepped over to Harry and placed his hand on his shoulder. He then leaned in and whispered in his ear, "Har, you two should go outside while we look for evidence, 'right mate?"
Harry nodded his head and walked towards his wife. An arm slid around her and guided her from their daughter's room. Hermione looked sadly after their forms and Ron wrapped his arms around her once more. She leaned into his chest and sighed, "Ron, I never, ever want to lose Millie or Jacob!"
Ron's arms tightened his grasp on his wife. "We won't 'Mione," Ron tried to convince her, but he himself was not sure of it. He swore he would do anything to protect their children. But it had happened to Harry, it could happen to them as well.
"Promise me; promise me, we won't lose them."
Ron looked down at his wife while he rocked her. Ron blocked away tears and forced a smile to his lips. "I promise."
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Lilia Potter sat on the lap of a stranger. His face told her not to trust him. But the way that he talked and the way he played with her, Lily didn't care what the man looked like. Her small feet dangled out from her light pink nightgown, which contrasted against everything else in the room. Her gold locks of hair bounced as she played with the colorful, shimmering butterflies that kept coming from a long, think stick that belonged to the stranger. She laughed in delight and sensed that nothing was wrong.
Shocking to anyone but the girl in the room, Lord Voldemort was smiling with the young child. If this was not enough, since retrieving her, he had done everything possible to please her. This included his nonstop, innocent tricks to keep her entertained. Her big emerald eyes looked up at him when she lost interest in the butterflies. The child's eyes searched his own and seemed almost to reach the core of his soul. Voldemort did not look from her intense gaze; he simply let her search into the very depths of his heart.
Lily turned in his lap and kneed her way up so she could look at him at eye level. She kept her line of vision for minutes, she looked and she looked, and finally she took her small, chubby hands and put them on his cheeks. And instead of cursing the poor child, Voldemort did not protest and merely smiled at the girl yet again. "Mister," The girl spoke for the first time since arriving with him. The entire mass of people turned slowly to watch inconspicuously at the American toddler and their master. "Why you so sad?"
Draco Malfoy looked up slightly wondering who this child was that Voldemort was treating so normal, almost fatherly. She had kept the smile on his face for the last seven hours that he had returned carrying her in his arms and despite the couple times she cried, needed the toilet, food, or entertainment he had done no harm and shown no anger. This had shocked the entire group of Death Eaters at his assistance for the day. No one had been prepared to see a child here today and even less were they prepared to see their master oblige to the child's every need. And now, the six in the room were put in even more shock as he started to answer the girl.
Voldemort's dark eyes, filled with a mix of what seemed to be sadness and calmness, looked directly into the eyes of the young girl. "My dear, I used to know a little girl just like you. And when I look at your beautiful smile and hear your beautiful laugh it makes me miss her terribly."
At this, Lilia Potter wrapped her arms around Voldemort's unnaturally pale neck, and in Draco's surprise, Voldemort wrapped his own arms almost naturally around the child. "I'm sorry, mister," Lily told him soothingly. And then with a very sure, but sad voice, she questioned, "Did she go to live with the angels too?"
Voldemort smiled at the child's innocence and answered, "Yes, my dear, she went to live with the angels too."
Draco's head tilted ever so slowly back to his task. His thoughts were running and he had to think of someway to get out of there quick. He couldn't stop thinking that the only thing he had to do right now was to get to Dumbledore or Snape and then to get that child out of there.
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Notes: Third chapter. Hopefully things are clearing up a little. I'm not sure what to say if they're not. I also added a small timeline; I thought that might be able to help a little too. Are there any more questions? Another thing I added was another space in between paragraphs, personally I like the space, it makes it easier for me to read on computers. I have been rereading "What You Did" by DragonKatGal, very good story and author. She uses several spaces in between and I very much like that.
I'd also like to thank a few reviewers for suggestions to help with my writing. So thank you to you who helped… I hope this chapter was slightly better (I didn't add much, but did add a little to see if it worked better). One more nope: I am still open to ideas for flashbacks, etc.