Author note: Sorry this did not come out yesterday. The sick bug has hit (it's September-I always get sick in September) and I just did not feel up to even getting out of bed yesterday once I got home from work. This is also a short chapter, almost 3,000 words. I kept cutting it shorter and shorter because the chapter was too heavy. The explanations were too complex and I kept repeating myself. Thanks to Jacy for helping me beat this one into submission. Chapter 3 will be out next Wednesday.

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Dawn slowly woke up and stretched, before opening her eyes to stare at the ceiling. She felt…amazing. Like she slept for years and woke up rejuvenated. Every breath she took seemed to be pure oxygen. Her limbs felt lighter and full of energy.

Suddenly, a face peered down at her. She blinked in shock but relaxed when she recognized Draco hovering over her. The previous day came to her in a flash—Willow was about to leave but Draco said she wouldn't be able to get into England. He was healing her, and then Dawn wanted to check on Willow. She sat down on the floor opposite of Draco and then… she didn't remember.

"You woke up a lot sooner than I expected," Draco said with a small grin.

"Is that bad?" Dawn asked while rising up from the bed. Draco grabbed her arm and helped her sit up, getting on the bed behind her to support her. Dawn didn't understand why until she felt she could barely sit up without help. She leaned against him and sighed. It felt nice. Her throat was a little scratchy, but she just coughed a bit, clearing it.

"It's very good. You healed quicker."

Dawn turned to her left and realized she had been placed on the bed with Willow, who was still asleep, but her face was different. There were no worry lines or anything pertaining to stress visible on her face. For the first time in a long time, the witch looked at peace.

"She looks…peaceful," Dawn said with finality. She felt, more than heard, the laughter coming from Draco.

"As do you. You're going to feel like this for most of the day, like you're riding in the clouds. If you've never been drunk or high, you're about to feel the wonders of them without the nasty side-effects."

Dawn grinned and leaned further back. "I'm liking this healing business."

Draco laughed again and slowly got up, leaning Dawn back against the pillow. She didn't feel tired, but content to lie against the pillows and watch Draco walk across the room to the window.

"What time is it?" Dawn asked suddenly.

"Nearing nine in the morning," Draco answered, still looking out the window. He let the drapes fall closed. He walked toward the bed with his hands clasped behind his back. Dawn suddenly had a flashback to a television show where a big time lawyer walked like this; he walked like he owned the world.

"What are you grinning at?" Draco asked, coming to sit beside her on the bed.

"How uppity you look while walking like that. I know that most people think 'rich' when they hear British accents, but you just screamed it right then."

Draco chuckled and put his hand on her head. Her eyes immediately fell closed, but it wasn't like last time. She was aware of him, and of Willow breathing next to her. She knew she was lying on the bed and she knew that it was daytime outside. When his hand left her forehead, she opened her eyes to look at him curiously.

"How did you do that?" When he raised his eyebrows at her, she rolled her eyes. "I mean, make everything bad go away? It was calm and quiet. Nothing mattered for a moment."

The blond wizard sighed and stood up, walking to the other side of the bed, where Willow was laying. "It's a dormant family trait, but a man, who I actually couldn't stand kept pushing me, and helped me hone the skill. I needed healing more than anyone he knew, or so he said. He died a few years go." Draco's eyes took on a distant look. "I can't help but wonder if he was part-Seer, for all the things he knew." He shook his head, as if to clear it, and looked down at Willow. He closed his eyes and put his hand on her head, and then moved his index finger to her right temple.

"Well?" Dawn asked, while rolling over to look at Willow more closely.

"She'll be awake soon. The damage was deeper than I thought. I've got my work cut out for me," he said with a derisive grin. Suddenly, Willow took a deep breath and turned a bit in her sleep. "Ah, there she is."

Willow opened her eyes slowly and closed them again in a languid blink. She felt fuzzy, like her mind was scattered in the wind. Time was fluid…she had no idea if it was still dark outside, or how long she'd been asleep, and she didn't care. Her throat didn't feel dry, but sore, like she had been screaming non-stop for a long time.

A glass of water appeared in front of her face, and she looked to the person holding it in front of her.

Draco grinned. "I know what it's like to come out of one of these sleeps. You feel like your throat is on fire. It's natural. Take a few sips of water to help."

Willow tried to sit up, but found she didn't have the strength. Draco's hand left the glass of water and helped her sit up, sitting behind her like he had Dawn. Willow just kept staring at the glass of water suspended in the air. Draco grabbed it again and held it to her lips.

"It's just water. I only used a levitating charm to hold in the air while I helped you up." Willow opened her mouth slightly and let the cool water soothe her throat. "You're going to have to learn that not all magic is bad. Your quitting magic so suddenly is one of the main reasons you lost so much control last time."

"But—" Willow croaked, and Draco interrupted her.

"No buts! I know you're a lesbian and happen to like arse quite a bit, but can we keep off the subject?"

Willow was surprised when someone laughed next to her that wasn't Draco. When she turned over, her heart started to pound when she saw Dawn. Had she gone backwards in her healing and sapped Dawn for power? All the different scenarios were running through her head and made her start to panic.

"Dawn?" Willow turned back toward Draco, and tried to convey her feelings. He wouldn't have let her hurt Dawn, would he? "Did I…"

Draco rolled his eyes and levitated the water again, setting Willow back against the bed. He could already see they were going to have to work on her expression guarding skills. She gave away what she was thinking on her face. "She came in during the night and I touched her essence up a bit. It was cracked."

"My essence?" Dawn asked confused. "What's my essence and why was it cracked?"

"Too much dark magic will do that to someone who isn't used to it. Your sister, Giles, and all the others have dealt with it enough, but yours was brand new. It's fine now."

"Brand new?" Willow questioned slowly. "You mean like—"

"I mean that most two year essences don't encounter such heavy magic. It was interesting to heal that essence in a sixteen year old body."

Both Dawn and Willow sobered up at that. "So you know…" Willow trailed off, looking at Draco.

"I knew about it before I even came," Draco reassured them. "Giles made sure the three of us knew all about it before we agreed to get involved."

"Three? Who else knows?" Dawn asked, irritated that Giles had been telling other strangers about her. She rose up slowly on her elbow to look at Draco, who was still sitting on the bed.

"Just me and two friends, Pansy and Harry. Oh, and my mother. Harry had some problems with his magic when he battled a Dark Lord. Pansy is a Seer. They help me. My mother knows because Giles knew if he didn't tell her, she'd just torture me until I told her. He showed a great amount of compassion that day."

Draco wasn't about to go explaining the complex workings of his relationship with his ex and the man he once hated with two people he'd only met yesterday.

Dawn gaped at him. "Your mom would torture you? Remind me never to meet your mother."

Willow looked at him with caution. "This Harry person battled a Dark Lord? Doesn't that usually… change people?"

Of course it changed people, but someone who battled a powerful entity directly was changed more than anyone else. Potter, as usual, went above and beyond 'changing' and flat out became a new person entirely.

"It's a long story, you know," Draco said as a warning. "And I don't want to have to repeat myself. Besides, the story isn't appropriate right now. All you have to know is that he lost a lot of people in the battles, and the Dark Lord ended up possessing his girlfriend. She killed herself after going on a massacre. The rage overtook him. Now his own magic has changed too much; it's hard for him to control it. He consumed the Dark Lord and absorbed his dark power. He went along your train of thought and decided the world was better off without magic. Luckily, he was stopped."

"How…how is he?" Willow asked. That did come too close to her own story for her liking. She knew all too well what a rage over a lost lover would do. "I mean, I can only imagine what my magic did to his."

Draco peered down at her with an unreadable expression on his face. This was a good chance for him to really see how her grief affected her. It would either help or hinder her. Right now, it looked like they were going to have to work on it.

"He and Pansy will be arriving in a few weeks. You can meet him then and see for yourself."

"Will I—" Willow began, a panicked expression on her face.

"Nothing is going to happen," he assured her. "You have a lot of power, Willow, but Harry didn't. He absorbed so much dark magic that it nearly destroyed him. You just expanded yours and tainted it a bit. He went from pure to dark in seconds."

Draco sighed and shook his head, as if annoyed. "You'll see when you meet him. He's like a little puppy just begging to be cared for."

Draco led Dawn down the stairs, her needing to lean on him heavily. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, he steered her toward the kitchen, where he could hear voices drifting down the hall. He turned back to Dawn.

"Think you can make it?" he asked, teasingly. Dawn rolled her eyes and kept taking a few steps. "You're just as hardheaded as the rest of them," he mumbled in response to her steps.

As they entered the kitchen, Giles stopped in the middle of the conversation he was having with Buffy, and smiled. He had been worried when Draco told him that he'd have to work on Dawn a bit, but she was in capable hands. She did look better this morning.

Buffy turned to look at Dawn in concern. So far, she didn't like Draco Malfoy that much because she knew nothing about him. He was self-professed 'dark', whatever the hell that meant, and she wasn't taking chances with her baby sister. She had done too much to protect her.

"Are you okay?" she asked, wanting to go check on her.

"I'm fine," she replied as Draco helped her to a nearby chair. "I feel great, actually. Like, really great." Dawn grinned and nearly fell off the stool but quickly righted herself.

Buffy looked at Draco in alarm. What had he done to her sister? To her irritation, he just grinned in response.

"I just touched up her aura a bit. No harm done. Willow is still upstairs resting. She'll be moving slowly for the next few days, but she'll be fine in the long run, I think."

Seeing that Dawn was fine sitting up by herself, he walked over to the cabinets. "Tell me you lot have some sort of tea here. You have to." He spotted a box that had the word tea on it and pulled it out, making a face at it.

Draco turned around and held the box up. "You call this peppermint tea? It smells like someone smashed a candy cane into a box of old generic dirt." He turned back and put the box up, closing the cabinet doors with a growl. "No, peppermint tea is twice-brewed Tieguanyin with freshly grown peppermint and a dash of milk. That is a cup of tea."

"And at fifteen dollars for a single bloody cup, it's the most outrageous bloody cuppa there ever was, you stuck up pillock," Giles said, glaring while Draco laughed.

"I never thought I would be the one saying this," Buffy said with a slight grin, "But you're a snob."

Draco laughed and grabbed his wand from his back pocket, conjuring a steaming cup of tea. The smell of peppermint filled the air. "No, I'm just someone with exquisite tastes and a delicate palate."

Everyone looked at each other, amused, before chiming "snob", which made Draco laugh even more. They would get along with the Gryffindors from England just perfectly. He shrugged and took a long sip from his cup. "I can't help the way I was raised."

Once the laughter died down, Xander became serious. "So you're a Sealer. That means what, exactly? You do your own mojo and heal the sick mojo-makers?"

Draco's eyebrow went up as he looked over at Giles.

"Don't even bother understanding it. Just explain it," he said with a sigh. Draco nodded and put down his cup of tea.

"What I do… what I am, is very rare and possibly dangerous. Some people can feel magic, but they're never able to truly visualize it." He sighed, realizing he wasn't explaining this very well. It was always hard to explain his way of magic to normal witches and wizards. Trying to explain it to people who hadn't encountered wand magic was going to be even more difficult.

"In each country, there are areas that are purely magical that only magical people can see. People who don't have magic in their veins, but can sense magic because they've been exposed to a lot of it, can also go to these areas. You all are sitting on a magical hotspot right now, and you can sense magic because you've been exposed to it so much. You can feel the magical signature of objects, or texts, or wards that are set up around magical places. It's a hum, almost. When I access my ability, I can actually see magic and touch it."

"But you said earlier something about magical signatures?" Xander asked. When Buffy,and Giles looked at him strangely, he leaned back defensively. "I listen, all right? He's messing with my Willow's head and stuff, so yeah, I'm going to pay attention. Have a little faith!"

Draco turned to Giles. "So he's the Weasley of the group?" he asked with a grin. "Can I charm his hair red and insult his lump of a house? It'll make me feel at home."[AL1]

"Hey!" Xander snapped. "You haven't even seen my place. How would you know it's a lump?"

The watcher just glared at Xander. Before turning back to Draco. "Get on with the explanations, will you? And no charms, curses, or hexes, either."

"Right," Draco replied with a grin. "Magic is a universal flow but as it is around a person, it adapts to their aura, which is unique to the individual." He frowned in thought. "The aura influences the magic with the individual fingerprint, making a signature of the person."

When he got nods around the kitchen, Draco continued.

"While magic becomes frayed, like a rope, auras crack. If there is damage to magic, the other magic around will try to compensate. An aura can't compensate, and when an aura is cracked, the magical flow becomes even more disrupted."

"But what happened with Willow?" Buffy asked, crossing her arms and leaning forward on the counter-top island. "

"What happened with Willow is a bit more complicated. It involved intricate magical aura theories that I'm pretty sure would melt your brain out of your pretty little head," Draco said. Buffy glared at him but gestured at him to continue.

"There cannot be a magical flow without an aura, which isn't a problem, since nearly everyone has one, but not everyone is susceptible to having or using magic. Once magic is around an aura for so long, and an aura is cracked, the magic frays along with it, and since an aura can't be compensated…"

"The magic can't either," Xander finished.

"Is that what happened with Willow? Her aura cracked and her magic went wonky?"

Draco shook his head at Dawn. "Like I said—it's a bit different."

The room was silent for a few moments. "So how are you helping her?" Buffy asked.

Draco sighed. "You're just going to have to trust me and trust her. Willow can do this if she really wants to. She's strong."

"That she is," Giles said with a small grin.