Jane looked over at where Dawn was sitting on the couch, "How are you feeling?"
Dawn giggled as she brought her knees up to her breasts and wrapped her arms around her knees, "I'm happy to be back to normal."
"Did you have fun with Alex as a guy?"
Dawn laughed, "It was weird and awkward not mention odd but amusing."
Jane asked, "How do you think Xander and Harry are doing?"
"I'm sure they're doing fine."
"Really?"
Dawn said, "I have faith in them."
Jane asked, "Why so cheerful?"
Dawn smirked, "Turns out that in order to have one of your magical items end up cursed, you have to have magical items."
"Are you saying that your stuff is curse free?"
"Yep, even my boots are curse free because I got them after the curse card."
Jane asked, "What do your boots do?"
"They're silenced, they don't leave tracks and I move even quicker with them than normal."
Jane snorted, "You're already a speed demon."
"Yep."
"Did you figure out what energy types hurt more?"
Dawn winced as she rubbed her left hand, even waving it over the candle flame had hurt like she had stuck her hand into the flame. Thankfully Alex had been able to heal her rather nasty burn. "Yeah, fire bad. I think the two cards either doubled up my fire vulnerability or the second immunity covered the first vulnerability."
Jane said, "Luckily that's one of the elemental types we can fix with a ritual."
Dawn said, "I'm just happy there weren't more problems with the cards though I feel rather guilty about sticking Xander with a quest."
"I'm sure that he'll forgive you eventually especially with some groveling."
Dawn sighed, "I didn't mean to be a bother, I came to help and sending Xander and Harry on a quest isn't exactly helpful."
Jane shrugged, "The card did say he'd get a lavish reward. If you want to help then you can help Hermione and I organize the library."
"I'd love to."
Xander looked around the demonic auction house as he waited for the next item to be brought out. He had been expecting a bit more fire and brimstone but other than the obviously demonic auction staff and the sinister looking people bidding it looked a lot like a typical warehouse auction house that you might find on any dockside in any city in the world or at least it did if you ignored the fact that the river looked like blood. "Cheerful place."
Harry glanced at a hot half naked girl with demon horns and pitch black eyes that was the auctioneer's assistant before he pulled his gaze back to the demon in charge of the auction. He whispered, "I'm okay with cheerful as long as we can get what we came for and get out without too much trouble."
The small horned announcer shouted, "Bring out Number 29."
Harry glanced down at his number, 'Yep, 29.' He looked over at the sexy red skinned demon girl that walked out with a silver lamp that looked suspiciously like various genie lamps he had seen in books or on television. He was really hoping that he wasn't bidding against people for a genie.
Xander whispered, "Is that?"
"I hope not..."
The announcer shouted, "Our next prize is a genie, bidding starts at twenty champion souls!"
Harry sighed as he realized they didn't even have the proper currency. He raised his bidding stick anyways. 'I'll just have to go with plan B.'
"We have twenty souls."
A cloaked figure raised his bidding stick, "Twenty one."
Harry let a couple of other people bid before he raised his stick again, "Twenty nine."
The cloaked figure scowled at Harry, "Twenty five."
Harry smirked at the cloaked figure in a way that said, yep I was just bidding you up.
The announcer looked around, "Final bids?" He waited several seconds then said, "Sold to Rack the Warlock for twenty nine champion souls."
Xander whispered, "Now what? She's going to murder us."
He whispered back, "Relax, I've got a plan." Harry was just happy that he didn't look or 'feel' like himself right now. He waited until the buyer paid and the demon assistant gave him the silver lamp before he flash teleported out of his seat and to the front of the room. He grabbed the silver bottle with one hand and punched the buyer as hard as he could in the face with the other hand. Thankfully his durability was greater than his strength and more importantly greater than the anti-violence wards' ability to harm him. As he was flying backwards he flash teleported the silver lamp into Xander's bag. He rolled to his feet and looked at the dead buyer then looked around at the demonic auction staff. "We had a previous disagreement, this doesn't have to be messy."
The announcer shouted, "Kill him!"
Harry dodged behind a large demonic staff member as several demonic guards opened fire with assault rifles. 'So much for demons being old school.' He reached up, grabbed the demon by the throat, closed his hand around the demon's spine and used the dying demon as a meat shield against the guns. He was fairly sure that normal guns couldn't actually hurt him anymore but he wasn't willing to take chances against whatever the demons were armed with.
Xander followed the rather attractive young lady out of the auction house that he had been flirting with. There were at least two dozen other buyers that had decided fleeing was a good idea. He really didn't like the look of the portal that was supposed to return them to Earth nor did he like the slight smirk on the face of the demonic guard that was directing the frantic buyers toward the portal. He could tell that it was a slightly different color than it had been when they entered, it was almost but not quite the same, maybe it was nothing but if he was running a demonic auction and his rep was going to take a massive hit he would probably send everyone to a location where he could have any witnesses killed so that he could loot them and take everything they had. He reached out and grabbed the girl's hand he had been flirting with and used his ring to jump back to L.A. across the street from where they had entered the portal.
Harry did his best to not let the wards bother him as he shot the announcer with a bolt of lightning in the face. Considering several of the things the announcer had gleefully sold he didn't see a problem with causing the demon's head to explode.
The demon girl on stage hid behind a large box.
Harry summoned one of the nasty looking necromancers that had bid on a stuffed witch into the path of another round of gunfire. He ignored the rest of the fleeing buyers as he used the dead man as a shield as he finished killing the demonic guards.
The demon girl asked, "Can we talk about this?" once all of the guards were dead inside the room.
Harry asked, "How many more guards are there outside?"
"At least three outside and another five in the back guarding the stuff."
"You're rather helpful for a demon." Harry jumped the dead guy he had been using for a shield and conjured a magical shield.
"I'd rather not get killed, I never really liked Barney much."
Harry asked, "What exactly did you do for him?"
"Identification and authentication of items. That and I'm cute."
"Do you have any objections to helping me loot the place to the ground?"
"You'll let me live?"
"I'll even give you a generous cut."
"In that case, let's get started."
The demon girl that had sent Xander on the quest giggled as Xander managed to fast talk his way out of any accusations of kidnapping. She sauntered up after the other girl left, "Congratulations on making it out alive."
Xander looked away from the magic user she had rescued and looked at the demon girl that had sent him on the crazy mission in the first place. "You could have mentioned that they'd wouldn't take gold."
The demon girl pouted, "They probably didn't take American Express either did they?"
Xander snorted, "Nope."
"Still, you got the item I wanted."
"What are you planning on doing with it?"
The demon asked, "Does it really matter?"
"Of course it matters, genies are dangerous. I don't feel comfortable letting a demon get their hands on it."
The demon smirked as her skin turned blue and her horns vanished, "You should know, Genie lamps don't actually do demons any good."
"You're not a demon are you?"
The girl shrugged, "Technically you could call me a spirit of magic but I'm not really a demon. Either way, I owe you one lavish reward for keeping Jafar's lamp out of the hands of people that would either abuse their wishes or set the maniac free."
Xander gulped, "Jafar from Aladdin?"
"The real story wasn't quite so cute but it worked out in the end."
"If I can ask?"
"The princess got turned into a genie and Aladdin stayed with her for many centuries before he finally died of old age while surrounded by hordes of family and friends. She was given to a great, great granddaughter of theirs. She was a very kinky and fun girl, she's an artist in Paris but never mind that, the part about Jafar wasn't far off the mark. Lots of tales about Monkey Paw wishes are about crap that he pulled. Either way, you completed your task, is there something that you want in payment?"
"Is this where you screw with my wish?"
"Nope, I promise one good faith wish as long as you don't ask for world peace or anything else evil."
"I'd like all of my friends to be immune to all disease, both magical and normal without killing them or doing anything they would consider bad to them."
The girl looked at Xander, "That's it?"
He asked, "Can you do that?"
The girl smirked as she conjured a magical ring that would give him complete protection from disease as well as allow his system to gain immunity to anything that it came in contact with just in case he ever took the ring off. "Copy it a few dozen times and your friends will be protected. This way you can protect any new friends that you make. Is that a fair deal?"
He smiled as he handed her the lamp, "It's a fair deal."
"Good." The girl took the lamp then handed him the ring. She conjured three shiny silver tickets, "You can use these tickets for a week vacation at a fantasy island. Just remember that every day you're there is an hour on the outside."
"Fantasy island?"
The girl shrugged, "Naked playmates, kinky angels, depraved demon girls or much of anything really, it's a realm of thought and imagination, a lucid dream if you will. Take a friend if you want or just give the tickets to a friend. Either way, enjoy your vacation." She handed him the three tickets then vanished with the lamp into thin air.
He sighed, "Hopefully that doesn't come back to haunt me." He headed to the bagel shop to grab some lunch while he waited for his ride. 'I guess I'm going to have to thank Dawn for the quest card, otherwise someone might have gotten an evil genie.'
Buffy asked, "Do we know what she's like?"
Giles said, "The council wasn't able to dig up much on her, not surprising considering the only name she gave the council representative was Slayer."
Buffy muttered, "Great."
"Did they at least send a picture?"
Giles pointed at the brown haired girl with a white tank top that was coming toward them. "Yes and it looked suspiciously like that girl."
Faith smirked as she walked up to Buffy and Giles who she recognized thanks to the girls showing her a picture of them. "Stuffy clothes and an English accent, you must be Giles."
Giles asked, "And you are?"
Faith smirked, "That depends are you going to tell the council because if you are then you can just call me Slayer."
Buffy rolled her eyes, "You realize that you're not the only slayer right?"
Faith said, "Sure, there are currently three of us."
Giles took his glasses off and rubbed them with a handkerchief. "I don't have a problem filling reports using your title Faith until your official watcher gets here." He started walking toward the car.
Faith stared at Giles for a second before she started following him, "How?"
Giles asked, "Do you know a Dawn Stark?"
Faith shook her head, "Nope, should I?"
Giles stopped a second to look at her, "She says that she's your daughter from the future."
"Huh, didn't see that coming. Did she say who the father was?"
Buffy smirked, "A nymph, if you can believe that..." She trailed off as Faith groaned, "Wait, it's true?"
"She might be telling the truth..." Faith wouldn't put it past the girls to knock her up using magic.
Buffy asked, "Wait really?"
"Hey, slaying makes me horny and they're gorgeous, don't judge."
Giles asked, "So your name is Faith Stark then?"
"Yep." She knew that wasn't the name she was born with but she had documents that said her name really was Faith Pepper Stark which was so much better than being Faith Lehane.
Giles continued walking, "Let's go."
Buffy asked quietly as she kept pace with her watcher, "Why give the council the run around?"
Faith followed Giles, "Have you met Mr. Wesley stick up the ass Wyndam-Pryce?"
"Nope."
Giles sighed, "They sent that idiot to talk to you?"
"Yep."
"His father is a pompous ass as well."
Faith smirked, "You should have seen his face when I asked for money for my ticket to Sunnyhell."
Buffy asked, "That bad?"
"He got all stuffy and preachy about rules, proper decorum and about how I should stay in Boston and patrol because there was this nasty master vampire there that needed to be dealt with."
"Did you slay it?"
"Yep. You should have seen Wesley's face when I told him I'd already burned the place down during the day. He launched into a lecture about the proper way to hunt vampires."
Buffy asked, "How's that?"
"At night with a stake. Sure, that's fine for the fledglings but against a master vampire, I prefer to shoot their kneecaps out, cap them a couple of times in the head then stake them while they're incapacitated."
Giles frowned, "We're going to have to talk to Harry or one of the girls about getting you a silenced gun and some incendiary rounds or a magic bow."
"That's it?" She had been expecting a lecture about guns being useless or bad.
Buffy scowled, "I don't really care for guns but you seem to be able to make them work for you."
Giles said, "I'd prefer that you use a bow over a gun because bullets have a nasty tendency to go farther than I'd like. We've got access to some very nice weighted wooden arrow heads that makes killing vampires decently easy."
Faith asked, "How did you manage that?"
"We've got some magic users working with us."
"Are you sure that you're a Watcher? You seem sort of sane."
Giles laughed, "If we were sane, we wouldn't be living on the hellmouth."
Faith said, "Point. I don't suppose you know any decent and cheap hotels?"
Buffy laughed, "I know a place where you can crash at least for a couple of days that's nicer than a hotel and cheaper."
Faith said, "Cool."
Faith wasn't sure what she was expecting but a mansion filled with attractive half naked girls and a couple of hot British guys wasn't it. Finding out that Dawn apparently knew a heck of a lot about her was rather strange but she was wicked smart and funny which wasn't a bad thing to have in a daughter. The other shock was that they had offered her a room in the mansion and a paycheck for helping patrol. She looked back and forth between Alex and Giles, "You're going to pay me to help slay demons and vampires?"
Alex said, "Exactly."
"What's the catch?"
"The catch is that we'd like you to keep us informed about how many vampires and what types of demons you're running into so that we can keep records."
Faith frowned, "Paperwork?"
Giles shook his head, "Only if you want to. I'm fairly happy with a verbal report on your activities."
Willow said, "We're trying to keep records to see if our efforts at pest control are paying off."
Alex said, "I'd also like to set you up with a magic communication bracelet that also acts like a tracking device. We want to make sure that we can get to you if there is a problem that you can't handle or don't feel comfortable handling alone."
The idea of someone actually paying her for slaying demons and vampires was a nice change. Sure, a thousand a week wasn't the best income in the world but a thousand a week, a free place to stay, all the food she could eat and a lab to work in was a hell of a deal as far as she was concerned. It was a much better deal than the watcher's council had offered her which was basically risking her life for nothing while having a control freak of a watcher telling her what she could or couldn't do. It wasn't like she hadn't worn a tracking device in her other memories, hell it had saved her life a couple of times. "Okay." Faith asked, "Giles mentioned bows and silenced guns..."
Alex said, "You'll want to talk to Harry about enchanting some guns if you want them. We've got a magic bow that adapts to your strength and fires magical arrows if you're interested."
Faith grinned, "I'd give it a go."
"We've also got a couple of magical items that make sneaking around easier."
Faith looked at Giles, "Are these guys for real?"
Giles smiled, "They joke around a lot but generally not about safety."
Faith asked, "Why?"
Alex said, "Let me tell you a story about the Girl That Lived and the Boy That Lived and maybe you'll understand why we're helping you and Buffy."
Buffy frowned at the human looking robot that was in her kitchen. X-ray vision was very handy for seeing if things were human or not. She might not know all of the names for everything in the human body but she had gotten pretty good at checking to see if someone's heart was beating and if their organs looked human. "What are you?"
Ted frowned, "What do you mean?"
"I mean you're a robot."
Ted frowned, "Now listen here young lady, there will be no fibbing in my house."
Buffy briefly considered frying the robot with lightning then decided that the tech girls would be rather cross with her. "It's not your house, it's my Mom's house and you're dodging the question."
Ted raised his hand as if to slap her, "Learn some respect."
Buffy took a step back to make sure she was out of reach and brought her mirror bracelet up to her mouth, "Hey Alex, we've got a situation, I've got an evil robot in my kitchen."
Alex's voice came out of the bracelet, "Don't break it if you can help it, I'll be right there." She flame teleported into the kitchen and looked Ted over, "Neat."
Ted glared at Alex, "How did you do that?"
Alex raised her wand and conjured robes around the robot then transfigured them to metal bindings. "Magic."
"You're not going to get away with this little lady."
Buffy waved, "Bye. I'll tell Mom you had to step out."
Alex teleported out with Ted.
Joyce walked in, "What happened to Ted?"
Buffy said, "Something came up."
Joyce sighed, "I hope you didn't scare him away."
Buffy said, "I'm sure there will be other guys."
Joyce said, "Speaking of other guys, is your friend's guardian single?"
"Sirius?"
"Unless you know any other attractive British gentlemen?" Joyce smirked as she thought about her daughter's Watcher.
Buffy figured setting her mother up with Sirius had to be better than an evil robot or Giles, "I think so."
Sam stared at some of the electronics, "I still don't understand how he created a working android with junk from the 1950's."
Buffy looked around the creepy robot's basement that reminded her way too much of the 1950's for comfort, "We should probably call the cops."
Ginny shook her head, "The bodies have been down here for years, a couple of days more or less isn't going to matter to them. I'd rather not have the government figure out a way to produce robotic soldiers which means that we're going to need time to move everything to the research center before we call the cops."
Harry said, "Let's get started moving this junk. We can call the cops after we loot his accounts." He was just glad that he could change his appearance as it made looting people's accounts easier.
Xander frowned as he looked at the abandoned building that had been above a nasty military base in his Halloween memories. "Are you sure you want to do this? Mom used to threaten me with this place when I was a kid before it closed down a couple of years ago."
Harry said, "Your parents sound almost as bad as my aunt and uncle."
Xander shrugged, "Not really, I got food most of the time and they didn't use me as a punching bag. Besides, I could always hide at Willow's or Jesse's house when they were particularly annoying." Xander finished the thought mentally, 'Mostly they were just verbally abusive when drunk.'
"As for if I want to do this, not really but your memories were right about the creepy mind controlling demons. I'd rather spend an afternoon checking an old building out than ignore it and have to deal with a bunch of drugged out soldiers and a nearly unstoppable demonic cyborg in a couple of years. If you want to stay behind, I'll understand." While Harry was fairly sure that he could just destroy the cyborg with magic, he would rather avoid the nightmare if they could.
"Nah, we can turn invisible and I've got a portkey."
Harry looked at the sign that was still over the closed up building, "How bad was the Lowell Home for Children?"
Xander said, "It was an orphanage on the hellmouth, what part of that sounds good? There were a lot of stories about the place growing up about how it was haunted."
"Cheery."
"Yep. The old caretaker used to dunk the teens under water when they were 'bad', if girls acted too vain then she would shave their heads or do other unpleasant things to them, at least according to the stories."
Harry asked, "How the hell wasn't it shut down?"
Xander said, "This is Sunnyhell, I'm guessing dark magic or corruption. It was built in 1949 then shut down in 1960 by social services. It reopened for a time five years later, only to close after a year because three of the students hung themselves. It sat vacant until the seventies then opened again for five years then a couple of staff died under mysterious circumstances. It was remodeled and reopened in the mid eighties for about ten years. It's been vacant for the last couple of years."
Harry made a mental note to hunt down the original caretaker and make sure she was dead. "Let's just get this done." He walked up to the boarded up building and used his x-ray vision to look inside. "The inside looks safe enough."
Xander whispered, "If I fall to my 'death' and get stuck in a cave somewhere, I'll be annoyed."
"You've got a portkey." He reached out, grabbed Xander's arm and teleported Xander and himself into the building. "Stay on alert for vampires..." He sighed as he saw a smirking ghost that looked a bit too old to be a resident of the house, "And ghosts."
The ghost's smirk turned nasty as he rushed them.
Harry stepped forward and sunk his hand into the ghost's chest killing it.
The ghost screamed in agony as it was ripped apart by magic.
Xander stared at Harry, "How the hell?"
"I used a ritual to steal the powers of the Holy Glove that I picked up a couple of months ago. It works very well against evil ghosts, demons and assorted creatures of the night."
"When did you get that to work?"
"A couple of weeks ago when you were off on a date with Cordelia."
"Oh right..." He still wasn't sure what had possessed them to get together but Cordelia was actually a lot of fun now that Harmony was gone and her group of 'friends' had basically dissolved.
Harry sighed, "It's beyond finicky but after fifty seven attempts I managed to make it work by shape changing into someone else, doing the ritual and getting lucky."
"That fixed the dexterity problem, right?"
"Exactly."
Xander looked around, "Where to?"
Harry said, "I was hoping that you knew where we were going."
"Sorry, Buffy only said that it was behind a mirror."
"The entrance is probably on the first floor."
Sirius paused the video game he was playing against Sam as Harry and Xander walked in, "How did it go?"
Harry said, "We ran into some ghosts that we ended up killing, we also found an old boarded up lift that goes into a large bomb shelter."
Sam asked, "Any sign of the government moving in?"
"Not yet, I don't think anything down there has been touched in decades, probably not since they opened the dysfunctional orphanage over it."
Xander smirked, "It's like the Bat Cave."
Sam asked, "What do you mean?"
"The bomb shelter connects to a system of caves. One of the caves exits into the forest. It's been sealed up for years as far as I can tell, I don't think it would be that hard to reinforce everything and use the place for a base."
Harry said, "It wouldn't be."
Sam said, "Having a secure place to keep some of our equipment would be nice." She really wanted a more secure site than the old factory to keep some of their inventions.
Harry said, "We could use a couple of mirrors to link everything together."
Sirius asked, "How bad of shape is the Lowell house in?"
"It would take a bunch of repair spells and a fair amount of cleaning but we could probably restore the building if we wanted to. Personally I'd rather see it burned to the ground and rebuilt considering the negative energy around the place. I sent three ghosts to their rest and destroyed another five. The place was evil when it was a home, it's worse now."
"I'll call our real estate company and see if the place is for sale. Tearing it down and rebuilding it shouldn't take too much effort using magic. We'll probably need to hire a crew if we want it done in a reasonable time frame."
Harry looked at Sam, "I can teleport us over if you want to check it out."
Sam said, "Let's grab Willow and some measuring devices so that we know how much space we have to play with." She un-paused the game and kicked Sirius's character off the ledge.
Sirius turned back to look at the television when he heard the sound of his character dying, "That was cold."
"You're just sad that you didn't think of it first."
"Pretty much."
Xander watched Sirius and Sam leave to grab Willow, "Are those two?"
Harry shrugged, "No idea, Sirius went on a couple of dates with Joyce before they decided they don't have enough in common. Besides, I think Joyce likes Giles though that's slightly complicated by Giles and Miss Calendar..."
Xander said, "Sorry I asked."
Harry laughed, "I prefer things less complicated."
"Right, that's why you have a bunch of girlfriends that have girlfriends..."
Harry said, "Exactly, if I'm not paying enough attention the girls either drag me to bed or they drag their girlfriend to bed and I get to continue with whatever project I was working on, it's a win, win."
Xander was just glad that Cordelia had mellowed since Halloween otherwise she would probably have objected to him still occasionally having sex with Alex.
Thanksgiving came and went without any major issues or at least any they had known about at the time. It had been almost laughably easy and cheap for them to buy the Lowell house. Getting Jane's parents moved in down the block had only taken a couple of hours on the weekend with everyone walking stuff through a mirror in England and out a connected mirror in Sunnydale in their new house. From there it had been a simple enough thing to flame teleport back to Sunnydale with the mirror.
Harry was rather delighted that the weather was decently nice even in December. Sure it was still a little cold but nothing like the weather at Hogwarts. Classes had been going well for everyone thanks to a combination of Halloween memories and Willow being willing to help everyone that needed it with their homework. Sadly, he should have realized that his luck wouldn't hold up. "You should have told them no."
Sirius sighed, "Your friends have had a rather horrible last couple of months at Hogwarts. They want to spend part of the Christmas holidays with you. Is that really so much to ask?"
Harry sighed, "I have no interest in going back to England officially and I'm not going to subject myself or my girls to Mrs. Weasley's mothering or smothering as the case may be."
Hermione said, "Relax Harry, we're not asking you to Harry, we're going to host the party in the cave. We can toss up some anti apparition wards and a couple other wards and they'll never know where we are."
"Oh, I hadn't thought of that. The mirrors could get them over here without them having the ability to track us down."
Sirius smirked, "We've been improving it. We've got rooms they can use as bedrooms and we can transfigure some tables."
Harry sighed, "I reserve the right to kill Snape if he shows up for some reason."
Sirius snorted, "I've got no plans to invite him, order member or not."
Harry looked at Hermione, "I'll leave the invitations up to you."
Hermione hugged Harry, "It will be fun."
Harry muttered, "Hopefully."
Harry scowled as he followed Arthur invisibly through the ministry while he waited for the damned snake to appear. 'This is completely pointless Dumbledore, all you had to do was tell me about the damned thing and have me grab it, none of this would have been necessary.' He was just about to call things a waste of time when he saw the snake slithering toward Arthur. He conjured his sword, stepped forward and sliced the creature in half as quietly as he could. He let his sword vanish as Arthur stepped around the corner apparently blissfully ignorant of the danger he had been in. He pulled out a crystal vial with an undetectable expansion charm on it then levitated Voldemort's snake up and used a spell he remembered Slughorn using, to extract venom from the snake. 'I might have a use for you later.'
Harry snuck into the Hall of Prophecy and grabbed his prophecy sphere and replaced it with a trapped sphere. 'Have fun with that.' He teleported to the Astronomy Tower at Hogwarts to listen to the prophecy just to make sure that it was the same. After making sure that it was the same he stuffed the sphere into his bag then teleported down to Umbridge's office.
Harry scowled as he noticed the creepy looking professor behind her desk working on paperwork with a smirk on her face. He briefly considered just cutting off her head then decided that it would be better if they could extract some information out of her before they killed her. Mostly he wanted her vault key and number. He pulled out his wand, slipped behind her silently and hit her in the back of the head with an overpowered stunner. He spent the next couple of minutes searching through her office for anything useful before he collected the toad and teleported to the Chamber of Secrets so that he could interrogate her in peace without disturbing anyone else and without her escaping.
Mrs. Weasley frowned as she opened the door for Tonks, "Where is Harry? Please prove that you're Nymphadora."
She cycled her hair from pink to red to green then back to pink, "Harry isn't here. He wanted me to invite the Weasley family to a winter holiday dinner on the twenty first."
"Where?"
"I can't say but we'll provide transportation on the day in question if you're interested in having dinner with us."
"Of course." She was fairly sure that her children wouldn't let her hear the end of it if she didn't go.
"Excellent, Harry's looking forward to seeing people."
"Can you stay for a bit and tell me what's been happening with Harry?"
Tonks said, "Sirius and I have been training him. He misses his friends but he's made some friends which has helped a lot."
Mrs. Weasley said exasperatedly, "I still can't believe that you just took him. What were you thinking? Dumbledore was looking everywhere for him."
Tonks sighed as she noticed a disillusioned Dumbledore approach. Mrs. Weasley must have sent him a message when I showed up at the door, "We told him not to bother looking and that he would be better off trying to get the ministry's decision reversed. That brings up another point, if you come on the twenty first, try to remember that you're guests."
"What?"
"I hate to say it because you're been nice in the past but during the summer, you treated everyone at headquarters like they were in your home or were your children. You put Harry and Jane to work despite the fact that you had no right to. You sent the children off to bed when there was stuff to discuss when it would have been better to just tell him what was going on."
"Dumbledore said..."
Tonks said, "I don't care what the old man said, he should have brought Harry in and grabbed the stupid prophecy sphere a year ago and then left without anyone else hearing it. Just telling Harry that there was a prophecy and that he knew it but didn't want to tell Harry in case someone scanned his mind would have been more useful than the shit that happened. Just be on your best behavior." She turned to look directly at Dumbledore, "You might as well cancel your disillusionment, it's not polite."
Dumbledore frowned as he canceled his spell, "How?"
Tonks smirked, "Now that would be telling. Do stay out of my mind, you wouldn't like it in there." She was really happy that Harry had a ritual that gave people a mental shield that completely stopped all sorts of mental attacks. She pulled out the prophecy sphere Harry had given her and tossed it to Dumbledore, "Here, I figured you might want this."
Dumbledore caught the sphere, "How did you get this?"
"I didn't get it. There is only two people in the world that could have grabbed that sphere and I didn't get it from Voldemort."
Dumbledore asked, "He's heard it then?"
Tonks said, "I wouldn't worry about it, he's already dealt with his scar and most of the other trinkets Voldemort possessed."
"Most?"
"Harry hasn't been able to track down the cup yet. He's destroyed the rest of them."
Dumbledore stared, "How?"
"Magic." Tonks felt a poke at her mental shields, "If you do that one more time I'm leaving."
Dumbledore sighed, "Is he sure?"
"Yeah, the snake, the Diadem of Ravenclaw, Slytherin's Locket, the Death Stone, not that Voldemort knew what it was and the diary back in Harry's second year. The only thing left is the cup or at least that's what we think he used then again he might have used something completely different..." Without Borgin around he might not have ever discovered the cup.
"That's still an impressive collection, where is he?"
Tonks said, "I'm afraid that Harry doesn't trust you."
Mrs. Weasley asked, "Why?" in disbelief.
Tonks wondered how she could actually be that stupid, "Dumbledore sent him to the Dursleys for almost a decade without checking on them regularly then made him go back there every summer. He really has no interest in seeing you again."
Dumbledore sighed, "I'll admit that I made a mistake placing him there but the wards kept him safe from Voldemort's people."
Tonks said, "They nearly starved him to death, You could have sent him anywhere, there were a lot of people that would have taken him. My mother would have taken him. You should have made sure that Sirius got a trial."
"He wouldn't have been safe any place else. I tried to get him a trial but Crouch had a lot of political capital, even after he lost some of it with his son being tossed into Azkaban he still had enough to keep me from getting him a trial. No one wanted to pull Sirius out of Azkaban to check. I'm sorry to say that I thought he was guilty."
Mrs. Weasley frowned, "Everyone makes mistakes."
"I had other things to focus on."
Tonks snorted, "Like making sure your pet Death Eater stayed out of prison so that you could have your spy, never mind what the sadistic bastard did to the quality of education at Hogwarts. I had to put up with seven years of that fucker as a teacher. Speaking of which you had all these years to fire Binns but you never did. History is a joke, it's pointless. Rather than focus on actual important things to the world the class focuses on crap that no one cares about even amongst wizards and witches. We're what? One in a thousand in the world? Maybe one in 10,000 in Britain thanks to Riddle and his bigots? In the grand scheme of things, wizards just aren't that bloody important.
Mrs. Weasley said, "Now see here..."
"No. He kept a hack around as a divination teacher because she told one very annoying prophecy. In short he let the school fall to shit over the years just so he could have his people around to help him in his personal war against Riddle."
"Snape had to maintain his cover. I knew that Riddle would be back. Snape has been a valued ally against Riddle's people for years."
"No, he really didn't have to keep his cover. He's an obsessed piece of shit that only had an attack of conscience when Voldmort went after the only person he ever thought he loved. He confused obsession with love. He was a bully in school who had the misfortune to go up against three very talented wizards that called him on his shit. He's taken it out on Harry for years. You might tell yourself that he did it because of his cover but he did it because Harry looks like James and he's a constant reminder that Lily hated Snape in the end. Snape ratted Remus out because of petty school shit even knowing that almost no one will actually hire werewolves these days. Snape should never have been around students, then again your old potions professor is the person that told Riddle about Horcruxes in the first place so maybe Hogwards is just fucked in general. Considering his slug club and the creepy amount of bribery Slughorn commits, not to mention his various other morally bankrupt activities, it might be just as well that he isn't at Hogwarts. I'm fairly sure that McGonagall basically gave up after years of Snape getting away with murder and taking points for anything."
Mrs. Weasley asked, "What are you saying?"
Tonks said, "I'm saying that you should be very happy that Harry hates Voldemort enough to want him dead more than he wants the British Ministry to burn because the wizarding world has given him a thousand reasons to want it ground to dust. The difference is that Harry isn't Voldemort, he doesn't hate muggles, he hates his piece of shit family but he doesn't hate all of them. Why I have no fucking idea considering they're shit."
Dumbledore said, "They took him in."
"How much did you bribe them or threaten them? Never mind don't bother answering that. You could have made all of this shit go away, all you had to do was lie. All you had to say was that you fought Voldemort and he turned into mist and that you were pretty sure that he would be gone for a couple of years or that you'd killed his body or really anything but that he killed himself against Harry using a curse that had never failed before. There wouldn't have been any Boy That Lived crap and you could have hidden him elsewhere not messed with Lily's will. He should never have went to the Dursleys. You used him, you stole his childhood. He'd like very much for you to stay the hell away from him and to keep your pet Death Eater away from him because if he sees Snape again he will likely kill him. No witnesses, no evidence, he'll just vanish."
Dumbledore pulled his wand and said, "You're not Nymphadora."
Alex smirked as she wandlessly summoned the Elder wand out of his hand, grabbed it then activated her reflective shield. "You're right, I'm not Tonks. I'm someone a hell of a lot more dangerous that just got her very own elder wand, if you draw your wand on me Molly you might not live to regret it so don't. Ginny and the twins would be rather cross with me if I killed you which means I'll try not to but I don't have all that many reasons to like you so don't push it." She silenced Molly to make sure that she couldn't cast anything that her shield couldn't handle. "Anyways, I never actually claimed to be Tonks, you just assumed I was because I was able to change my hair color without a wand. That said, everything I said save the seven years bit about Snape was true. I only had to put up with the shit fucker for six years and believe me that was more than enough. I'm thinking that instead of killing Snape I'll stab him with werewolf fangs until he turns, then I'll make sure people know, he'll never find a job again, his potion mastery that he values so highly will be worth shit because I'll make sure that he's blacklisted from everywhere. I think that's actually more poetic than just killing him."
"You would do that?"
"To an innocent person? Nope, to him a thousand times over then I'd sell his soul to a shit demon to stake out in hell for eternity. Either way, be happy that as soon as we find out what Voldemort's last horcrux is we'll work on killing him." She activated her wrist portkey by tapping it with her finger.
Dumbledore scowled as the imposter vanished, "That was less than useful."
Mrs. Weasley looked at Dumbledore, "Was she telling the truth?"
He sighed, "There were things beyond my control in a lot of cases, the governors won't let me fire Binns because they don't have to pay ghosts, I hired the divination professor because she said a real prophecy, I had hoped that she could recognize people with the skill but alas she doesn't have that ability. The governors liked having more subjects even if it was a bit questionable. I allowed my desire for more prophecies to cloud my judgment, as for Snape I don't think she understands how valuable he's been."
Mrs. Weasley said, "Every single one of my children has expressed their severe dislike of him. I didn't believe Ron when he said that Snape loathed him but I'm starting to, see your way off my property and I'm seriously considering if the children will be returning after Christmas." She would rather home school the children than let them go back to a place with Umbridge in charge. 'I'm sure that Andromeda has a way to contact the real Tonks, hopefully she can contact Sirius then I can get to the bottom of the winter feast.'
Dumbledore sighed as he left, he was going to have to figure out how to find Harry and how to keep Snape out of trouble though he wasn't sure why he bothered considering the man was an ass. He was also going to have to figure out how to get the Elder Wand back from someone that obviously knew what it was. Hopefully somewhere in there he'd have enough time to figure out where his Toad of a Defense teacher snuck off to.
Sirius walked back into the living room after listening to his cousin Andromeda chew him out over the phone because she had had to listen to Molly rant about someone impersonating Tonks for an hour. "What the heck did you say?"
Alex blushed, "I might have went off the deep end."
Sirius sighed, "You were just supposed to drop the invitation off."
"Dumbledore showed up and I lost it."
Sirius shrugged, "No worries, we'll just use my backup plan."
"What's that?"
"We simply have the twins sneak everyone through an invisible mirror. It's probably better than dealing with Molly anyways."
Alex said, "Thanks, I keep having to tell myself that this Ron isn't the idiot from my world but..."
Sirius said, "It's just weird to think that the same people are very different depending on the worlds. I mean you can say it, I can agree then I go back to thinking about them like I remember... sorry."
Alex sighed, "It's my fault, I shouldn't have lost my temper."
"Don't worry, I was thinking like an adult rather than a marauder. We'll just have the twins recruit people."
"Are we sure we want to trust them for this?"
Sirius said, "Of course."
Harry smirked as Bill Weasley stepped out of the mirror they had set up in the bunker under the Lowell house. "It's good to see you. I'm guessing the twins sent you through to make sure things were safe?"
Bill looked around at the collection of familiar and unfamiliar yet familiar people then at the massive amount of holiday decorations that were scattered around, "Your friend caused Mum some issues and Dumbledore a lot of trouble by stealing his wand. Do you mind if I cast a couple of revealing charms to make sure that everything is on the up and up?"
Harry said, "As long as you don't cast anything that will dispel any of the wards we have to keep people from finding out where we are, I'm fine with that."
Sirius said, "Go for it."
Bill laughed, "I understand the need to protect secrets." He cast several charms to make sure that things were safe before he smiled and put his wand away, "I'll be right back." Billy ducked back through the mirror.
Harry wasn't all that surprised when after a couple of minutes Fred, George, Ron and Ginny walked out of the mirror. He was a bit surprised when Luna Lovegood, Neville Longbottom, Lee Jordan and Katie Bell followed them out. He was sort of surprised when Mrs. Weasley followed them along with Bill. He wasn't surprised when she rushed over and hugged him hard enough that his ribs you have creaked if he wasn't as durable as he was.
Mrs. Weasley let him go and stepped back, "At least you're eating well."
Harry smiled, "I am."
Mrs. Weasley smiled as she handed him a package wrapped in brown paper that looked and felt suspiciously like a jumper. "Here, Sirius said that you wouldn't get back for Christmas."
Harry said, "It's a bit too dangerous for me to be in England right now. Hopefully I'll be able to come back eventually but for now, I'm studying like crazy."
Mrs. Weasley smiled, "That's good." She looked around the room, "Your friends?"
Jane said, "They're the best."
"It's nice to see you again Miss Granger." Molly sighed as she realized that if she didn't hurry she would be late for the order meeting, "I'd love to stay but there is a meeting I need to be at." She looked at Bill, "I trust that you can keep everyone out of trouble?"
Bill looked at Fred and George, "Everyone other than the twins, sure."
George looked at Fred, "As if we wouldn't behave for our favorite brother."
Fred laughed, "We'll behave Mum."
"Take care and behave." Molly looked over the room filled with decorations then left.
Sirius walked over and tapped the mirror and set an age limit so that they wouldn't get interrupted by order members. "Ginny, you can take off your mask now."
The Ginny standing by Alex took off silly Santa beard and readjusted her Santa hat so that it wasn't covering her face.
The Ginny next to Ron stared, "What the hell?"
Alex's Ginny smirked, "Hello cutie."
Ron asked, "Polyjuice?"
Harry shook his head, "Hope. Jane and I missed you so much we were playing around with illegal cloning rituals."
Jane laughed as Ron sputtered, "Damn that was too easy."
Harry looked at Lee Jordan, "How are you doing?"
Lee smirked as he looked around at the attractive girls, "I'm a little sad that you're not on the team this year but Ginny is doing marvelous."
Harry smiled at Ginny, "That's awesome." Harry looked over at the Luna that came with the group, "I'm a bit curious how you know Luna."
Ginny said, "She lives pretty close to the Burrow and she's in our defense club or at least she was until Umbridge cancelled it."
Neville said, "It's just not the same without you Harry but Fred and George started up a defense club because no one else was standing up to Umbridge. We managed to pick up a couple people from the other houses."
Katie smirked, "I'm just here for the free food and to give you hell for not being on the team this year."
Harry laughed, "I would if I could but I wasn't going to go to school without a wand and I suspect that Umbridge would have tried to make my life a living hell anyways."
Hermione said, "Right, enough with the doom and gloom, it's a party let's have some fun and eat some good food or at least what passes for good food." She gestured toward the table where there were various dishes.
Ginny headed over to the girl that looked like her to ask her questions.
The younger Luna went over to the older Luna, "Hi, I'm Luna can you be my friend?"
The older Luna smiled, "I'd like that."
Lee headed over to flirt with the cute blond girl that looked close to his age.
Bill walked over to chat with Sirius while Ron walked over to Harry.
Ron whispered, "How did you meet so many good looking girls?"
Harry laughed, "Luck."
"How have you been?"
Harry said, "Better than if I had stayed in England. I've been having fun going to school and meeting new people."
"That sounds better than staying at Hogwarts. Umbridge is a nightmare."
"She can't stay there forever. Did you try out for the team?"
Ron said, "I made keeper, I've been pretty good so far."
"That's good to hear." Harry relaxed as Ron filled him in on what was happening at the school.
Jane smiled at Neville, "It's good to see you."
"Thanks, I'm glad to get an invite. I miss you and Harry."
"Sorry that we left but I wasn't going to stay without Harry and he didn't have much choice."
Neville said, "You're lucky in some ways, Umbridge is a nightmare."
Jane said, "So I've heard, let me introduce you to everyone."
Neville said, "Thanks."
Jane pointed, "The teenage guy is Xander, the girl next to him is my girlfriend Willow and my other girlfriend Tara.'
Neville blinked, "What?"
Jane tried not to snicker as she explained then introduced the rest of the people even enough she was fairly sure that he was too distracted to care.
