Don Sample
2006-06-10 20:11:07 UTC
Chapter 1
"Coming through!"
Xander Harris stepped to the side of the hall to let the two girls carry
the heavy table past him. He knew that table was made from solid
oak--he'd selected it himself--but the girls were carrying it as
effortlessly as they would have if it had been made from balsa wood.
"Careful with that!" he called after them. He knew that they could smash
it into kindling as easily as they could a balsa wood table too, and
heaven help anything that they ran into.
The girls just laughed, and one of them waved as she flipped the table
over onto its side and manoeuvred it, one handed, through the door into
what was to be a conference room, with less than an inch of clearance to
spare on either side.
Xander shook his head, and continued down the hall to the top of the
stairs. He looked down with pride. The wide stairway swept down into a
circular atrium with a parquet floor. He pulled a cloth from his pocket,
and rubbed some fingerprints off the rich wood of the railing. The
atrium below him was buzzing with activity. Dawn stood in the centre of
it, directing traffic: sending Slayers this way and that, delivering
their burdens to their appointed rooms.
He had made this.
Okay, he hadn't personally made all that much of it, but he had
supervised every step of the process, from the original architect's
drawings, through the excavation for the basement (and sub-basements) to
the shingling of the roof. He had been here for the first ceremonial
ground breaking and for the last dab of paint, and for most of the steps
in between. He had even managed to do some of the carpentry himself. Not
as much as he would have liked--there was just too much of it--but
enough.
He had to dodge another pair of Slayers carrying a desk up the stairs.
These two weren't quite so cheerful. Xander overheard one of them
grumbling about how they got stuck with all the heavy stuff. Andrew was
following them, carrying a single cardboard box that looked like it was
giving him more of a problem than the desk was giving the Slayers.
It had taken them nearly three years to get here, following the
destruction of Sunnydale. Most of the first year had been spent running
around the world, searching out all the new Slayers. The second was
spent getting the Watchers re-established as an effective support
organization for them. It was during that time that they decided that
they needed to establish a new headquarters, and after spending some
time unsuccessfully searching for something that could be adapted for
their use, they had decided that the only way to get the sort of
facility that they really wanted was to have it custom built from the
ground up. Renovating an existing structure to suit their needs would
have cost even more.
Even starting from scratch had been a challenge. So many of their
requirements conflicted: an ultra-modern facility, that had an old-world
grace to it; a place that would be a comfortable home for the people who
would live here, and an efficient working environment for the people who
would work here; telephone, Internet, and satellite communications
systems giving full connectivity with the rest of the world, while at
the same time providing them with the best security against outside
eavesdroppers or other electronic intrusion; the same on the mystical
side: a harmonious environment for performing magic, but fully warded
against magical intrusion.
That last item had hit a bit of a snag. Willow had planned to erect the
final ward--one which would nullify any magical glamours, seemings, or
illusions--a week earlier, until Dawn had asked what effect that might
have on her, and the Key. Willow'd had to go back to her magical drawing
board, to make sure that her spell wouldn't have any undue (or undo)
effect on Dawn. The casting of that spell was now set for midnight
tonight.
---
Harry Potter stopped in at the little Muggle general store in Ottery St.
Catchpole to collect a couple of things that Ginny had told him to get
for dinner, and for the litre of Hagen Dazs ice-cream that she hadn't
asked for, but that he knew was her favourite. It was so much more
convenient for him to shop in Muggle stores where no one knew him as
"The Boy Who Destroyed You-Know-Who." Even with him gone for good this
time, without any remaining Horcruxes to bring him back, most wizards
were still afraid to say Voldemort's name.
Home was close enough that he didn't need to put a freezing spell on the
ice-cream. When Ginny had first suggested that they look for a place
near her family, Harry had been a little leery, but when you got right
down to it, one mile or a hundred miles didn't make that much difference
to in-laws who could apparate. (Not that Harry had any objections to his
in-laws. He had been a virtual adopted Weasley long before he married
Ginny, and he adored the lot of them. Even Percy was tolerable, these
days. They could get to be a little overwhelming at times, though.)
A couple of people waved friendly greetings as he walked through the
village towards the cottage that he and Ginny lived in. Harry cheerfully
returned the waves. To these people he was just Mr. Potter, the nice
young man with a new bride and a child on the way, who lived in an out
of the way cottage on the outskirts of the village, and Harry didn't
have to worry about any ulterior motives. Ottery St. Catchpole had no
shortage of witches and wizards, of course--in addition to the expanding
Weasley clan, there were the Lovegoods, and the Diggorys, and the
Fawcetts--and sometimes he'd encounter one or two on his walk home, but
they were all in-laws, old friends, or at least acquaintances, and not
the sort who would pretend to be nice, or pester him, just because he
was famous. They all respected his desire to get on with his life,
without any more complications.
There were, of course, always complications. Harry had realized his
schoolboy ambition and become an Auror, but things hadn't worked out the
way he'd hoped. He was too famous. He couldn't just do the job, no
matter how much he wanted to. Any time he showed up among wizards, any
hope of being treated like a professional pretty much went out the floo.
While other Aurors who had graduated with him got to go out in the
field, hunting down the few Death Eaters that were still at large, Harry
found himself being little more than a glorified office boy. It had only
taken a few months of that for him to request a transfer over into
Muggle Affairs. His Auror training came in useful there, he had lots of
experience dealing with troublesome Muggles (Who'd have thought that any
good would have come from his life with the Dursleys?) and he could deal
with Muggles without having to worry about anyone recognizing him. The
director of the expanded Muggle Affairs department was also his father
in-law, but Arthur Weasley was a couple of links removed in his chain of
command, so that didn't cause him too many embarrassments.
He opened the gate to pass through the high hedge that hid his home from
casual observers, and walked up the path to the single storey cottage.
It wasn't a large house, but it was just right for him, Ginny, and their
soon to be arriving daughter or son. He imagined that the Burrow had
looked very much like this, once upon a time, before all the additions
that had been made to accommodate the seven Weasley children. He had
hopes that this house would grow in a similar fashion (though, maybe not
quite so much.)
"Gin! I'm home!" he called as he opened the front door. Ginny came to
greet him with a kiss, that Harry enthusiastically returned, and he
rubbed her swollen belly. "How's junior today?"
"Alive and kicking," said Ginny. She took the grocery bag from him. "You
get everything?"
"Yep, and a little something extra."
Ginny looked in the bag. "Ooh! Mocha Almond Fudge! You are the best
husband ever!"
Harry grinned at her. "I like to try. So why did I have to get all that?"
"I asked Ron and Hermione to come over for dinner."
"Great! I haven't seen Ron all week!" Harry followed Ginny toward the
kitchen. "How long till they get here?"
Ginny transferred the ice-cream from the bag to the freezer, and handed
the bag back to him. "Long enough for you to get the salad done. I
already asked Dobby to start the roast."
Harry had been unable to rid himself of the house-elf. (Though "rid"
wasn't really the right word for it.) Dobby had just moved in with him
and Ginny, and refused to move out. It seemed that Harry had acquired an
entourage of house-elves over the years. Kreacher was still the only one
that he actually owned (much to Hermione's continuing disgust) but Dobby
always seemed to show up wherever he went, and where Dobby went, Winky
seemed sure to follow.
Dobby wasn't an unwelcome occupant in their home. He was an excellent
cook, and took care of most of the housework too. Harry knew that he'd
become even more indispensable as the birth of their child approached,
and after.
Winky had accepted employment with the Weasleys. Molly had objected at
first, but not too strenuously. Even though none of her children lived
at home any longer, they were all frequent visitors, along with their
spouses, children, friends and what-not. Last Christmas at the Burrow
had been a madhouse. Bill and Fleur and their two children, Charley and
his girlfriend, Fred and George and their girlfriends, Percy, Ron and
Hermione, and Harry and Ginny. Along with drop ins from Remus and Tonks,
Kingsley Shacklebolt, Minerva McGonagall, and other surviving members of
the Order of the Phoenix. More than enough work to keep a couple of
house-elves busy (for Dobby had come along too.)
---
Dawn leaned back against Xander, in a love seat in one of the lounges of
their new Headquarters. Empty pizza boxes were scattered around the
room, and all the other sofas and chairs were occupied by Slayers and
their friends. There was a buzz of happy conversations in the air.
Andrew was crawling around on the floor behind a cabinet full of
electronics, working to get the 50 inch plasma TV hooked up. Giles was
trying to look dignified, while helping him run wires. So far he had
managed to have Andrew do all the crawling.
Dawn had the last slice of pizza in her hand. It had taken some careful
manoeuvring to keep it for herself, (part of which had been to include a
large anchovy and pineapple pizza in the order: none of the Slayers
cared much for that combination, but they all became much less selective
when they got hungry.)
"You going to eat all of that yourself?" asked Xander.
Dawn took a bite out of the slice. "I can share." She held the slice up
for him to take a bite of his own from.
"Umm...delicious." Xander licked his lips.
Xander having the same taste in pizza was just one of the things that
Dawn loved about him. Dawn had loved Xander for as long as she had known
him...okay the first four years of schoolgirl crush were invented by the
monks, but after that, the feeling hadn't gone away. It had transmuted
into friendship over the next few years in Sunnydale.
After Sunnydale had disappeared, they had gone their separate ways for a
time: Xander to Africa to search that continent for new Slayers, and
Dawn to Rome to finish her highschool education while Buffy searched
Europe for Slayers. During that time Dawn had missed Xander more than
any of her other friends. She had looked forward to his emails and phone
calls even more than she had the ones from Willow or Giles.
Dawn had been accepted into Cambridge after her year in Rome, and Xander
had come back from Africa to supervise the construction of the the new
Headquarters. The location that had been selected was only a few miles
from the university, overlooking the River Cam near the village of
Waterbeach, so it had made sense for them to share a flat.
For the first year that's all they'd done. Dawn had dated a few guys
from her classmates in Cambridge, but they had always measured up short
(though not necessarily in the physical department.) Her first serious
boyfriend had been a guy she'd met at school in Rome. Her relationship
with Antonio had been passionate, and exciting, and doomed. Buffy had
tried to warn her, but she hadn't listened. Tony had thought that he was
ready to take on whatever the world might have to throw his way, but his
first real glimpse of the things that inhabited the night, that were
part of Dawn's day to day existence, had sent him running.
Dawn had rebounded, after she started at Cambridge, with a boy from one
of the old Watcher families. He'd already known about the things that
went bump in the night, but it quickly became clear to Dawn that he was
mostly interested in her because she was Buffy's sister, and not for
herself. A few more guys had come and gone. Some for one or two dates, a
couple that had lasted for a few months, but none of them for any more
than that. Some had remained friends, but there were none she had
developed any deep feelings for.
Xander had been there for her after each failed relationship. He'd
provided an ear she could spew her venom into. He had provided a
shoulder she could cry on.
It wasn't just one way. Xander'd had his share or relationship woes
after Sunnydale. Anya's death had hit him hard. Harder than he let most
of his friends know. He had tried to shrug it off, start over with a new
girl, but it hadn't worked. Every new relationship he'd tried had come
to naught.
After a year sharing the flat, and sharing each other's heartache, they
had both realized that they were more than just friends to each other.
Even then they had moved slowly, each of them more than a little afraid
that changing their relationship from friendship, to something more,
might end badly. And if that happened, who would they have to console
each other?
Xander had also been more than a little afraid of Buffy. How would she
react if she thought that he was taking advantage of her little sister?
Those fears hadn't been entirely unfounded. Buffy still had a tendency
to revert to treating Dawn like she was fourteen. It had not gone well
when she first learned that he and Dawn were starting to get closer
together. Buffy thought that he was too old for her little sister.
(Something that Dawn felt was good for a laugh, considering Buffy's
track record. Heck, even Riley had been six years older than her. She
had pointed out to Buffy that she and Xander were the same ages that
Buffy and Riley had been when they'd started their relationship. "And
look how well *that* turned out!" Buffy had shot back at her.) Buffy had
come around eventually, as had their other friends, though Willow had
threatened them both with bludgeoning by shovel if they screwed this up.
Screwing it up was something that seemed less and less likely as time
progressed, and now, if Buffy objected at all, it was to their habit of
making public displays of affection more than anything else, and Dawn
thought that a lot of the reason for that was that Buffy wasn't getting
any.
So now they sat snuggled together in the new Headquarters of the
International Council of Slayers and Watchers that Xander had built,
taking alternating bites from the last slice of anchovy and pineapple
pizza, and being somewhat oblivious to the other people around them.
When the pizza was gone, and they licked the last bits of sauce from
each others' lips, the only reaction from Buffy was an outburst of "Oh,
get a room!"
Dawn jumped up off Xander's lap, and pulled him to his feet. "Great
idea!" She grinned at him. "We've got a bed to christen."
"Don't forget that you have to be in the atrium by midnight!" Willow
called over the cat-calls and whistles from the Slayers.
"We won't!" Dawn shot back over her shoulder as she dragged Xander out
the door.
---
"So then Ernie is left holding the bag of loot, while Mundungus
disappeared using a Portkey," said Ron.
Harry laughed. "So how did you catch him?"
"While Ernie was distracting Mundungus, I managed to switch his Portkey.
It dumped him straight into a holding cell, so not only did we recover
all the swag he'd nicked, but we caught him fair and square." Ron
settled back in his chair beside the fire in Harry and Ginny's sitting
room, and took a sip from his glass of firewhisky.
"I almost wish he'd gotten away with it," said Harry. "I'd just as soon
see Mundungus making a profit from selling off stuff he looted from a
Death Eater's house as have the Ministry auction it off."
"Yeah, I think the judge pretty much agrees with you. He only gave him
three months. With 'good behaviour' he'll be back in business by July. I
told my boss that we should just hire him. He's better at finding Death
Eater stashes than anyone the Ministry has on the payroll."
"I don't think that he reported everything he learned to the Order, back
during the War," said Hermione. "He made up his own private list of
places to go back to, once things were over."
"We should just pay him a commission for everything he turns over to
us," said Ron.
"Mundungus won't want to work for the Ministry," said Harry. "That'd
take all the fun out of it. It would be too much like actually having a
job."
"There is that," said Ron.
"How are you going to cover things up for the Muggles?" asked Ginny. "I
mean, really, a high speed broom chase over downtown London, in broad
daylight?"
"I've already take care of it," said Hermione. "I put some fuzzy
pictures of them on half a dozen UFO web sites, and in /The Sun/. Most
Muggles are now thoroughly convinced that they're a hoax, and no one
takes the rest of them seriously. They stayed high enough that most of
the people who saw anything, thought that they were just large birds."
Ron yawned. "Oh, sorry, but us hard working Hit Wizards have to get up
early in the mornings." He knocked back the remains of his drink, and
sighed. "Good stuff. Thanks for having us, but I think it's time to be
on our way." He and Hermione exchanged a look that said that they
weren't really thinking about going to bed...at least not to sleep,
anyway.
"Yes!" said Hermione. "We should be going. I'll see you in the office in
the morning, Harry. Goodnight, Ginny. Thanks for dinner. Tell Dobby it
was delicious."
Harry and Ginny saw Ron and Hermione out the door, and waved goodbye
before the couple apparated away to their own home. Harry wrapped his
arms around Ginny after they had gone. "I think it's time for us to go
to bed too. Come on, and I'll give you a foot rub."
"Just my feet?" asked Ginny.
"That's where I'm planning to start," said Harry, "not where I plan to
finish." He had his wand in his hand and murmured a quick feather-light
charm before he scooped her up, and carried her off to their bedroom.
---
Xander and Dawn arrived in the crowded atrium with a whole thirty
seconds to spare, and not looking *too* mussed. "So, we miss anything?"
he asked breathlessly.
Willow looked up from the centre of the pentagram she was sitting in,
that was a permanent part of the inlay pattern of the floor. "Nope,
you're just in time." The only light in the room was coming from the
candles that surrounded her, and moonlight shining through the overhead
skylight.
Most of the Slayers, and other people, were standing around the
periphery of the atrium, leaving the centre open. Buffy, Giles, and
Kennedy were standing at three apexes of the pentagram's star. Willow
pointed to the two vacant ones. "I need you and Dawn to stand there."
They quickly took their positions. Willow lit an incense stick from the
candle in front of her. "Blind Cadria, lift the veil of illusion from
those who enter this place..."
The spell went on for quite a while, in at least three different
languages that Xander couldn't understand, as Willow worked her magic.
It was a fairly complicated matter to create a space in which only a few
rather specific sorts of illusions were possible. He'd been around
Willow and magic long enough to understand a bit of the Latin, and to
recognize another of the languages as Greek, and a couple of random
words from some of the other languages that she used, but he had given
up on ever understanding how she did just about any of the things that
she did. When it came to magic, he just stood where she told him to
stand, and repeated the words that she told him to say. Fortunately this
spell was nearly all Willow, with the people standing around the edge of
the pentagram mostly there for moral support.
Willow picked up the large candle in front of her. "As I extinguish this
flame, let illusions fade. So mote it be!" She blew out the candle.
Xander felt a bit dizzy. The room seemed shift around him. His vision
blurred. He felt a stab of pain in the socket of his artificial eye.
"Ow!" He leaned over, holding his hand to his eye. He heard the sound of
weapons being drawn.
"*Who are you?*" demanded Dawn. Xander didn't think that he could recall
ever hearing her sound so angry.
"Coming through!"
Xander Harris stepped to the side of the hall to let the two girls carry
the heavy table past him. He knew that table was made from solid
oak--he'd selected it himself--but the girls were carrying it as
effortlessly as they would have if it had been made from balsa wood.
"Careful with that!" he called after them. He knew that they could smash
it into kindling as easily as they could a balsa wood table too, and
heaven help anything that they ran into.
The girls just laughed, and one of them waved as she flipped the table
over onto its side and manoeuvred it, one handed, through the door into
what was to be a conference room, with less than an inch of clearance to
spare on either side.
Xander shook his head, and continued down the hall to the top of the
stairs. He looked down with pride. The wide stairway swept down into a
circular atrium with a parquet floor. He pulled a cloth from his pocket,
and rubbed some fingerprints off the rich wood of the railing. The
atrium below him was buzzing with activity. Dawn stood in the centre of
it, directing traffic: sending Slayers this way and that, delivering
their burdens to their appointed rooms.
He had made this.
Okay, he hadn't personally made all that much of it, but he had
supervised every step of the process, from the original architect's
drawings, through the excavation for the basement (and sub-basements) to
the shingling of the roof. He had been here for the first ceremonial
ground breaking and for the last dab of paint, and for most of the steps
in between. He had even managed to do some of the carpentry himself. Not
as much as he would have liked--there was just too much of it--but
enough.
He had to dodge another pair of Slayers carrying a desk up the stairs.
These two weren't quite so cheerful. Xander overheard one of them
grumbling about how they got stuck with all the heavy stuff. Andrew was
following them, carrying a single cardboard box that looked like it was
giving him more of a problem than the desk was giving the Slayers.
It had taken them nearly three years to get here, following the
destruction of Sunnydale. Most of the first year had been spent running
around the world, searching out all the new Slayers. The second was
spent getting the Watchers re-established as an effective support
organization for them. It was during that time that they decided that
they needed to establish a new headquarters, and after spending some
time unsuccessfully searching for something that could be adapted for
their use, they had decided that the only way to get the sort of
facility that they really wanted was to have it custom built from the
ground up. Renovating an existing structure to suit their needs would
have cost even more.
Even starting from scratch had been a challenge. So many of their
requirements conflicted: an ultra-modern facility, that had an old-world
grace to it; a place that would be a comfortable home for the people who
would live here, and an efficient working environment for the people who
would work here; telephone, Internet, and satellite communications
systems giving full connectivity with the rest of the world, while at
the same time providing them with the best security against outside
eavesdroppers or other electronic intrusion; the same on the mystical
side: a harmonious environment for performing magic, but fully warded
against magical intrusion.
That last item had hit a bit of a snag. Willow had planned to erect the
final ward--one which would nullify any magical glamours, seemings, or
illusions--a week earlier, until Dawn had asked what effect that might
have on her, and the Key. Willow'd had to go back to her magical drawing
board, to make sure that her spell wouldn't have any undue (or undo)
effect on Dawn. The casting of that spell was now set for midnight
tonight.
---
Harry Potter stopped in at the little Muggle general store in Ottery St.
Catchpole to collect a couple of things that Ginny had told him to get
for dinner, and for the litre of Hagen Dazs ice-cream that she hadn't
asked for, but that he knew was her favourite. It was so much more
convenient for him to shop in Muggle stores where no one knew him as
"The Boy Who Destroyed You-Know-Who." Even with him gone for good this
time, without any remaining Horcruxes to bring him back, most wizards
were still afraid to say Voldemort's name.
Home was close enough that he didn't need to put a freezing spell on the
ice-cream. When Ginny had first suggested that they look for a place
near her family, Harry had been a little leery, but when you got right
down to it, one mile or a hundred miles didn't make that much difference
to in-laws who could apparate. (Not that Harry had any objections to his
in-laws. He had been a virtual adopted Weasley long before he married
Ginny, and he adored the lot of them. Even Percy was tolerable, these
days. They could get to be a little overwhelming at times, though.)
A couple of people waved friendly greetings as he walked through the
village towards the cottage that he and Ginny lived in. Harry cheerfully
returned the waves. To these people he was just Mr. Potter, the nice
young man with a new bride and a child on the way, who lived in an out
of the way cottage on the outskirts of the village, and Harry didn't
have to worry about any ulterior motives. Ottery St. Catchpole had no
shortage of witches and wizards, of course--in addition to the expanding
Weasley clan, there were the Lovegoods, and the Diggorys, and the
Fawcetts--and sometimes he'd encounter one or two on his walk home, but
they were all in-laws, old friends, or at least acquaintances, and not
the sort who would pretend to be nice, or pester him, just because he
was famous. They all respected his desire to get on with his life,
without any more complications.
There were, of course, always complications. Harry had realized his
schoolboy ambition and become an Auror, but things hadn't worked out the
way he'd hoped. He was too famous. He couldn't just do the job, no
matter how much he wanted to. Any time he showed up among wizards, any
hope of being treated like a professional pretty much went out the floo.
While other Aurors who had graduated with him got to go out in the
field, hunting down the few Death Eaters that were still at large, Harry
found himself being little more than a glorified office boy. It had only
taken a few months of that for him to request a transfer over into
Muggle Affairs. His Auror training came in useful there, he had lots of
experience dealing with troublesome Muggles (Who'd have thought that any
good would have come from his life with the Dursleys?) and he could deal
with Muggles without having to worry about anyone recognizing him. The
director of the expanded Muggle Affairs department was also his father
in-law, but Arthur Weasley was a couple of links removed in his chain of
command, so that didn't cause him too many embarrassments.
He opened the gate to pass through the high hedge that hid his home from
casual observers, and walked up the path to the single storey cottage.
It wasn't a large house, but it was just right for him, Ginny, and their
soon to be arriving daughter or son. He imagined that the Burrow had
looked very much like this, once upon a time, before all the additions
that had been made to accommodate the seven Weasley children. He had
hopes that this house would grow in a similar fashion (though, maybe not
quite so much.)
"Gin! I'm home!" he called as he opened the front door. Ginny came to
greet him with a kiss, that Harry enthusiastically returned, and he
rubbed her swollen belly. "How's junior today?"
"Alive and kicking," said Ginny. She took the grocery bag from him. "You
get everything?"
"Yep, and a little something extra."
Ginny looked in the bag. "Ooh! Mocha Almond Fudge! You are the best
husband ever!"
Harry grinned at her. "I like to try. So why did I have to get all that?"
"I asked Ron and Hermione to come over for dinner."
"Great! I haven't seen Ron all week!" Harry followed Ginny toward the
kitchen. "How long till they get here?"
Ginny transferred the ice-cream from the bag to the freezer, and handed
the bag back to him. "Long enough for you to get the salad done. I
already asked Dobby to start the roast."
Harry had been unable to rid himself of the house-elf. (Though "rid"
wasn't really the right word for it.) Dobby had just moved in with him
and Ginny, and refused to move out. It seemed that Harry had acquired an
entourage of house-elves over the years. Kreacher was still the only one
that he actually owned (much to Hermione's continuing disgust) but Dobby
always seemed to show up wherever he went, and where Dobby went, Winky
seemed sure to follow.
Dobby wasn't an unwelcome occupant in their home. He was an excellent
cook, and took care of most of the housework too. Harry knew that he'd
become even more indispensable as the birth of their child approached,
and after.
Winky had accepted employment with the Weasleys. Molly had objected at
first, but not too strenuously. Even though none of her children lived
at home any longer, they were all frequent visitors, along with their
spouses, children, friends and what-not. Last Christmas at the Burrow
had been a madhouse. Bill and Fleur and their two children, Charley and
his girlfriend, Fred and George and their girlfriends, Percy, Ron and
Hermione, and Harry and Ginny. Along with drop ins from Remus and Tonks,
Kingsley Shacklebolt, Minerva McGonagall, and other surviving members of
the Order of the Phoenix. More than enough work to keep a couple of
house-elves busy (for Dobby had come along too.)
---
Dawn leaned back against Xander, in a love seat in one of the lounges of
their new Headquarters. Empty pizza boxes were scattered around the
room, and all the other sofas and chairs were occupied by Slayers and
their friends. There was a buzz of happy conversations in the air.
Andrew was crawling around on the floor behind a cabinet full of
electronics, working to get the 50 inch plasma TV hooked up. Giles was
trying to look dignified, while helping him run wires. So far he had
managed to have Andrew do all the crawling.
Dawn had the last slice of pizza in her hand. It had taken some careful
manoeuvring to keep it for herself, (part of which had been to include a
large anchovy and pineapple pizza in the order: none of the Slayers
cared much for that combination, but they all became much less selective
when they got hungry.)
"You going to eat all of that yourself?" asked Xander.
Dawn took a bite out of the slice. "I can share." She held the slice up
for him to take a bite of his own from.
"Umm...delicious." Xander licked his lips.
Xander having the same taste in pizza was just one of the things that
Dawn loved about him. Dawn had loved Xander for as long as she had known
him...okay the first four years of schoolgirl crush were invented by the
monks, but after that, the feeling hadn't gone away. It had transmuted
into friendship over the next few years in Sunnydale.
After Sunnydale had disappeared, they had gone their separate ways for a
time: Xander to Africa to search that continent for new Slayers, and
Dawn to Rome to finish her highschool education while Buffy searched
Europe for Slayers. During that time Dawn had missed Xander more than
any of her other friends. She had looked forward to his emails and phone
calls even more than she had the ones from Willow or Giles.
Dawn had been accepted into Cambridge after her year in Rome, and Xander
had come back from Africa to supervise the construction of the the new
Headquarters. The location that had been selected was only a few miles
from the university, overlooking the River Cam near the village of
Waterbeach, so it had made sense for them to share a flat.
For the first year that's all they'd done. Dawn had dated a few guys
from her classmates in Cambridge, but they had always measured up short
(though not necessarily in the physical department.) Her first serious
boyfriend had been a guy she'd met at school in Rome. Her relationship
with Antonio had been passionate, and exciting, and doomed. Buffy had
tried to warn her, but she hadn't listened. Tony had thought that he was
ready to take on whatever the world might have to throw his way, but his
first real glimpse of the things that inhabited the night, that were
part of Dawn's day to day existence, had sent him running.
Dawn had rebounded, after she started at Cambridge, with a boy from one
of the old Watcher families. He'd already known about the things that
went bump in the night, but it quickly became clear to Dawn that he was
mostly interested in her because she was Buffy's sister, and not for
herself. A few more guys had come and gone. Some for one or two dates, a
couple that had lasted for a few months, but none of them for any more
than that. Some had remained friends, but there were none she had
developed any deep feelings for.
Xander had been there for her after each failed relationship. He'd
provided an ear she could spew her venom into. He had provided a
shoulder she could cry on.
It wasn't just one way. Xander'd had his share or relationship woes
after Sunnydale. Anya's death had hit him hard. Harder than he let most
of his friends know. He had tried to shrug it off, start over with a new
girl, but it hadn't worked. Every new relationship he'd tried had come
to naught.
After a year sharing the flat, and sharing each other's heartache, they
had both realized that they were more than just friends to each other.
Even then they had moved slowly, each of them more than a little afraid
that changing their relationship from friendship, to something more,
might end badly. And if that happened, who would they have to console
each other?
Xander had also been more than a little afraid of Buffy. How would she
react if she thought that he was taking advantage of her little sister?
Those fears hadn't been entirely unfounded. Buffy still had a tendency
to revert to treating Dawn like she was fourteen. It had not gone well
when she first learned that he and Dawn were starting to get closer
together. Buffy thought that he was too old for her little sister.
(Something that Dawn felt was good for a laugh, considering Buffy's
track record. Heck, even Riley had been six years older than her. She
had pointed out to Buffy that she and Xander were the same ages that
Buffy and Riley had been when they'd started their relationship. "And
look how well *that* turned out!" Buffy had shot back at her.) Buffy had
come around eventually, as had their other friends, though Willow had
threatened them both with bludgeoning by shovel if they screwed this up.
Screwing it up was something that seemed less and less likely as time
progressed, and now, if Buffy objected at all, it was to their habit of
making public displays of affection more than anything else, and Dawn
thought that a lot of the reason for that was that Buffy wasn't getting
any.
So now they sat snuggled together in the new Headquarters of the
International Council of Slayers and Watchers that Xander had built,
taking alternating bites from the last slice of anchovy and pineapple
pizza, and being somewhat oblivious to the other people around them.
When the pizza was gone, and they licked the last bits of sauce from
each others' lips, the only reaction from Buffy was an outburst of "Oh,
get a room!"
Dawn jumped up off Xander's lap, and pulled him to his feet. "Great
idea!" She grinned at him. "We've got a bed to christen."
"Don't forget that you have to be in the atrium by midnight!" Willow
called over the cat-calls and whistles from the Slayers.
"We won't!" Dawn shot back over her shoulder as she dragged Xander out
the door.
---
"So then Ernie is left holding the bag of loot, while Mundungus
disappeared using a Portkey," said Ron.
Harry laughed. "So how did you catch him?"
"While Ernie was distracting Mundungus, I managed to switch his Portkey.
It dumped him straight into a holding cell, so not only did we recover
all the swag he'd nicked, but we caught him fair and square." Ron
settled back in his chair beside the fire in Harry and Ginny's sitting
room, and took a sip from his glass of firewhisky.
"I almost wish he'd gotten away with it," said Harry. "I'd just as soon
see Mundungus making a profit from selling off stuff he looted from a
Death Eater's house as have the Ministry auction it off."
"Yeah, I think the judge pretty much agrees with you. He only gave him
three months. With 'good behaviour' he'll be back in business by July. I
told my boss that we should just hire him. He's better at finding Death
Eater stashes than anyone the Ministry has on the payroll."
"I don't think that he reported everything he learned to the Order, back
during the War," said Hermione. "He made up his own private list of
places to go back to, once things were over."
"We should just pay him a commission for everything he turns over to
us," said Ron.
"Mundungus won't want to work for the Ministry," said Harry. "That'd
take all the fun out of it. It would be too much like actually having a
job."
"There is that," said Ron.
"How are you going to cover things up for the Muggles?" asked Ginny. "I
mean, really, a high speed broom chase over downtown London, in broad
daylight?"
"I've already take care of it," said Hermione. "I put some fuzzy
pictures of them on half a dozen UFO web sites, and in /The Sun/. Most
Muggles are now thoroughly convinced that they're a hoax, and no one
takes the rest of them seriously. They stayed high enough that most of
the people who saw anything, thought that they were just large birds."
Ron yawned. "Oh, sorry, but us hard working Hit Wizards have to get up
early in the mornings." He knocked back the remains of his drink, and
sighed. "Good stuff. Thanks for having us, but I think it's time to be
on our way." He and Hermione exchanged a look that said that they
weren't really thinking about going to bed...at least not to sleep,
anyway.
"Yes!" said Hermione. "We should be going. I'll see you in the office in
the morning, Harry. Goodnight, Ginny. Thanks for dinner. Tell Dobby it
was delicious."
Harry and Ginny saw Ron and Hermione out the door, and waved goodbye
before the couple apparated away to their own home. Harry wrapped his
arms around Ginny after they had gone. "I think it's time for us to go
to bed too. Come on, and I'll give you a foot rub."
"Just my feet?" asked Ginny.
"That's where I'm planning to start," said Harry, "not where I plan to
finish." He had his wand in his hand and murmured a quick feather-light
charm before he scooped her up, and carried her off to their bedroom.
---
Xander and Dawn arrived in the crowded atrium with a whole thirty
seconds to spare, and not looking *too* mussed. "So, we miss anything?"
he asked breathlessly.
Willow looked up from the centre of the pentagram she was sitting in,
that was a permanent part of the inlay pattern of the floor. "Nope,
you're just in time." The only light in the room was coming from the
candles that surrounded her, and moonlight shining through the overhead
skylight.
Most of the Slayers, and other people, were standing around the
periphery of the atrium, leaving the centre open. Buffy, Giles, and
Kennedy were standing at three apexes of the pentagram's star. Willow
pointed to the two vacant ones. "I need you and Dawn to stand there."
They quickly took their positions. Willow lit an incense stick from the
candle in front of her. "Blind Cadria, lift the veil of illusion from
those who enter this place..."
The spell went on for quite a while, in at least three different
languages that Xander couldn't understand, as Willow worked her magic.
It was a fairly complicated matter to create a space in which only a few
rather specific sorts of illusions were possible. He'd been around
Willow and magic long enough to understand a bit of the Latin, and to
recognize another of the languages as Greek, and a couple of random
words from some of the other languages that she used, but he had given
up on ever understanding how she did just about any of the things that
she did. When it came to magic, he just stood where she told him to
stand, and repeated the words that she told him to say. Fortunately this
spell was nearly all Willow, with the people standing around the edge of
the pentagram mostly there for moral support.
Willow picked up the large candle in front of her. "As I extinguish this
flame, let illusions fade. So mote it be!" She blew out the candle.
Xander felt a bit dizzy. The room seemed shift around him. His vision
blurred. He felt a stab of pain in the socket of his artificial eye.
"Ow!" He leaned over, holding his hand to his eye. He heard the sound of
weapons being drawn.
"*Who are you?*" demanded Dawn. Xander didn't think that he could recall
ever hearing her sound so angry.
--
Quando omni flunkus moritati
Visit the Buffy Body Count at <http://homepage.mac.com/dsample/>
Quando omni flunkus moritati
Visit the Buffy Body Count at <http://homepage.mac.com/dsample/>