Don Sample
2006-07-10 20:08:20 UTC
Chapter 2
Xander looked up. His prosthetic eye was in his hand and he blinked,
with *two* eyes. One of them--the eye he'd lost three years ago--felt
like it had just been poked by a finger, but it was real, and he could
see with it. He couldn't see very well with it, but he could see. He
looked around the atrium, trying to focus, but everything was blurry. He
could see that everyone in the room had turned toward him. He saw that
there were several weapons pointed in his direction: swords, axes and
crossbows. Everyone looked angry, but none more than Dawn.
"What's going on?" he asked, but it wasn't his voice that he heard.
Buffy came across the pentagram at him. She grabbed him by his shirt,
which seemed bigger than it had been moments before, and shoved him up
against a wall. "What have you done with Xander?"
"*I'm* Xander! I haven't done anything with him--me." Xander looked
around. "Will, tell Buffy I'm me!"
"Funny," said Willow, without sounding the least bit amused. "You don't
*look* like Xander, and I've known him for twenty years. You didn't
count on me doing that spell to remove illusions, did you? How long have
you been impersonating him?"
Xander felt a sinking sensation. What Dawn, Buffy and Willow had said,
the way everyone was looking at him, the way he felt: Willow's spell had
done something to the way he looked. He could imagine what they must be
thinking. "Willow! I've known about that spell for years! It was part of
the original planning for the new building! We were going to do it last
week, but you had to do some last minute tweaking because of...you know.
If I was someone impersonating me, I would have cleared out. I mean
really, if I was using magic to impersonate me, staying, knowing that
you were doing what you were doing: that's something so stupid that only
I would do it!"
Willow started to look a little uncertain. "There is something very
Xanderish about that skewed sort of logic..."
"I know! I have to tell you stuff that only I would know, like back when
Toth split me in two, and I thought that there was a demon robot or
something impersonating me, and I told you the story about the fire
engine, and I did the Snoopy Dance..." Xander looked back at Buffy.
"Uh...if you let me go, I can do the Snoopy Dance."
"I'm not letting you go." Buffy still wasn't looking like she believed
anything he was saying.
"Okay...uh...the first thing I ever said to you was 'Can I have you?' I
*meant* to say '*help* you' but it just came out wrong. It was right
outside Principal Flutie's office--back before the other guys in the
hyena pack ate him--and you'd spilled your purse on the floor. I helped
you pick everything up, and got left holding a stake, which I had
absolutely no idea why you were carrying around in your purse. I thought
that maybe you were making a tiny fence."
Buffy's grip on him relaxed a bit. "Xander?"
"Yeah Buff, it's me."
"Tell me something only *I* know," demanded Dawn.
"Well, uh, just before we came back down here, we--"
"Something that *won't* make me think that I was just raped by an
impostor."
Whatever relaxing Buffy might have been doing vanished when Dawn said
that.
"Oh...right...uh..." Xander thought for a bit. Whatever he said next had
to be good. "You're not special, Dawn. You're *extraordinary!* And you
can be really nasty with a taser. Uh...there are a few, uh, key things I
could tell you, but there are too many people around that you don't want
to know about that stuff."
---
Ginny couldn't sleep through the night. The pressure from the child
within on her bladder always sent her to the bathroom at least once. She
got out of bed, being careful not to wake Harry. She made her way to the
bathroom to relieve herself, washed her hands and her face, and started
back toward their bed.
She stopped. That! Wasn't! Harry! Some stranger was sleeping in their
bed where he was supposed to be! She moved silently to where her
dressing gown was draped over a chair, picked it up, and wrapped it
around herself. She reached out her hand and summoned her wand to it off
the beside table. She silently *Accioed* Harry's wand off the other
table. She aimed her wand at the sleeping figure, and with a loud *bang*
the man in their bed was securely wrapped in ropes.
The stranger in their bed was startled awake. "Huh, what's going on?" he
asked.
"Who are you?" demanded Ginny. "What have you done with Harry?"
He looked puzzled. "Ginny? What's wrong?" She was surprised to see that
he seemed to be missing his left eye.
"*Who are you?*"
"Gin, it's me. Harry."
"You're not Harry. I know what Harry looks like, and you're not him!
*Where is he?*"
"What are you talking about?" He struggled against the ropes binding
him. "What's happened to my voice? I don't sound right."
Ginny flicked her wand, and the mirror from her dresser flew across the
room, and settled in front of the stranger in their bed. "Does that look
like Harry to you? What happened, forget to take your Polyjuice?"
"Merlin! What's happened to me?" The man blinked a few times, and looked
puzzled. "*What happened to my eye?* And how come I'm not blurry? I'm
not wearing my glasses." He looked up at her. "Gin, I swear, I don't
know what's going on, but I'm me. I'm Harry."
"Oh yeah? Tell me something that only Harry knows."
"Er... we first met when you were ten, and you'd come with your mom to
see your brothers off at the station. She had to tell me how to get onto
platform nine and three quarters."
"That was in that stupid 'unauthorized autobiography' that Rita Skeeter
wrote," said Ginny. "Though how she thought she could get away with
calling it an 'autobiography' when *she* wrote it is beyond me. And how
can you have an 'unauthorized' autobiography in the first place?"
"She's an idiot," said the man in their bed. "And she made up all that
rot about how it was 'love at first sight.' I barely even noticed you."
He shrugged. "Sorry."
"When did you notice me?"
"Sixth year," said the man. "Well, you were a friend long before that,
but it was in sixth year that I started thinking of you as a girl. And
we first kissed right after the last Quidditch game of the season--you
beat Ravenclaw for the cup...and you sent me that singing telegram in
second year, you never confessed *that* to anyone but me; and the baby
is going to be named James Sirius if its a boy, and Lily Luna if it's a
girl, and yes we both think that the alliteration is a bit silly, but we
still want to honour both of them; and the backs of your knees are very
ticklish; and you've got a lovely little heart shaped birthmark on the
inside of your left thigh, and I always kiss it and call you 'my dear
heart' before I--"
"Okay, you're Harry." Ginny flicked her wand, releasing the ropes that
were binding him. "So, what happened?"
"I don't know." Harry looked at his hands, turning them over and
examining them closely. "I don't think it could have been Polyjuice. I
would have noticed that. It tastes horrid, and the transformation hurts
like hell. No way I'd have slept through it." He started to feel around
his face.
"You haven't received any 'gifts' from Fred or George lately, have you?"
asked Ginny.
Harry shook his head. "Not that I know of...I suppose that they might
have slipped me something without my noticing it, but I haven't seen
them for a couple of weeks. Have they told you that they were developing
anything that might do this?"
It was Ginny's turn to shake her head. "Nope, and they're supposed to
keep me informed about their new product developments." The idea that
one of her brothers might have slipped something past her made her a
little cross. *Nothing* was supposed to leave their development lab that
she hadn't approved.
Ginny had joined /Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes/ shortly after she had left
Hogwarts. A couple of close calls with products that weren't *quite*
ready for public consumption, and some organizational problems that came
about because their company had grown too quickly in the early years had
made her brothers realize that they needed someone more sensible than
they were to help them run the business side of the business. (Besides,
foisting the humdrum management concerns off on Ginny gave them more
time for the fun part: developing new pranks.)
One of first things Ginny had done was institute some new rules about
how products were tested. One of them was that *nothing* left their lab
that she hadn't approved. If they'd done this to Harry...
Harry seemed to read her mind. "Hey, we've got no reason to believe that
they're behind this."
"You're right, of course," said Ginny, "but if I find out that they are,
I'll hex them into next year!" She sighed. "But what do we do now?"
"I think we need someone smarter than us to figure this out," said
Harry. "Why don't you call Hermione?"
---
Xander had gotten a provisional agreement that he might really be
himself out of Dawn, Buffy, Willow and Giles. It had taken a confession
about the fabulous "Lady's Night" club to finish bringing Buffy around,
and a story about Spike and Giles arguing over whether they'd watch
Oprah, or Sally Jesse Raphael that he'd walked in on, during the time
that Spike had been living in Giles' home, to convince him.
They still weren't completely convinced, but it was enough that Buffy
had let go of him, and they'd moved into one of the new conference rooms
where there were chairs available for people to sit down in. Two of the
Slayers weren't sitting. They were standing behind him, ready to pounce
if he made one wrong move.
His eye was feeling better now, but he kept blinking, hoping that would
improve his vision. He didn't like not being able to see clearly.
"I don't get it," said Buffy. "Willow's spell was supposed to remove
illusions. Why would it change the way Xander looks?"
"The only thing that makes even any sense would be if this is the way
that Xander is really supposed to look," said Giles. "That what we
believed to be his normal appearance was an illusion all along."
"But that doesn't make any sense either!" said Willow. "I've known
Xander since we were four! And he's always had brown eyes, and brown
hair. Now his eyes are green, and he's got both of them, and his hair is
nearly black, and he's got that scar on his forehead. What's that from
anyway?"
"Don't ask me," said Xander. "I still haven't seen it." He rubbed his
hand against his forehead, feeling the bump there. "We really need to
put some mirrors in this place. That's something we overlooked in the
design: lots of mirrors, to make spotting vamps easier."
"Yes," said Giles. "Let's all discuss the changes we want to make in our
new headquarters. That is a much more urgent matter than what has
happened to you."
"Whatever happened, either we fix it soon, or I'm gonna need glasses."
Xander held up his hands, making 'O's with his fingers over his eyes and
grinned at Dawn. "What do you think?"
Dawn shifted uncomfortably. "I think that we fix this soon."
"Willow, do you remember when Faith switched bodies with me?" asked
Buffy.
"How could I forget?"
"You and Tara did that Astral Projection thing, to see what was really
going on. Do you think you could do it again?"
"Nether Realm. It's entirely different. Astral Projection--" Willow saw
the looks that everyone was giving her. "The difference isn't really
important now. I did that to find out where your soul had gone. It won't
show anything about what's happened to Xander's physical body."
"But it will confirm that it's really Xander's soul inhabiting this
body, won't it?" asked Buffy.
"Oh yeah. That it'll do."
"Do you need anything?"
"Just a little privacy," said Willow. "Kennedy and I can do it in our
room."
---
"*Giiiin!*" Harry called plaintively from their bedroom. The voice
wasn't his, but there was something about the way he said that, that was
unmistakably Harry.
Ginny had just finished making her firecall to Hermione. "What?" she
called back.
"My clothes don't fit!" said Harry.
Ginny went to the door to their bedroom. She looked at...Harry looking
forlornly back at her, in a shirt that was too small for him. She tried
to ignore the missing eye. "What's the problem?"
Harry tried to pull the shirt closed across his chest. "It doesn't fit!"
"So do a stretching charm on it!" said Ginny. "That's second year stuff!"
"I *tried*!" said Harry. "It didn't work. I think there's something
wrong with my wand." He picked it up. "It doesn't feel right, and look!"
He swished and flicked. "*Wingardium Leviosa!*"
Nothing happened.
"*That*'s first year stuff! And I can't make it happen!" said Harry.
"There must be something wrong with it."
"Give me that!" Ginny took the wand from Harry. She could feel its power
in her hand, almost as familiar as her own. She pointed it at the potted
plant on the table under their bedroom window. "*Engorgio.*"
The plant swelled, its leaves growing to the size of garden spades, and
its flowers to dinner plates.
"It works for me," said Ginny.
"*Ginny?* *Harry?*" called Hermione and Ron from the living room.
"Be there in a second!" called Ginny. She quickly did some stretching
spells on Harry's clothes. "Get dressed," she told him. "We'll figure
this out."
---
Xander spent some of the time waiting for Willow and Kennedy to get back
looking at his hands. He found that if he held them up about six inches
from his face, he could focus on them just fine. "You know that old
saying, about knowing something 'like the back of my hand'?" he asked.
"Yeah?" asked Dawn.
"These don't look right to me, but for the life of my, I can't really
tell you what's wrong with them. I can't remember what they're
*supposed* to look like."
"Really?"
"Really. I mean, there are a couple of things." Xander pointed to a
scar on the back of his right hand. "I know that I didn't have a scar
like that one. He looked closer at it. "'I must not tell lies.' Why
would anyone have that carved into their hand? And I can remember a
couple other scars that I *should* have, that are gone, but I can't
tell you what the arrangement of freckles should be, or the wrinkles.
I'm pretty sure that they've changed, but I can't tell you what they
*should* be."
Willow and Kennedy arrived back in the conference room. "He's Xander,
but..."
"But what?" asked Buffy.
"From the Nether Realm, I could see his soul," said Willow. "He really
is Xander, but there's something else..."
"He's possessed?" asked Buffy. "Something possessed him to make him look
like this?"
"It's not a possession!" said Willow. "I don't really know what it is.
It's like he's got some new sort of power."
"Oh, great." said Xander. "I've got this new power that makes me not
look like me. I couldn't get a useful power. Oh no, not me."
"It's not that." Willow tipped her head as she looked at him.
"Everything that makes you...you is still there, but it's like something
has been added. Now that I know what to look for, I can see it in your
aura."
"Are you *sure*?" asked Dawn.
"Yes, Dawnie. I'm sure," said Willow. "He really is Xander, on the
inside. It's only his outsides that have changed."
---
Harry was getting tired of playing "twenty questions." Why couldn't
anyone just believe that he was him? Okay, they'd all had experiences
with people pretending to be someone they weren't. Mad Eye Moody in
fourth year sprang immediately to mind--especially considering his
sudden lack of one--but none of them had known the original. Shouldn't
Ron and Hermione just be able to look at him, and know the truth?
They seemed to have accepted a guarded "This is really Harry," for now.
Hermione had no idea how such a thing could be possible without using
Polyjuice, and no one had any explanation for why he couldn't use his
wand anymore, or anyone else's for that matter. Hermione had insisted
that they perform that experiment. Harry had tried to do simple spells
with her wand, and Ron's, and Ginny's and nothing had happened with any
of them. It was like he had been suddenly turned into a Squib, along
with the change in his appearance.
Hermione had tried *Metamorphosis Deleo* and *Finite Incantatem* spells
on Harry, to try to undo whatever had happened to him, with no result.
"I'd like to talk to the professors at Hogwarts about this. Maybe
Headmistress McGonagall, or Professor Flitwick has seen something like
it before."
"I think you better tell everyone in the office that I won't be in to
work tomorrow," Harry told her.
"Okay," said Hermione, "but how long can we keep that up? If we can't
fix this--"
"We have to fix this!" said Harry. "I can't go the rest of my life not
looking like me!"
"You don't look that bad," said Hermione. "I mean, there are a lot of
worse ways you could look."
"On the bright side, you don't have to worry about being recognized,
now," said Ron. "You can go out, without having to worry about being
mobbed."
---
Dawn came out of their room's attached bathroom, wearing one of Xander's
flannel shirts. She looked nervously around the room that she shared
with him. She was *sure* that he was really him, both from her own
experience, and what Willow said about him, but it still felt a little
weird to be here with a guy that she didn't really recognize.
"Why don't you spend the night with Buffy?" asked Xander.
"No!" said Dawn. "I mean...Okay, it's weird with you not looking like
you, but I believe that it's you so there's no reason I shouldn't be
here, is there?"
"Dawn, if this is making you feel weird...I want you to be someplace
you're comfortable," said Xander.
"If I feel weird...it must feel a thousand times weirder for you," said
Dawn.
"But I *know* that I'm still me," said Xander. "Somewhere, inside, you
still have doubts."
"Maybe a little," said Dawn. "But...if you're you...this has to be
horrible for you...and if I desert you...it has to make it worse...and I
can't do that to you."
Xander took her into his arms. "I love you, Dawn."
"And I love...Xander. I'm sorry." Dawn pushed him away. "Oh god...I..."
"I understand," said Xander.
"Xander, I..." Dawn closed her eyes for a moment, and took a deep
breath. "I want to believe that you're you. I really do."
"Dawn. It's okay. Why don't you go sleep in Buffy's room?"
"No!" said Dawn. "I'm staying here. You need me."
"Dawn..."
Dawn wrapped her arms around him, and kissed him. "You're Xander. I
believe that. I just have to get used to this new shape of yours."
---
Harry gathered up sheets and blankets to move to the sofa in their
living room that Ginny had transfigured into a bed.
"I'm sorry Harry," said Ginny, "But it just doesn't feel right."
"It's okay," said Harry. "In a way it's good to know that you don't feel
right sleeping with a guy who doesn't look like me."
"Harry!" Ginny drew her wand and pointed it at him. "One more word, and
I won't be sleeping with a guy who looks like a frog!"
Harry made a zipping gesture across his lips, and grinned at her.
Ginny grinned back, and gave him a quick kiss. "See you in the morning."
She went back into their bedroom.
"Goodnight Ginny!" Harry called to her.
"Goodnight Harry!" Ginny called back.
Harry went to work, stretching the sheets and blankets over the bed. He
really did understand Ginny's position. He tried to put himself in her
shoes. Would he be able to sleep with someone who looked like a
stranger, but claimed to be his wife?
Xander looked up. His prosthetic eye was in his hand and he blinked,
with *two* eyes. One of them--the eye he'd lost three years ago--felt
like it had just been poked by a finger, but it was real, and he could
see with it. He couldn't see very well with it, but he could see. He
looked around the atrium, trying to focus, but everything was blurry. He
could see that everyone in the room had turned toward him. He saw that
there were several weapons pointed in his direction: swords, axes and
crossbows. Everyone looked angry, but none more than Dawn.
"What's going on?" he asked, but it wasn't his voice that he heard.
Buffy came across the pentagram at him. She grabbed him by his shirt,
which seemed bigger than it had been moments before, and shoved him up
against a wall. "What have you done with Xander?"
"*I'm* Xander! I haven't done anything with him--me." Xander looked
around. "Will, tell Buffy I'm me!"
"Funny," said Willow, without sounding the least bit amused. "You don't
*look* like Xander, and I've known him for twenty years. You didn't
count on me doing that spell to remove illusions, did you? How long have
you been impersonating him?"
Xander felt a sinking sensation. What Dawn, Buffy and Willow had said,
the way everyone was looking at him, the way he felt: Willow's spell had
done something to the way he looked. He could imagine what they must be
thinking. "Willow! I've known about that spell for years! It was part of
the original planning for the new building! We were going to do it last
week, but you had to do some last minute tweaking because of...you know.
If I was someone impersonating me, I would have cleared out. I mean
really, if I was using magic to impersonate me, staying, knowing that
you were doing what you were doing: that's something so stupid that only
I would do it!"
Willow started to look a little uncertain. "There is something very
Xanderish about that skewed sort of logic..."
"I know! I have to tell you stuff that only I would know, like back when
Toth split me in two, and I thought that there was a demon robot or
something impersonating me, and I told you the story about the fire
engine, and I did the Snoopy Dance..." Xander looked back at Buffy.
"Uh...if you let me go, I can do the Snoopy Dance."
"I'm not letting you go." Buffy still wasn't looking like she believed
anything he was saying.
"Okay...uh...the first thing I ever said to you was 'Can I have you?' I
*meant* to say '*help* you' but it just came out wrong. It was right
outside Principal Flutie's office--back before the other guys in the
hyena pack ate him--and you'd spilled your purse on the floor. I helped
you pick everything up, and got left holding a stake, which I had
absolutely no idea why you were carrying around in your purse. I thought
that maybe you were making a tiny fence."
Buffy's grip on him relaxed a bit. "Xander?"
"Yeah Buff, it's me."
"Tell me something only *I* know," demanded Dawn.
"Well, uh, just before we came back down here, we--"
"Something that *won't* make me think that I was just raped by an
impostor."
Whatever relaxing Buffy might have been doing vanished when Dawn said
that.
"Oh...right...uh..." Xander thought for a bit. Whatever he said next had
to be good. "You're not special, Dawn. You're *extraordinary!* And you
can be really nasty with a taser. Uh...there are a few, uh, key things I
could tell you, but there are too many people around that you don't want
to know about that stuff."
---
Ginny couldn't sleep through the night. The pressure from the child
within on her bladder always sent her to the bathroom at least once. She
got out of bed, being careful not to wake Harry. She made her way to the
bathroom to relieve herself, washed her hands and her face, and started
back toward their bed.
She stopped. That! Wasn't! Harry! Some stranger was sleeping in their
bed where he was supposed to be! She moved silently to where her
dressing gown was draped over a chair, picked it up, and wrapped it
around herself. She reached out her hand and summoned her wand to it off
the beside table. She silently *Accioed* Harry's wand off the other
table. She aimed her wand at the sleeping figure, and with a loud *bang*
the man in their bed was securely wrapped in ropes.
The stranger in their bed was startled awake. "Huh, what's going on?" he
asked.
"Who are you?" demanded Ginny. "What have you done with Harry?"
He looked puzzled. "Ginny? What's wrong?" She was surprised to see that
he seemed to be missing his left eye.
"*Who are you?*"
"Gin, it's me. Harry."
"You're not Harry. I know what Harry looks like, and you're not him!
*Where is he?*"
"What are you talking about?" He struggled against the ropes binding
him. "What's happened to my voice? I don't sound right."
Ginny flicked her wand, and the mirror from her dresser flew across the
room, and settled in front of the stranger in their bed. "Does that look
like Harry to you? What happened, forget to take your Polyjuice?"
"Merlin! What's happened to me?" The man blinked a few times, and looked
puzzled. "*What happened to my eye?* And how come I'm not blurry? I'm
not wearing my glasses." He looked up at her. "Gin, I swear, I don't
know what's going on, but I'm me. I'm Harry."
"Oh yeah? Tell me something that only Harry knows."
"Er... we first met when you were ten, and you'd come with your mom to
see your brothers off at the station. She had to tell me how to get onto
platform nine and three quarters."
"That was in that stupid 'unauthorized autobiography' that Rita Skeeter
wrote," said Ginny. "Though how she thought she could get away with
calling it an 'autobiography' when *she* wrote it is beyond me. And how
can you have an 'unauthorized' autobiography in the first place?"
"She's an idiot," said the man in their bed. "And she made up all that
rot about how it was 'love at first sight.' I barely even noticed you."
He shrugged. "Sorry."
"When did you notice me?"
"Sixth year," said the man. "Well, you were a friend long before that,
but it was in sixth year that I started thinking of you as a girl. And
we first kissed right after the last Quidditch game of the season--you
beat Ravenclaw for the cup...and you sent me that singing telegram in
second year, you never confessed *that* to anyone but me; and the baby
is going to be named James Sirius if its a boy, and Lily Luna if it's a
girl, and yes we both think that the alliteration is a bit silly, but we
still want to honour both of them; and the backs of your knees are very
ticklish; and you've got a lovely little heart shaped birthmark on the
inside of your left thigh, and I always kiss it and call you 'my dear
heart' before I--"
"Okay, you're Harry." Ginny flicked her wand, releasing the ropes that
were binding him. "So, what happened?"
"I don't know." Harry looked at his hands, turning them over and
examining them closely. "I don't think it could have been Polyjuice. I
would have noticed that. It tastes horrid, and the transformation hurts
like hell. No way I'd have slept through it." He started to feel around
his face.
"You haven't received any 'gifts' from Fred or George lately, have you?"
asked Ginny.
Harry shook his head. "Not that I know of...I suppose that they might
have slipped me something without my noticing it, but I haven't seen
them for a couple of weeks. Have they told you that they were developing
anything that might do this?"
It was Ginny's turn to shake her head. "Nope, and they're supposed to
keep me informed about their new product developments." The idea that
one of her brothers might have slipped something past her made her a
little cross. *Nothing* was supposed to leave their development lab that
she hadn't approved.
Ginny had joined /Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes/ shortly after she had left
Hogwarts. A couple of close calls with products that weren't *quite*
ready for public consumption, and some organizational problems that came
about because their company had grown too quickly in the early years had
made her brothers realize that they needed someone more sensible than
they were to help them run the business side of the business. (Besides,
foisting the humdrum management concerns off on Ginny gave them more
time for the fun part: developing new pranks.)
One of first things Ginny had done was institute some new rules about
how products were tested. One of them was that *nothing* left their lab
that she hadn't approved. If they'd done this to Harry...
Harry seemed to read her mind. "Hey, we've got no reason to believe that
they're behind this."
"You're right, of course," said Ginny, "but if I find out that they are,
I'll hex them into next year!" She sighed. "But what do we do now?"
"I think we need someone smarter than us to figure this out," said
Harry. "Why don't you call Hermione?"
---
Xander had gotten a provisional agreement that he might really be
himself out of Dawn, Buffy, Willow and Giles. It had taken a confession
about the fabulous "Lady's Night" club to finish bringing Buffy around,
and a story about Spike and Giles arguing over whether they'd watch
Oprah, or Sally Jesse Raphael that he'd walked in on, during the time
that Spike had been living in Giles' home, to convince him.
They still weren't completely convinced, but it was enough that Buffy
had let go of him, and they'd moved into one of the new conference rooms
where there were chairs available for people to sit down in. Two of the
Slayers weren't sitting. They were standing behind him, ready to pounce
if he made one wrong move.
His eye was feeling better now, but he kept blinking, hoping that would
improve his vision. He didn't like not being able to see clearly.
"I don't get it," said Buffy. "Willow's spell was supposed to remove
illusions. Why would it change the way Xander looks?"
"The only thing that makes even any sense would be if this is the way
that Xander is really supposed to look," said Giles. "That what we
believed to be his normal appearance was an illusion all along."
"But that doesn't make any sense either!" said Willow. "I've known
Xander since we were four! And he's always had brown eyes, and brown
hair. Now his eyes are green, and he's got both of them, and his hair is
nearly black, and he's got that scar on his forehead. What's that from
anyway?"
"Don't ask me," said Xander. "I still haven't seen it." He rubbed his
hand against his forehead, feeling the bump there. "We really need to
put some mirrors in this place. That's something we overlooked in the
design: lots of mirrors, to make spotting vamps easier."
"Yes," said Giles. "Let's all discuss the changes we want to make in our
new headquarters. That is a much more urgent matter than what has
happened to you."
"Whatever happened, either we fix it soon, or I'm gonna need glasses."
Xander held up his hands, making 'O's with his fingers over his eyes and
grinned at Dawn. "What do you think?"
Dawn shifted uncomfortably. "I think that we fix this soon."
"Willow, do you remember when Faith switched bodies with me?" asked
Buffy.
"How could I forget?"
"You and Tara did that Astral Projection thing, to see what was really
going on. Do you think you could do it again?"
"Nether Realm. It's entirely different. Astral Projection--" Willow saw
the looks that everyone was giving her. "The difference isn't really
important now. I did that to find out where your soul had gone. It won't
show anything about what's happened to Xander's physical body."
"But it will confirm that it's really Xander's soul inhabiting this
body, won't it?" asked Buffy.
"Oh yeah. That it'll do."
"Do you need anything?"
"Just a little privacy," said Willow. "Kennedy and I can do it in our
room."
---
"*Giiiin!*" Harry called plaintively from their bedroom. The voice
wasn't his, but there was something about the way he said that, that was
unmistakably Harry.
Ginny had just finished making her firecall to Hermione. "What?" she
called back.
"My clothes don't fit!" said Harry.
Ginny went to the door to their bedroom. She looked at...Harry looking
forlornly back at her, in a shirt that was too small for him. She tried
to ignore the missing eye. "What's the problem?"
Harry tried to pull the shirt closed across his chest. "It doesn't fit!"
"So do a stretching charm on it!" said Ginny. "That's second year stuff!"
"I *tried*!" said Harry. "It didn't work. I think there's something
wrong with my wand." He picked it up. "It doesn't feel right, and look!"
He swished and flicked. "*Wingardium Leviosa!*"
Nothing happened.
"*That*'s first year stuff! And I can't make it happen!" said Harry.
"There must be something wrong with it."
"Give me that!" Ginny took the wand from Harry. She could feel its power
in her hand, almost as familiar as her own. She pointed it at the potted
plant on the table under their bedroom window. "*Engorgio.*"
The plant swelled, its leaves growing to the size of garden spades, and
its flowers to dinner plates.
"It works for me," said Ginny.
"*Ginny?* *Harry?*" called Hermione and Ron from the living room.
"Be there in a second!" called Ginny. She quickly did some stretching
spells on Harry's clothes. "Get dressed," she told him. "We'll figure
this out."
---
Xander spent some of the time waiting for Willow and Kennedy to get back
looking at his hands. He found that if he held them up about six inches
from his face, he could focus on them just fine. "You know that old
saying, about knowing something 'like the back of my hand'?" he asked.
"Yeah?" asked Dawn.
"These don't look right to me, but for the life of my, I can't really
tell you what's wrong with them. I can't remember what they're
*supposed* to look like."
"Really?"
"Really. I mean, there are a couple of things." Xander pointed to a
scar on the back of his right hand. "I know that I didn't have a scar
like that one. He looked closer at it. "'I must not tell lies.' Why
would anyone have that carved into their hand? And I can remember a
couple other scars that I *should* have, that are gone, but I can't
tell you what the arrangement of freckles should be, or the wrinkles.
I'm pretty sure that they've changed, but I can't tell you what they
*should* be."
Willow and Kennedy arrived back in the conference room. "He's Xander,
but..."
"But what?" asked Buffy.
"From the Nether Realm, I could see his soul," said Willow. "He really
is Xander, but there's something else..."
"He's possessed?" asked Buffy. "Something possessed him to make him look
like this?"
"It's not a possession!" said Willow. "I don't really know what it is.
It's like he's got some new sort of power."
"Oh, great." said Xander. "I've got this new power that makes me not
look like me. I couldn't get a useful power. Oh no, not me."
"It's not that." Willow tipped her head as she looked at him.
"Everything that makes you...you is still there, but it's like something
has been added. Now that I know what to look for, I can see it in your
aura."
"Are you *sure*?" asked Dawn.
"Yes, Dawnie. I'm sure," said Willow. "He really is Xander, on the
inside. It's only his outsides that have changed."
---
Harry was getting tired of playing "twenty questions." Why couldn't
anyone just believe that he was him? Okay, they'd all had experiences
with people pretending to be someone they weren't. Mad Eye Moody in
fourth year sprang immediately to mind--especially considering his
sudden lack of one--but none of them had known the original. Shouldn't
Ron and Hermione just be able to look at him, and know the truth?
They seemed to have accepted a guarded "This is really Harry," for now.
Hermione had no idea how such a thing could be possible without using
Polyjuice, and no one had any explanation for why he couldn't use his
wand anymore, or anyone else's for that matter. Hermione had insisted
that they perform that experiment. Harry had tried to do simple spells
with her wand, and Ron's, and Ginny's and nothing had happened with any
of them. It was like he had been suddenly turned into a Squib, along
with the change in his appearance.
Hermione had tried *Metamorphosis Deleo* and *Finite Incantatem* spells
on Harry, to try to undo whatever had happened to him, with no result.
"I'd like to talk to the professors at Hogwarts about this. Maybe
Headmistress McGonagall, or Professor Flitwick has seen something like
it before."
"I think you better tell everyone in the office that I won't be in to
work tomorrow," Harry told her.
"Okay," said Hermione, "but how long can we keep that up? If we can't
fix this--"
"We have to fix this!" said Harry. "I can't go the rest of my life not
looking like me!"
"You don't look that bad," said Hermione. "I mean, there are a lot of
worse ways you could look."
"On the bright side, you don't have to worry about being recognized,
now," said Ron. "You can go out, without having to worry about being
mobbed."
---
Dawn came out of their room's attached bathroom, wearing one of Xander's
flannel shirts. She looked nervously around the room that she shared
with him. She was *sure* that he was really him, both from her own
experience, and what Willow said about him, but it still felt a little
weird to be here with a guy that she didn't really recognize.
"Why don't you spend the night with Buffy?" asked Xander.
"No!" said Dawn. "I mean...Okay, it's weird with you not looking like
you, but I believe that it's you so there's no reason I shouldn't be
here, is there?"
"Dawn, if this is making you feel weird...I want you to be someplace
you're comfortable," said Xander.
"If I feel weird...it must feel a thousand times weirder for you," said
Dawn.
"But I *know* that I'm still me," said Xander. "Somewhere, inside, you
still have doubts."
"Maybe a little," said Dawn. "But...if you're you...this has to be
horrible for you...and if I desert you...it has to make it worse...and I
can't do that to you."
Xander took her into his arms. "I love you, Dawn."
"And I love...Xander. I'm sorry." Dawn pushed him away. "Oh god...I..."
"I understand," said Xander.
"Xander, I..." Dawn closed her eyes for a moment, and took a deep
breath. "I want to believe that you're you. I really do."
"Dawn. It's okay. Why don't you go sleep in Buffy's room?"
"No!" said Dawn. "I'm staying here. You need me."
"Dawn..."
Dawn wrapped her arms around him, and kissed him. "You're Xander. I
believe that. I just have to get used to this new shape of yours."
---
Harry gathered up sheets and blankets to move to the sofa in their
living room that Ginny had transfigured into a bed.
"I'm sorry Harry," said Ginny, "But it just doesn't feel right."
"It's okay," said Harry. "In a way it's good to know that you don't feel
right sleeping with a guy who doesn't look like me."
"Harry!" Ginny drew her wand and pointed it at him. "One more word, and
I won't be sleeping with a guy who looks like a frog!"
Harry made a zipping gesture across his lips, and grinned at her.
Ginny grinned back, and gave him a quick kiss. "See you in the morning."
She went back into their bedroom.
"Goodnight Ginny!" Harry called to her.
"Goodnight Harry!" Ginny called back.
Harry went to work, stretching the sheets and blankets over the bed. He
really did understand Ginny's position. He tried to put himself in her
shoes. Would he be able to sleep with someone who looked like a
stranger, but claimed to be his wife?
--
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/>