Not Alone

Title: Not Alone

Rating: PG

You know what? This is the third time I've taken this journey, sixth if you count the opposite direction.

But it's the first time I'm not alone in my carriage.

It's the first time there's real laughter.

It's the first time people say 'Hi!' on the way past, instead of whispering to each other while they walk as quickly as possible.

It's also the first time they've willingly sat in a carriage together - and that's almost as big as the end to my loneliness.

You see, they just finished their sixth year there, I've finished my third but I'm now at their 'level', I get to spend the whole year with them next year - our 'seventh' year.

It's taken a long time to get to this, and we lost people along the way, Hermione, Ron and Tara, always Tara.

But he's finally gone, You Know Who, the Dark Lord, VOLDEMORT.

Why can't they say his name? Even after he's gone. I can say it, but I've got the darkness in me, it'll always be there, I have no need to fear him, because at times I was worse.

He can say it, actually they both can, but they were more involved than those in so-called 'power'. They ended it, with a little help from me.

He'll be the only one to get credit, at least for a while, I don't want it, he needs it, I don't, it just needed to be done.

It's just a name; it wasn't even his real one. Their fear of his name gave him more power. That's one thing you have to learn in this life, don't fear names.

The Master, Spike, Dru, Angelus, The Mayor, Faith, The Initiative, Adam, Glory, Me, and all that came after and before. Don't fear the name.

Sorry about that, anyway... he's gone. Oh, I know, someone will always take the big guy's place, but every little helps.

He's gone, most of us survived and I'm not alone anymore.

I bet your thinking - but the Scoobs love you, you weren't alone? Right?

Wrong. Yes, they loved me, Xander, so much that it saved the world. But they were still afraid; I think that's why I ended up here, not the train, there, at Hogwarts.

To learn control. To learn the basics. I never really had that, I plunged head long into soul restoring. I never had the control over my magics, that's why I lost everything, I never had the basics.

I don't feel so alone now. I have these two and through letters and the last two summers I'm gradually regaining my friendships at home.

That's where the three of us are heading, when we get to Kings Cross Giles is picking us up and taking us to good old Sunyhell.

"What's so funny Wills?"

Oops, I must have laughed out loud there.

"Nothing Drake, I was just thinking."

"Willow! Willow! What have we told you about thinking in the holidays?"

That was Harry, he's smiling, that's good, but then, I suppose they'll say that about me when we get home.

"Um, do lots of it?" I ask, a picture of innocence.

They laugh. And I'm not alone.