Rating:
R
House:
Schnoogle
Genres:
General Crossover
Era:
Multiple Eras
Spoilers:
Philosopher's Stone Chamber of Secrets Prizoner of Azkaban Goblet of Fire
Stats:
Published: 11/02/2002
Updated: 11/04/2007
Words: 363,688
Chapters: 65
Hits: 101,532

The Eighth Weasley

Fyre

Story Summary:
Set post-book seven. Voldemort is long gone and the dust is settling. So when the Weasleys are informed that a missing family member has been located, there is a great deal of excitement and nervousness as contact is made with said absentee from the family. However, when it transpires that the missing Weasley has connections with a certain Vampire Slayer, it goes without saying that Hogwarts will never be the same again!

Chapter 09

Chapter Summary:
Chapter Nine of The Eighth Weasley - we have Buffy, a mystical entity. We have the vieweing public of the patrons of The Leaky Cauldron. We have Rita Skeeter in search of a story...what more could you possibly want?
Posted:
11/05/2002
Hits:
1,758
Author's Note:
I'm catching up with the editing and posting of this story - I have many more chapters ready for posting and they're in the editing process right now. Did I mention this story is addictive and that its all the fault of the Stones guys and gals? Love to you guys!

The Eighth Weasley - Chapter Nine

The Leaky Cauldron

Notes: I decided I should probably do some notes et al, regarding each chapter as I post it, so we'll start here. A few people have noted that I've changed S4 of Buffy. Well, I AM the writer :-P Honestly, though, I changed it this way - which will be explained eventually - because it would fit in better with the storyline.

In this chapter, however, the fun begins in earnest. Several familiar faces are going to pop up in this chapter and (as I seem to add to many of my stories), there is a character called Bob.

____________________________

With the squeak of the door hinges, every single face in The Leaky Cauldron towards the bright rectangle of light of the doorway Eyes squinted and narrowed to focus on the group of figures standing there, only one familiar to anyone.

"Good grief!" One of the Hogwarts teachers who had been seated at a table with several colleagues, celebrating the end of a school year, stood up, staring at the lead figure with a combination of shock and surprise. "Rupert Giles...is that you?"

The former Watcher stared down at the tiny, white-haired Wizard. "Bloody hell!" he exclaimed with a laugh. "Professor Flitwick!" He wove his way around tables and chairs and staring customers, to bend and shake the little Wizard's hand. "Always one for recognising ex-pupil, eh, Professor?"

"How could I forget you, Mr. Giles?" The Charms Teacher smiled broadly, eyes glinting. "If you recall, I was unfortunate enough to be one of your teachers."

"And anything that happened to you that was in any way...er...bad, while I was at school, wasn't my fault."

"I'll believe that the day Minerva starts dancing around the school in a Tutu," Flitwick retorted with clear amusement. "You might have kept your hands clean, young Giles, but you were the Ring Leader of the Three Wise Monkeys and we all knew it."

Giles chuckled. "You know we preferred the Three Musketeers."

"Ah, yes," the white-haired Wizard sighed, shaking his head. "Fortunately, we teachers used the more accurate version." He looked past his former pupil to the group still standing awkwardly at the door. "Business?"

"You could say that," Motioning the group forward, Giles brought Buffy to the fore, letting Willow shield herself with her boyfriend and best friend, hoping to keep her identity safe until she had met her family. "This is Buffy Summers."

Flitwick's eyes went wide. "Good heavens!" He leaned back to stare up at her. "The Slayer!"

Startled whispers rippled around the strangely quiet bar, making the blonde look around uncomfortably. "Uh... Giles? What's the deal?" she demanded. "How did the short guy know that I'm the Slayer?"

"You always knew you were famous in the Supernatural world, Buffy," her Watcher said with a small smile. "The Wizarding World knows more about the Slayer and her existence than any muggles would."

"Uh...huh..." Suspiciously looking down at the small Wizard, she reluctantly had to smile as he took her hand and rose on his toes to bow over it to gallantly kiss her knuckles. "He knows I can kick him across the room, doesn't he?"

Flitwick looked up at her with a twinkle in his eye. "Why else would I be trying to stay on your good side, Miss Summers?"

"Hello! Buffy Summers!" a shrill, nasal voice called from further up the bar. "Hello!" Both Slayer and Watcher looked around and recoiled in mutual horror at the sight of a Witch with badly-dyed blonde hair, fake-diamond- studded stilettos and gaudy acid green robes. "A word!"

"Run!" Flitwick hissed under his breath, quickly turning back to his drink, as the Witch swept towards them, a broad smile on her bespectacled face.

"Hello there!" the Witch trilled over-brightly. Her voice was like nails on a blackboard. "I'm Rita Skeeter." Tacky-looking jeweled glasses perched on her long, pointed nose. "Could I perhaps have a word?"

Buffy looked down at the notepad in the Witch's hand and the poison green feather quill that was zipping across the page, writing already. She looked back up at the Witch, staring closely at her. "Are you related to Dame Edna?" she asked. "You dress like him...her...it..."

A snort of laughter escaped Giles, who hastily covered his smirk with a hand, his shoulders shaking as he tried to hold back the laughter.

"Dame Who?" Rita Skeeter knew she had probably been insulted, but was determined that she would be the first Witch reporter to interview a Slayer.

"She's an ugly man who dresses up in drag and looks even uglier as a woman," Buffy replied blandly, ignoring the sniggering she could hear from Giles. Her gaze drifted over Skeeter's hideous robes. "It looks like you have the same stylist."

"Hahaha!"

Buffy raised a brow. "What was funny?" she asked, her hands balled into tight fists on her hips. Rita immediately stopped laughing, a look of uncertainty crossing her face. "I don't like being laughed at."

As emphasis, she picked up one of the thick metal spoons from the nearest table and easily bent it in half with her forefinger and thumb. Several jaws dropped. Wisely on her part, Skeeter took a startled step backwards, stepping on the hem of her robes and almost tripping, as the Slayer squeezed the crushed spoon into a round glob of metal.

"And," the petite blonde added. "You know what else really annoys me?" Rita Skeeter shook her head, looking ready to make notes. "Reporters..." She heaved a huge sigh. "Ever since they accused me of murdering someone, I kind of...haven't liked them much," She fixed Rita with a pointed stare. "I would really like the chance to show one how I feel," The solid lump of metal that had once been a spoon was implicitly placed on the table beside her. "So, Rita, what did you want to talk to me about?"

Rita's eyes were on the deformed spoon. "Wh-what?" Her quill had frozen, ink dripping silently onto the page of the notebook.

"What did you want to talk to me about?" Buffy's voice dripped with sickening sweetness.

As if by magic - which it probably was - Skeeter's notebook and bright green quill vanished. "Oh, nothing important!" Her voice was a great deal shriller than it had been seconds before. "It was nice to meet you, but I'm afraid I must be going."

She darted away into the gatherings of witches and wizards in a flurry of hideous green robes and clacking, diamonte-studded shoes and apparently fled out of the bar.

Immediately, there was a deafening roar of laughter and applause that made the surprised Slayer blush slightly.

"Well done! Well done!" Flitwick squeaked enthusiastically. "No one has ever made Miss Skeeter depart faster than that!"

"But she may well put something in The Daily Prophet about you...she's not a good person to annoy," A plump witch with flyaway hair and dirt- stained hands and clothes nodded in the direction of the Slayer. "She always manages to publish something nasty."

Buffy looked around the faces at the closest table, then grinned wickedly. "Not if she wants to keep that badly-dressed, badly-dyed," she pulled a face as if it was the most heinous crime in the world, "body intact."

"Buffy," Giles started to chastise her. "She is a human..."

The Slayer shrugged. "Doesn't mean I can't beat her senseless for crimes against fashion, does it?"

"She does have a point there," Anya offered from behind Xander. "Anyone who wears that colour should be taken out and shot like a dog in the street." She frowned slightly. "I don't understand why someone would shoot a dog in the street, but its a phrase I read in a book somewhere and I like it and I think that the Skeeter-woman should be."

"Giles," Buffy looked to her Watcher. "Just promise me that - no matter how evil you went when you were younger - you never ever wore that colour voluntarily. If you did, I would have to kill you now."

"Fortunately, while my common sense left me, I did retain some sense of taste and decency."

"Taste?" Xander raised his brows. Giles raised his finger. "Whoa! G-Man! You got yourself a nice bird there."

"Anya, be a dear and warn your frog to keep his mouth shut," Giles remarked, then turned back to Professor Flitwick. Xander clapped his mouth shut quickly. "Professor, have you seen Dumbledore hereabouts, lately? We were meant to meet him here."

Tom, the Innkeeper, who was standing behind the bar, cleared his throat. "He said he would be here in a bit, Mr. Giles," he called over. "He's booked rooms for you, if you want to take your luggage up to them now..."

"That would be marvellous," Giles nodded. "After so much time in planes, it would be nice to have somewhere to take a quick nap."

"But I wanted to go to see the stores!" Anya exclaimed, only to be silenced with a cautioning look from Xander. "Well, I guess I could sleep for a while, even if the neat stores are right behind the pub," she grumbled.

"We have plenty of time, Anya," Giles reminded her, motioning for the group to follow him towards the old barkeep, who had hauled a large ring of keys out from beneath the bar and was trying to pull three off it.

"Follow me," Tom said, as the group neared, giving up on liberating the keys for the time being and hauling the whole ring with him.

They were led through strangely wide hallways that looked simply too big to fit into the tiny pub, numerous dark, wooden doors lining the walls, each with brass numbers screwed onto them and gleaming in the faint light cast by the oil-burning lamps on the walls.

"How big is this place?" Buffy asked with amazement, as they passed the twentieth door in the corridor and started up a long flight of stairs.

Tom looked back at her with a timid, toothless grin. "Well, we have five hundred rooms available, if we need them, Miss Summers," he replied, opening a large door that led into another insanely wide corridor. "Usually, we only have the usual two hundred."

"Must be useful," Oz murmured. "Kind of like a tardis."

"That seems to be an analogy that muggles use a lot," Tom agreed, grinning a gummy smile in the direction of the werewolf. He paused in front of the door numbered 314 in bold, brass numbers, raising a bushy brow when the Slayer and her friends started laughing. "Is there something amusing?"

Shaking his head, Giles quelled a chuckle. "You really don't want to know, Tom, believe me," he said, with a faint grin. "Its a long story and no doubt it'll find its way into The Daily Prophet some time during our stay."

"Giles, I gotta have this room!" Buffy said determinedly. "Me and Will'll take it!"

"Very well," Tom nodded, resorting to using his wand to remove the key from the ring and handing it to her. "Your friends will be in rooms 315 and 316." He looked at Giles. "Is that all right by you?"

"That'll be fine," Giles replied with a nod.

***


"Neat! Check out the invisible city!"

Buffy was leaning out of the window. She could hear the sounds of the city, but there had to be some kind of spell on the view that meant that the room owner saw only beautiful scenery that could have come from any idyllic novel.

It was very strange to hear such contrary sounds and sights outside of the window.

The view before her looked like it was from some kind of fantasy film, with a stunning waterfall pouring down a sheer cliff and blue skies high above them. Forests spread around both sides of them and she found herself wondering what view the other rooms had.

It was nearly four hours since they had all arrived at The Leaky Cauldron and all of the group had been catching up on sleep, caught in the throes of jetlag. Trays of food had been provided twenty minutes before and the Slayer was now taking the chance to have a look around.

"I can't believe I'm here," Willow was sitting on her bed, the one nearest the door and on the right side of the fireplace, where a small, cool fire was crackling to provide a cosy atmosphere without the stuffy heat.

"It's amazing, isn't it?" Buffy returned from the window, dropping down on her own bed. "Such a huge place in such a tiny building."

Willow nodded absently, withdrawing a handful of letters from her rucksack and spreading them on her bed. "I can't believe I'm going to meet my parents soon..." She fingered the envelopes, then yelped in sudden panic. "And I must look a mess after travelling all this way!"

She was already on her way to the large, round, gold-leaf framed mirror on the beige wall, brush in hand, when Buffy started to disagree with her. "I think you look fine, Will," The red head didn't listen, tugging her brush hastily through her silky hair.

"Do you have anything that would make my hair behave itself?" she called over her shoulder to the Slayer.

"I think you're past help, dearie," the mirror murmured sleepily.

Willow squeaked in surprise. "You spoke to me!"

"I don't see anyone else reflected in me," the mirror replied, apparently waking up and not too happy about it. It paused when Buffy hurried over to peer at it as well. "All right, come and stare at me. That's all anyone does."

"Well, I was going to talk to you." Willow looked offended. "How come you can talk?"

"You really want to know?" The voice brightened considerably. "Ooh! Normally no one ever does anything but stare into me or ignore me," There was a pause. "I think I've got a charm on me or something."

"So you're alive?"

There was a dusty chuckle at the Slayer's words. "I'm a mirror, dear. Of course I'm not alive."

"Have you been here long?"

"Long enough," the mirror said absently. The dust around the edge of the frame suggested it had been a long time. "What about you? Its obvious that you've never been in the Leaky Cauldron before."

"I've been living on a Hellmouth in America," Willow replied, still trying to figure out why she was actually talking to the elaborately-framed mirror. "I didn't know about The Leaky Cauldron until I found out I was a proper witch a few months ago."

The mirror seemed to regard her for a moment. "You're a late starter, aren't you?" it remarked. "Mind you, I have heard people talking about Hellmouths before...nasty places they are. Had a cousin who was broken to be made into a stake there."

"Uh...that might have been my fault," Buffy said awkwardly. "Sorry, but I needed to kill a couple of vampires and I didn't have anything else..."

There was another hoarse chuckle. "Don't worry dear," the mirror said reassuringly. "That's considered a promotion in my family," There was a pause. "That would make you a Slayer, wouldn't it?"

"Even mirrors know who I am?" The Slayer looked like she didn't know whether to be flattered or annoyed.

"You'll find you are very famous, Miss Summers," Dumbledore's voice spoke from behind them and both girls spun to see Dumbledore calmly pulling himself out of the fireplace and dusting his robes down. "Good afternoon, Willow."

"Did...did you just come through the fire?" the red head asked uncertainly.

"That I did," The Professor's pale blue eyes twinkled merrily. "I had to resort to floo powder, so I wouldn't attract too much attention downstairs," He looked around. "I'm assuming that your companions are in the neighbouring rooms."

"Yeah." Buffy returned to her bed, sitting down and quickly pulling her black boots off to replace them with another pair. "Giles and Oz are next door and Xander and Anya are next door to them."

"Fine!" the mirror sighed melodramatically. "Forget all about me..."

"I had to put my shoes on," Buffy called over apologetically. Fastening the boots, she returned and smiled at the mirror. "Better?" She hastily brushed her hair, pulling it back and pinning the loose curls back with clasps. "Will I do?"

"For a Slayer, you could do with putting a little weight, dear," the mirror replied, tutting in a strangely maternal fashion. "It won't do, being so skinny."

"You'd get on well with my mom," Buffy pulled a face, glancing at the chuckling reflection of Dumbledore who was standing behind her. Willow was pulling her shoes on, sitting on the end of her bed. "Professor, d'you think they'd let me take this mirror home with me?"

"I beg your pardon?" the mirror squawked.

Buffy turned her full attention back to it. "Well, you seem kinda neat and it seems kinda boring here." She bent closer to it. "If you promise to compliment me at least once every morning, I could take you home with me, if you like."

The mirror laughed a little more loudly this time. "Blimey!" it said, still laughing softly. "I must have made a good impression, then! And old Tom always says that I'm too talkative," There was a wistful sigh. "It would be marvellous to get out of this room for once, as well."

"I'm sure Tom wouldn't object, Buffy." Dumbledore added with a small smile. "After all, you merely need to remind him that you could tear his pub down with one hand and that would be enough to convince him."

The Slayer grinned broadly, looking towards the door as it opened. "Hey, Xander! Look at this cool mirror! It can talk!"

"Ours can talk as well," Anya grumbled bitterly. Her boyfriend's face coloured a deep shade of magenta. "It was very off-putting when we were having sex. It was cheering and telling us we should have provided popcorn."

"A mirror handing out sex tips...there's something you don't hear every day," Willow stood up, smoothing her crimson blouse down over her black trousers.

"I covered it in a sheet and it called me a prude," Xander shook his head. "Some of the things I've seen here are just too wiggy."

"Wiggy?" the mirror inquired from the wall.

"It mean weird," Buffy explained, reaching up to pat the frame. "Don't worry. He's a muggle, so he uses weird words."

"Buffy, you're having a conversation with furniture," Giles remarked dryly, entering the room with Oz. "Should we start worrying about you?" He nodded a greeting to Dumbledore. "Nice to see you Professor."

"Giles, I'm adopting the mirror. He...she...er...what are you?"

The mirror paused, silent for several seconds and if it could have, it would have frowned in thought. "Call me Bob," it said.

"So you're male?"

"Nope. I just like the name." She could visualise a grin.

"Okay." She grinned back at it. "I name you Bob the Mirror," Her friends rolled their eyes but she ignored them, patting the frame again. "I'll see you later, okay, Bob? We're going to go to the stores."

"Have fun, dear,"

***


"This is where we part company," Dumbledore paused at the end of another corridor. "Willow, you will be coming with me...unless you want to bring someone with you, everyone else will be going to Diagon Alley."

"I think it would be better to meet them on my own," the red head replied after a moment's thought, accepting a quick hug from the Slayer and brief kiss from her boyfriend. "I'll see you guys later, I guess."

"And we'll want to know everything!" Buffy called over her shoulder as she was steered away by Giles.

Willow looked nervously up at Dumbledore. "Are they already here?" she asked.

"They are," Dumbledore gave her a warming smile. She felt some of her nerves dissolve, but her hands were shaking frantically. "Don't be so afraid, my dear," he said, patting her on the shoulder as they walked further down the corridor. "They're as nervous as you."

"Yeah, but there's more of them to be nervous together," she muttered, rubbing her sweating palms together.

"I'm sure you will all get on just fine, Willow."

"Doesn't stop me feeling like I'm going to throw up, though," The red head gave him a faint, watery grin. "Sorry," she added. "I've never met people who I've been writing to before...unless you count the time he turned out to be a homicidal demon in a computer."

Dumbledore crooked a bushy brow in her direction. "I would say that is a perfectly legitimate excuse to be slightly nervous," he remarked with a chuckle, pausing as they approached a door without a number on it. "Ah, here we are. Are you ready?"

She rubbed her palms on her trousers and nodded. "As I'll ever be."