The Slayer and the Squib

Chapter 3 ~ Train Times

There had been, Xander thought through the dull roar in his head, better mornings. Mornings when his alarm clock had not woken him with shouts of 'Get out of bed, you bloody log!', and when the mirror over the sink had not announced, after he had thrown a couple of handfuls of water into his face, that it had seen livelier ghosts. And yes, of course there was the headache.

He dug for a bottle of Thylenol and popped a handful into his mouth, jumping and almost choking on them when the mirror shrieked 'Those Muggle poisons will kill you!' As if the magical ones weren't close to succeeding already!

Sluggishly, his thoughts crawled back to the previous evening.

Shopping with Buffy had turned out exactly as bad as - no, worse than - expected. Giles had escaped the procedure by announcing that his 'family elves' had packed his old clothes already (and Xander, picturing tweed robes, had had to embrace a clothes rack to keep on his feet, which in turn had cursed him most vilely). For himself, Xander had quickly picked out three plain black robes that looked as unlike girls' dresses as it was possible for a piece of clothing with an ankle-length skirt. Finally, he had treated himself to a floor-length Darth Vader-style cloak just because the temptation had been impossible to resist.

After he'd paid for his purchases, Buffy had just been about to launch into a heated debate about hem length with the owner, a stocky witch in beige robes. From the fanatical glint in his friend's eye, Xander realised that she could go on for hours. Sometimes, Xander mused miserably, he really missed Spike. At least with Spike, you could talk back.

He'd been practically ready to fall around Giles' neck in gratitude when the Watcher had suggested a 'pick-me-up'. Deciding that even being picked up by Giles was preferable to watching Buffy fashion-tripping (especially since no undressing seemed to be forthcoming in the near future), Xander agreed, and several truckloads of boulders fell off his chest when 'pick me up' turned out to mean 'going for a drink' in Wizardese.

The pub was dingy, crowded, and provided Xander with one of the few epiphanies of his life. Butterbeer was undoubtedly a gift from the gods - or goddesses, as Willow would insist - and its high-proof variant, Buttermalt Dragonfire Whiskey, was even more divine. And, as Tom the bar wizard had insisted, it "packed a punch to knock out a goblin". It had certainly knocked him out.

And 'out' was good - you couldn't brood over the dead when you were out.

How he'd got up to his room was a mystery, and was hopefully to blame on Giles rather than on Buffy... Hence the headache as if little Professor Flitwick was doing stepdance routines in his head, and a taste in his mouth as if one of said goblins had performed unspeakable acts inside.

Dragging himself out of the bathroom, Xander threw on a pair of black jeans and a dark shirt before giving his new robes a baleful, one-eyed glare and deciding to go without. Postpone humiliation to a later point in time.

An energetic knock on the door made him flinch. He slouched over to open and peered at Buffy - pardon, Professor Summers - from under heavy-lidded eyes. She frowned up at him.

"Sober again?"

"Um," he stuttered, and Inner Xander raised his mental head.

Evasive maneuvres, idiot!

Xander had never regretted keeping the voice of his devil-may-care alter ego after his doppelgaenger episode - the guy was amusing to have around, and quick on his toes.

"Nice dress, Buff."

"It's a robe, Xander." She pirouetted before him, grey skirts with pink lining flying around her legs. Ankle-length, Inner Xander noted with a smirk - the robe shop madam must be made of very stern stuff indeed. "Like it?" Buffy asked.

"What about my life expectancy if I say no?" Xander quipped.

"Numbered in seconds - very few seconds," she threatened cheerfully.

"Stunning!" he grinned.

She punched him playfully, her slayer-strength almost knocking him backwards onto the bed. "Better get your stuff together. Giles is getting nervous about reaching that Mogwards Express in time."

Xander gave her an affronted look. "You mean he looks better than me?"

"Well, according to that tiny toothless guy who's running the place, he went easier on the brew that 'can knock a goblin flat'," she smirked.

"Ugh! Don't remind me."

"Poor thing," she cooed mockingly. "Want help dragging your trunk?"

"My what?"

Giles' appearance on the landing distracted Buffy's attention. The Watcher still wore his ridiculous cloak, but now sported a high-collared black robe underneath, which convinced Xander that refusing to don a dress had been a good idea after all.

Well, if we're late at least I won't have to face breakfast, Xander mused with a shudder and dry heave at the thought. He went back into his room to get his things. Where his battered backpack had been, thrown on a dilapidated chair next to the bed, an unwieldy, wooden trunk now sat. It winked up at him with round, cheerful eyes which had somehow superimposed themselves on the padlocks.

"What the...? Giles!" he yelled. "Care to tell me why my backpack looks like a piece of wood, and gives me flirty looks?"

"I bribed one of the pub elves to transfigure it," Giles explained, walking over to him. "We won't stand out so much this way." He patted the trunk affectionately, which gave him an adoring look. "House-elf magic can be a bit unpredictable at times, though," he conceded. Xander sighed.

"I just hope that my boxers haven't transformed into codpieces along with it," he hissed under his breath.

Giles stared. "Where did you find out what a codpiece is?" he marvelled.

Xander flushed. "It played the starring role in one of those Indian horror flicks we used to watch while you researched the demon of the day," he replied, and then admitted. "I asked Willow."

Mutually deciding to drop the topic, they grabbed one handle each and dragged the trunk out into the corridor, then bumped down the narrow staircase after Buffy. She carried her own trunk easily on one shoulder, looking for all the world like a lumberjack in a ball gown. He had to hand it to her, though, Xander thought as he admired her backside sashaying down the stairs, she did not look at all bad in robes. But then she was a girl!

***

They made their way through the early morning bustle of Diagon Alley, and Xander realised that he'd love to explore some of those shops without a slave driver cracking the verbal whip over his head. He glared at Giles and longingly stared at a shop window with a variety of magical instruments. In the shop next door, a pharmacy, a white-robed wizard was busy refilling a large crystal bowl with 'Jobberknoll Feathers', and another with 'Imp Livers' - or so the overhead placard announced. Anya would have loved the place - she'd have fit right in. Perhaps she'd even known the wizard world. There had been so many things they'd never got around to talk about, being too busy with sex, or later with avoiding each other... With some effort, he fought back the thought and concentrated on the sights.

Some twisting backroads later, Xander had learned to distinguish between wizarding and normal streets. In wizarding streets, the lamp posts jumped out of your way with a polite nod; in ordinary streets, you ended up seeing stars and with a nasty bump on your forehead after a dead-on collision.

At last, Giles stopped and pointed out a sprawling building dominated by two huge glass archways and a squat belltower on top that rose above the rows of inner-city blocks before them. "King's Cross Station," he announced.

"Bless you!" Xander muttered, swaying under the weight of his trunk and labouring from his aching head. They made it to one of the arched entrances, after being almost ploughed over by a red two-storey bus speeding along on the wrong side of the road. Giles rummaged through his magician's coat pocket (which did earn them funny looks, though less than it would have in Sunnydale, when there still was a Sunnydale) and produced three large parchment tickets, two of which he handed to Xander and Buffy.

"Platform 9 3/4?" Buffy frowned. "You English are weird!"

Despite excessive craning of his neck, Xander could not detect any sign for a Platform 9 3/4, nor, for that matter, any Platform 8 1/2 or 10 2/3.

"Let's face it," he sighed. "They've been having you on, Giles."

"No," the Watcher insisted. "Filius Flitwick gave me detailed instructions - there is a secret entrance to the platform through the brick wall between platforms 9 and 10."

"Perhaps he's just into Pink Floyd's greatest hits, considering where we're headed," Xander quipped, and received one of Giles's trademark 'I wish you were a vamp so my Slayer could stake you'-glares. Still, the sheer solidity of said brick wall seemed to daunt even the Watcher. Xander set down his trunk with a sigh of relief. As soon as they'd left the wizarding part of town, it had thankfully stopped giving him lovesick looks.

"So, what now?" he wondered aloud. "Open, Sesame? Speak, friend, and enter? Abracadabra?"

Next to him, a young girl with her arms slung around a basket with a small white cat shrieked and dashed off into the crowd.

"Don't say that!" Giles exclaimed.

"What?!"

"Nevermind," the Watcher sighed. "I'll tell you later. And no, there isn't a password - we're supposed to just walk through."

"No thanks!" Xander cried, rubbing his head. "I've already played that game today, and almost concussed myself."

"Just through, right?" Buffy repeated mistrustfully, and then went into karate stance. She shot the wall a death glare that would surely have crumpled anything less sturdy than brick, and then struck. And yelped. And vanished right through the bricks, propelled forward by her own momentum.

Seems to work all right, Inner Xander chirped cheerfully. Xander picked up Buffy's trunk, shoved it through the wall after his friend, and followed with one hand up to protect his head, just in case.

The wall disappeared around him, and he stepped out onto another platform, bustling with robed children, trunks on trolleys, and animals of all varieties. In the tracks stood a train with an old-fashioned, bright scarlet steam engine that was puffing happily. Buffy was glaring up at him from the ground, rubbing her shins and staring accusingly at the trunk that had landed on her.

Damn! Why do these things always happen to me?

Xander pulled her up and out of the way when the first of Giles' long legs appeared out of the bricks, precariously close.

"Platform 9 3/4," the Watcher announced proudly once he'd finished disentangling himself from the wall, and pointed at a large overhead sign. Then he jumped aside just in time to prevent being bowled over by a group of new arrivals coming through the wall portal. They were, basically, gangly, mostly red-haired, and robed. Two of them were women, mother and daughter judging from the similar, determined upturn of their noses.

"Uh, sorry," the oldest redhead apologised for almost crashing into the Watcher. When his eyes fell on Xander's clothes, they widened, and then a delighted smile spread over his face.

"So pleased to meet you," he beamed, grabbed Xander's hand and shook it vigorously.

"Uh, yes, me too..." Xander got out, utterly flabbergasted. The older woman noticed his confusion and stepped up.

"We've got to hurry, Arthur," she admonished, and the man - Arthur - regretfully looked at the four packed trolleys his family was busy unloading.

"A Muggle - bless his little heart!" he exclaimed fondly.

The wife shook her head in bemused exasperation.

"Do we want another Ford Anglia incident, dear?"

'Dear' looked at her shiftily. "Well, seeing as how the Ford Anglia seems to have vanished, that's not really a problem, now-"

"Arthur!"

Xander grinned at the sight of the woman giving her husband a stern talking to as he was marched off.

Now that was weird, he mused, while Giles scrutinised his shirt and jeans.

"Perhaps you should have changed, Xander..."

"Do they do that blessing thing a lot?" Xander inquired. Willow and Tara had been quite into it, but at least had refrained from specific body parts. Or make that his body parts - they'd never let him in on what they were doing in the bedroom with each other.

"Well, at least they didn't bless your little socks," Buffy quipped.

"There's nothing bless-worthy about my socks," Xander insisted, and was about to elaborate when Giles grabbed both his and Buffy's arms and dragged them bodily over to the train. A lanky wizard chewing on an impressive-looking whistle stood next to a carriage door and directed students inside.

"Excuse me, sir." The conductor wizard turned, frowning, and relaxed when he saw he was being addressed by an adult. "I'm Professor Giles," Giles announced proudly, and Xander exchanged a smirk with Buffy behind his back. Unlike the slayer, who flinched imperceptibly whenever her new 'title' came up in conversation, the Watcher thrived on it.

"Wotcher, Prof!" the man exclaimed, expression turning from annoyed to deferential at warp speed.

Wow, Giles really is well-known around here, Xander thought.

"Urs Shunpike, at yer service. We've reserved the front compartment fer ye," the conductor explained. "Behind ye's the Prefects' carriage, and then the rest of the crowd." His eyes fell on Buffy, and went almost impossibly round. He bowed, deeply - or perhaps he's only trying to hide his drooling, Inner Xander snarled ungenerously. "D'ye want me to float that trunk for ye, madam, eh, prof?"

Buffy gave him a dazzling smile that made the whistle slip right out of his mouth, and shook her head.

"No, thanks. It's a pretty light, er... trunk."

His ears drooped visibly, but he bowed again as they made their way up the platform to the first carriage behind the gleaming locomotive. It whistled as they approached, almost as in greeting. Climbing on with three unwieldy trunks wasn't all that easy, and they got their share of half-hidden and not so secret stares from the milling crowd of pupils as they squeezed through towards the front compartments of the carriage. The noise level would put the Bronze on a live music night to shame, Xander mused before remembering that the Bronze was now at the bottom of an abyss, and that he'd never again be able to take Anya there for a cappuccino for old times' sake. He let the noise wash over him to drown out the memories.

"... got a Puffskein for my birthday..."

"... wonder who'll teach Defence this year, a vampire perhaps..."

"... Rose Zeller heard the Killing Curse being cast right there on the platform..."

Xander looked down when he felt something squishy under his sneaker, and jumped aside just in time to avoid stepping on a large brown toad. It looked up at him balefully, but was admittedly a more pleasant sight than that Umbridge woman from the Beast Regulation Office. A stocky brown-haired boy squeezed through the crowd, bent down and embraced the amphibian blissfully.

"Trevor!"

In front of him, Buffy shuddered and Xander could see the fine hairs on her neck rise.

"Ugh! That's so disgusting!" she muttered. "And unhygienic!"

"Well," Xander proposed, "perhaps it's a friend of his that someone has turned into a frog? Want to try and kiss it, Cinderella?"

She swatted him, and Giles looked over his shoulder, shaking his head.

"Unlikely. Human-to-animal transformation is highest-level Transfiguration, and quite beyond the capability of students." He paused for a second. "At least for most."

"Ugh!" Buffy repeated. "I had actually hoped you were kidding," she added in a faint voice and accelerated her pace. "Xander, maybe you can find another insect girlfriend here," she quipped.

Xander responded with a wan smile. She didn't mean to hurt you, he told himself.

But considering the way she pined over fangs, you'd expect her to tread a bit more carefully on the girlfriend topic, Inner Xander growled.

The front compartment was empty, but a round-faced, red-cheeked witch was loading a trolley with food in the corridor outside. She waved her wand, and with each wave an assortment of sweets, cakes and wrapped sandwiches appeared on the trolley. A final energetic flick conjured a large, frosted jug of orange liquid, whose weight made the trolley wobble precariously on its wheels. The witch looked up and saw three pairs of eyes trained on her in astonishment.

"Oh, you dears must be the new professors!" She curtsied and flashed them a dimpled smile. "Hetty Shunpike, Refreshment Witch on the Hogwarts Express," she introduced herself and then grabbed the handles of the trolley to give them room to slip into the compartment. "All yours now - I'll be on my way, but if ye'll be after a Cauldron Cake or a sip of pumpkin juice, just come down the train."

"Oh God, I'll never get used to that magical appearing and disappearing business," Buffy groaned when they were alone, and flopped down on a seat

As soon as they were sitting, Giles opened his trunk (Xander had kicked his under the seat quickly and ignored its hurt look) and took out two small parcels. He muttered something, and one parcel grew into a large pile of newspapers bound at one side to a wooden staff to simplify turning, the other into an assortment of books.

Wincing slightly under the their weight, Giles picked up the stack of old-fashioned tomes and placed it firmly onto Buffy's lap.

"I took the liberty to mail-order the relevant Defence Against the Dark Arts text- and sourcebooks that have been on Hogwarts' syllabus over the last ten years," he explained with the near-fanatic glint of the bibliophile in his eye. Buffy stared at the books.

"Of course I've warned Headmaster Dumbledore that due to the short notice of our appointment you wouldn't be able to arrive with your class schedules prepared," he continued. "He was most understanding, and assured me that your colleague would be prepared to take over most of the theoretical aspects. But since this is going to be quite a long journey," he added smugly, "you probably want to familiarise yourself with some of the basic concepts."

If Buffy's robe made her resemble a Victorian heroine out of those Austen movies Willow and Tara had been so addicted to, Inner Xander sniggered, she now looked like a Victorian heroine about to faint.

"Wow, thanks, Giles," she ground out at last.

Giles reached over and pulled out what was easily the largest volume of the stack and handed it to Xander together with a small brochure. The brochure proudly identified itself as the 1861 edition of ARCHITECTONIC HIGHLIGHTS OF WIZARDING BRITAIN: HOGWARTS CASTLE, while the tome - big enough to beat a killer whale to death with, Xander groused - sported a stylised version of the multi-turreted and towered castle that was on the brochure's cover, under the title HOGWARTS, A HISTORY. Suddenly, fainting did not seem like such a bad option.

"I've had the Flourish & Blotts' saleswitch put a wandless shrinking charm on the books so us non-magical folk can also miniaturise them," Giles explained. "Just touch them and say Minuo to shrink them -" he demonstrated, and the pile turned back to handy pocket-size - "and Engorgio to return them to full size." Another tap, and Buffy's lap was full of oversized volumes again.

I wonder if that spell works for other things as well, Inner Xander grinned, and judging from the sudden twitch of Buffy's lips, her thoughts were taking a similar path. Their eyes met, and then they both collapsed into a fit of giggles, finally ending up almost crying with mirth on each other's shoulder.

Giles observed them with faint amusement, although there was an almost pained, wistful expression on his face.

"Giles?" Buffy inquired hesitantly once she'd regained some breath. "You okay?"

"Oh, it's nothing," he replied, taking off and cleaning his glasses. "I just remembered an old... friend, who reacted just the same when I first told him about that spell."

If Buffy was curious, she did not show it, and Giles' face discouraged Xander from pursuing the matter as well, even if he'd loved to know what kind of memory had put that look on the Watcher's face.

As if to break the strange atmosphere, Buffy picked up the top tome and opened it gingerly. DEFENSIVE MAGICAL THEORY, Xander read in florid, embossed letters. Giles grabbed his engorged newspaper stack, whose title page announced THE DAILY PROPHET, 1981-1996: COLLECTED EDITION, and began to read. Buffy shuffled through her books restlessly, until her interest was piqued by a glossy volume titled VOYAGES WITH VAMPIRES. Its cover showed a handsome blond wizard holding up a stake with a smile obtrusive enough to make toothpaste whitening advertisers go pale with envy.

Xander flicked through his brochure, inwardly deciding to reserve the HISTORY for straightening out wobbly furniture. At least the booklet had pictures, and intriguing pages like 'Hogwarts Mysteries - the Chamber of Secrets and Its Fell Monster'.

Meanwhile, the train had begun to move with a cheerful, ear-splitting whistle, and was leaving behind first inner-city London, then rows after rows of brick suburban houses. Despite its extravagant appearance, no one seemed to give the scarlet steam engine so much as a side glance. With the last outskirts of the city, Xander's hangover seemed to vanish as well, and soon his empty stomach started to grumble somewhat insistently. At last, he got up and announced,

"I'm going to look for the trolley witch to get a bite. Want me to get you something?"

"Why don't you get a selection of wizarding sweets," Giles replied and rummaged through his pocket for a gold piece. "I haven't seen a Chocolate Frog in ages, and you and Buffy will find them interesting, I bet."

Smirking at the greedy glitter in Giles' eyes, Xander pocketed the coin.

Buffy banged her book shut (which knocked the jauntily perched hat right off the cover wizard's head) and made to jump up.

"I'll come with you!"

Xander smirked again. "Nah - don't let me distract you from your studies, Professor. Donut delivery guy, that's me."

Grinning at Buffy's disappointed expression, he slipped out of the compartment. The corridors were still teeming with students, most of them clutching bags of candy. In their robes, they looked like monochrome trick-or-treaters on a Halloween outing. Xander stopped behind a gaggle of very tiny pupils congesting the way. They were too absorbed in their chatter to notice him.

"... think Gryffindor is best," a fine-boned, brunette boy announced. "They're brave, they have Potter, and they've won the House Cup five years in a row."

"Oh please, Fawcett!" a sturdy dark-haired boy sneered. "Everybody knows that's just because the Headmaster favours them. We'll try for Slytherin, right, Ellie?" he asked the tiny, pig-tailed girl next to him.

"No!" She whirled around and stared at him angrily. "I don't want to be treated like dirt by everybody, or live in a dungeon, or always explain I'm not evil! Mum says I'm smart - I'll be Ravenclaw!"

"But Ellie..." the boy stuttered. "Our families have always been Slytherin! And what would your father...?"

"Don't mention him!" the girl yelled, face screwed up, and slapped the boy's placating hand away. She turned to run down the corridor, and ploughed right into Xander. He gave a muffled "Ooof!", but she just dashed around him and away. The rest of the little group stared after her in shock and then quietly slinked off into their compartment.

Now what was that about, Xander wondered as he paced further down the train. Sports teams? School clubs? He'd never much cared about either, but knew that for others those were practically life-and-death issues. In fact, he'd known people who were literally willing to murder to be chosen for the cheerleaders. Or the swimming team, for that matter...

He found the Refreshment Witch a few carriages down, and got a large bag with an assortment of different wizarding candy. The witch introduced him to brown, fragrant Cauldron Cakes, and to the Chocolate Frogs Giles had coveted, which looked as if they were squirming in their wrappers. There were Huffing Cream Puffs ("New in our sortiment, from a pair of very creative young entrepreneurs"), and a paper bag full of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, which sounded like fun.

"You want to be extra careful with the green ones, love," the witch leaned forward to whisper in his ear confidentially. "Lots of the more unpleasant surprises tend to be green."

Xander paid with Giles' gold coin and left with his pockets rattling full of silver and bronze change. He was just about to step through the connecting opening to the front carriage when low, angry voices reached his ears.

I can't believe the midgets are still going at it, he thought, but the degree of malice in those voices convinced him that it couldn't be. He inched closer to eavesdrop.

"... really want to try again?" a male voice asked in the typical broken voice of puberty, aggravated by fury. "Just remember what happened on the ride home in summer."

"You think I'd let you pull that again, Weasel? Not when it's only three of you, instead of a carriage full of goons."

"That's so rich, coming from you!" interjected a female voice, high and angry.

"You know, I can't wait for the Dark Lord to get around to finish you, Potter. I just wish I could be there to watch."

"How dare you!" cried the girl again.

"Plan to give him a hand?" came another male voice, cold and slightly trembling. "Be a Death Eater like your father? I got him locked away, I'm sure I could do the same for you."

"Mention my father again, and I'll kill you!"

"Just go ahead and try - we can always stack you in some corner to ooze until Kneazles fly."

Okay, Xander thought, death threats are probably a bit much even for a magical school fight. Those guys sounded bitchier than Buffy and Cordelia in the corridors of Sunnydale High! All of the pupils he'd seen so far seemed to carry wands, and though he hadn't been appointed as a teacher, he was none too eager to explain why he hadn't interfered before dead bodies started to turn up...

"That's enough, I think!" he called out and rounded the corner.

The sight that greeted him looked like the showdown finale of The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Further down the corridor, three teenagers faced him: two boys, one red- and the other dark-haired, and a flustered-looking brunette girl with a book bag slung over her shoulder. The trio was facing off with another group: a snub-nosed blonde girl, dwarfed by two large boys whose build and stance reminded Xander of the security troll in the New York Portkey Station. The ringleader seemed to be a third boy with pale-blond hair and a pointed face. His colouring and posture vaguely reminded Xander of what Spike must've looked like as a youth. He hated the kid on the spot.

Hm, perhaps it's just grandstanding to show off in front of the girls, Xander considered, although Inner Xander was quick to point out that neither of them was attractive enough to spark off a brawl.

He cleared his throat. "I don't think that getting into hot water for fighting is the best way of starting a new school year," he stated when he had everybody's attention. "Why don't you just run along - in different directions," he added quickly.

The bushy-haired brunette blushed, but the others just stared at him angrily.

"They jumped us!" the redhead insisted hotly.

"It takes two..." Xander quickly swallowed 'to tango' and substituted "... to quarrel." The blondes and the boulders looked smug at that. The messily black-haired boy gave him a wounded look through thick glasses, while his redheaded friend glowered. It was the girl who grabbed her two companions' arms and pulled insistently.

"Come on," she hissed. "Malfoy is not worth getting into trouble over!" After a few terse seconds, they caved in and let her drag them off.

First crisis mastered, Xander thought smugly. Giles would be so proud.

He made to leave when the rodent-faced Spike miniature took a subtle step away from the wall he was leaning against, not quite blocking his way, but expressing the intention.

"So you're the mysterious Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher everybody was rumouring about? That vampire hunter?"

Xander shook his head. "It's the 'Slayer' - and no, she's always a woman. She's a friend of mine, but I'm going to work as..." he paused to recall the exact term, "... assistant caretaker."

A slow, delighted smile spread over the boy's sharp features.

"You're going to work under Filch? That's priceless." Xander just stared at him uncomprehendingly. "Filch is the most awful creature at Hogwarts, well, right after the former groundskeeper. He's a squib who hates everybody, always bangs about torture instruments, and has the nastiest cat in the world. They're going to make your life hell." He seemed quite excited about the prospect, and cocked his head, eyes trailing over Xander's street clothes. "So are you a squib too? Or a Mud-Muggleborn? I mean, no self-respecting wizard would work in such a position."

Great, Xander thought. Buffy only gets to be half a creature, and my job can't be mentioned in polite society. Damn you, Giles!

"Guess I'd be a Muggle," he remembered what the weird wizard had called him on the platform, only to watch an expression of shock spread over all four faces, the two boulders with a bit of time delay.

"Ugh!" the girl exclaimed. "I've never talked to a Muggle before. Dad would go into conniptions!"

"I'll try not to go public with it, then," Xander answered, voice heavily coloured with sarcasm.

"I can't believe it," the Spikeling shook his head. Xander had observed dirt under his fingernails with a more kindly expression than he wore. "Not even Dumbledore would sink so low as to allow a Muggle to set foot into Hogwarts!"

Inner Xander volunteered the option of punching the little bastard, but it probably wouldn't go down so well with the faculty.

"Perhaps he's less rednecked than you think?" Judging from the confused look on the boy's face, the barb had gone whistling right over his head.

"Do you have a name, then?" Malfoy inquired, and Xander was pretty sure it wasn't an attempt at small talk. "Even Muggles have names, don't they? Or numbers or something?"

Giles seemed to have his work cut out for him - not that he didn't deserve it, the secretive bastard.

"Xander Harris," he replied coldly.

"Xander? Did you borrow that name from the house-elf?"

"It's short for Alexander," Xander shot back. This was getting annoying.

"That's better," Malfoy drawled. "A real name - it makes you seem almost human."

"Unlike some who destroy that illusion as soon as they open their mouths?" Xander asked sweetly. There had been a time when his whole being would have curled in on itself at such a spiteful attack. But a few years of Anya blurting out the details of their sex life to the world and Spike perfecting his acid sarcasm at his expense had been of some use after all.

The boy surveyed him with almost morbid curiosity.

"So did you lose that," he pointed at Xander's eye patch, "for getting in the way of a wizard?"

Xander let out a soft breath of shock. He'd not been quite prepared for such a degree of malice. I shouldn't stand here and let this little... whatever... rile me, he told himself, but Inner Xander wouldn't let him walk away from it either.

"More like the servant of an evil demon who insisted on taking over the world," he shrugged carelessly.

"Did it hurt?" The boy's voice was suggestive enough to send a shiver down Xander's spine. Don't you wish? he thought spitefully.

He shrugged again. "Not really." Which was the truth, after all - pain doesn't register when you're deeply enough in shock. "But I was around a couple of weeks later when we kicked his ass and that of his master." Xander shot back an evil smile of his own. "So even if he was a wizard, it didn't do him a lot of good, right?"

An angry flash ignited in the blond's eyes. Gotcha! Xander exulted.

"And you think that you can take being that vampire hunter's friend as an excuse for forcing yourself on a world where everything from your blood to your name to your ridiculous accent is unwelcome?"

As if coming here had been my idea! Xander sighed inwardly and wondered just what kind of crime he'd committed in his last life to be haunted by a small-scale Spike clone even after the bastard was dead. But this one was definitely breathing, and the undead couldn't have kids.

"You remind me of someone, you know?" he said in his calmest voice. "Of a really evil bastard, who could make you shrivel up and hurt for days with a few words." He shook his head when he saw a flush of pride ghosting over the boy's face. "But then he was a neutered vampire, and the only way to make up for his lost killing instinct was to snipe at everybody with words." He looked down at the boy with a raised eyebrow. "Perhaps you shouldn't show that evil streak of yours quite so openly - it only shows how insecure you are."

Xander inclined his head in a polite nod and walked past him towards the front carriage, trying hard not to think about what those kids could do with their magic wands. Though he didn't really think they would attack him - not so publicly, anyway.

"You better make sure to keep to Hogwarts' towers, Muggle," little would-be Spike called after him. There was an edge of trembling anger in his voice, which pleased Xander immensely. "The Slytherin dungeons are a dangerous place for those with no magic to defend themselves."

Xander half-turned and gave the furiously glowering kids a smirk and a mock salute before slipping through the door to the next carriage. Only when he was absolutely sure he was out of sight he expelled the breath he'd been holding and slumped against the wall. What a messed-up bunch of little terrors!

If that kid were two hundred years old instead of fifteen, and had a side order of charisma and a dollop of personality to go with his Malice Menue Deluxe, he would have been a lot scarier, Xander mused.

Realising how his subconscious had gone from nervousness to quite emphatically insisting on food, Xander rolled up one of the Cauldron Cakes and popped it into his mouth. It was soft, moist, and tasted deliciously of cinnamon, pumpkin and several spices he couldn't identify. Two more cakes went the same way in quick succession, until he reluctantly decided to leave one for Giles and Buffy each.

He picked through the Bertie Botts' bag, carefully avoiding the green beans, and settled on a white one, which he popped in his mouth. Peppermint, he decided after a careful bite. No, not bad at all.

~~~ tbc. ~~~