Harry Potter and the Watcher's Council

"To the modern man vengeance is a verb, an idea. Payback. One thing for another. Like commerce. Not with us. Vengeance is a living thing. It passes through generations. It commands. It kills." -Enyos, "Innocence"

Hermione came to stay with them at the safe house the next day, arriving by cab with Lupin and Dung supporting her on either side. She was still very weak, and had to take a series of five different potions three times a day. While Willow magically adjusted Dawn and Ginny's room to accommodate one more, Harry lugged Hermione's duffel full of clothes and what seemed like all of her books up the stairs. Ron and Hermione followed him at a slower pace; Hermione had to use both Ron and the banister to support herself.

Harry pushed open the door to the girls' room and hefted the duffel inside, dropping it carelessly next to the bed Willow had conjured. Hermione sank gratefully onto the mattress, breathing hard and looking flushed. She clucked in disapproval at the way Harry had handled her bag and gave him a frown before speaking.

"Oh, I'm so glad to be out of that hospital. Ever since second year, I just can't stand infirmaries!" Hermione leaned back on the pillows and closed her eyes for a moment.

Harry exchanged a glance with Ron, wondering if they should leave her alone to rest. Her eyes popped open again.

"Reach inside my bag, Harry, and hand me that package there. Yes, that's the one," Hermione said when Harry held up a shoe box-sized brown package. Hermione lifted the lid and grimaced at the contents of the box.

Harry and Ron watched worriedly as Hermione measured out careful doses of potion from the vials inside the box. She downed each one in turn, coughing and gagging so much that Harry wondered how that could possibly be good for her, whatever medicine they had given her at St. Mungo's. When she was finally done, Hermione sat back against the pillows once again and gazed at them expectantly.

"So...?" she said expectantly, as if picking up the thread of a paused conversation.

"Er, so what?" Harry asked, sitting gingerly at the foot of her bed. Ron chose to sprawl out on his stomach on Ginny's bed a few feet away, pillowing his head in his arms and staring morosely at the carpet.

Hermione rolled her eyes, as if to say Harry should know 'so what.' "So, what have you two come up with on the Ginny Situation?"

Harry glanced nervously at Ron, who ignored both of them and began picking at a loose thread in the bedspread.

"We haven't really talked about it, actually. We've been too busy being attacked and worrying about you to think about that just yet, haven't we?" Harry pointed out, shifting uncomfortably. He'd certainly thought about the situation enough, but he just didn't feel right talking about it with Ron. Despite his recent animosity toward his sister, Harry knew that deep down Ron couldn't think Ginny a traitor. It was hard enough for Harry to believe the things he had seen and heard recently, and he didn't even know Ginny all that well. Not now, at any rate. And then there was that kiss... Harry couldn't bring himself to tell his friends about that strange moment between him and Ginny, or the dreams he'd had about her, dreams that almost seemed to be coming true. He knew these were probably important things that Hermione, at least, would be upset with him for not telling, but at the same time Harry felt they were just too private to share, even with his best friends. And the fact that Ginny was Ron's sister only complicated the matter even further.

The silence had lengthened to the point of extreme discomfort. Harry finally broke it by saying the first thing that popped into his head. "Malfoy sent her a knife. For Christmas." He could hear the bitterness creeping through his voice and winced at the sound of it.

"A knife?" Hermione asked, perplexed and disgusted. "How very... morbid. And how very Malfoy. Why would he send her a weapon as a gift?"

Ron continued to be stonily silent, but Harry could tell the conversation was upsetting his friend by the red glow sneaking up his neck and ears. "It's some sort of special knife," Harry told her. "The knife of some girl who was sacrificed to some god--an Indian god, maybe?"

"It's the dagger of Amalia," Ron spoke up finally. "And it was her lover who killed her, or so the story goes."

Hermione wrinkled her nose. "That sounds slightly familiar. Perhaps I've read about such an artifact. But that still doesn't explain why Malfoy would think to send Ginny something like that."

"Isn't obvious?" Ron replied angrily. "It's meant as some sort of sick, twisted joke! It's a gift, and he's planning on giving it to her!"

"Oh, don't be ridiculous, Ron. You saw them at the club. Malfoy hardly looked like he wanted to hurt her." But Hermione continued to look perplexed. "What a strange gift to give someone like Ginny. Does it have any special powers? I've read that loads of old relics like that have mystical properties. Maybe I should do some research while I'm here. I bet Willow has some books that might prove useful."

Harry found himself suppressing a burst of laughter, despite the tension in the room. Hermione had been out of hospital less than an hour and already she was starting a research project. "Giles is already on it," he told her, laughing out loud at her look of disappointment. "But maybe he'd like some help with the books. Something tells me you two would get along quite well."

"We've only got a few days left," Ron said, shaking his head. "Forget about the dagger. We've got to do something about that spell Ginny's under."

"If she's under any spell at all," Harry muttered bitterly.

Ron glared at him, but Hermione gazed at Harry thoughtfully.

"Harry's got a point, Ron. We need to figure out if she's acting under the influence of some sort of Love Potion before we can take this any further."

"Is there a way to do that?" Ron asked, standing up and beginning to pace the length of the room furiously. "Because I can't take much more of this! First Percy, now Ginny. And seeing her with Malfoy... it's enough to make anyone ill! Violently, disgustingly ill!"

Hermione closed her eyes tiredly and sighed. "There's a way," she said finally, "a potion. But it'll be really difficult. Do you think it'd be all right if I just rested for now? We can talk about it later. I think one of those potions from St. Mungo's is a sedative..."

Ron looked immediately contrite at his outburst. "Of course!" he said, a little too heartily. "Get some rest, then. We'll call you for dinner, eh?"

Hermione nodded. Harry gave his friend one last lingering look before leaving the bedroom. He didn't know what he would have done, how he could've survived, if she hadn't.

In honor of Hermione's release from the hospital, they had a small party that night at dinner. Several members of the Order turned up, including Lupin, Tonks, and Dung. Fred and George closed their shop early to visit, Apparating into Giles's tiny parlor without warning and nearly getting themselves attacked by Buffy, who, it appeared, did not take well to surprises. Fred and George spent the rest of the evening afterward jumping out at Buffy from behind various pieces of furniture in an attempt to incite a repeat performance, but she just rolled her eyes at them and refused to take the bait.

After everyone had been sorted out and introduced, they all sat down at the table in Giles's rather shabby dining room, the only place large enough to hold everyone and the food.

While Buffy, Willow, and their friends threw themselves into the impromptu party with a festive air of celebration, laughing and eating and talking loudly over one another, Harry couldn't help but feel like the rest of them put a damper on the whole affair. Hermione, still weak from the attack, slumped in her chair looking pale and rather tired, despite having rested most of the day. Harry frowned; he wished he really could do something terrible to Snape for hitting Hermione with such an awful curse. Next to her, Ron was stewing in his own frustration and anger. He pushed his food around on his plate and glared at it as if his potatoes had grievously affronted him in some way. Fred and George were their usual exuberant selves, but they were expending all their energies on Ginny, who sat between them looking equal parts depressed and furious. She'd tried to talk to Hermione earlier in the day, Harry knew, and had stomped back down the stairs only minutes later, saying huffily that Hermione was pretending to sleep.

"Was that Xander on the phone earlier?" Giles was asking Buffy. "Did he happen to mention when he'd be sending along that book from the Magic Box I asked for?"

Buffy started guiltily and attempted a sort of lost puppy look on her Watcher. "Would you be upset if I said I forgot to ask him?"

"Well, I can't say I'm terribly surprised. It's not as if books have ever saved your life or anything," he replied dryly.

"Oh, who cares about moldy old books, anyway?" Dawn asked. "How's Xand? Are he and Anya making with the smoochies again yet?"

Buffy gave her sister a disapproving look. "It's not ladylike to gossip." Then, conspiratorially, "But yeah, I think they are. Finally. He mentioned that alcohol was involved. Lots of alcohol. And he talked about the upswing in the economy--you know how much she likes money."

"Aww, that's sweet," said Willow. "In a warped, Anya-ish, ‘I’m only recently human’ sort of way."

"So, Harry," said Lupin from Harry's right. "How are you getting on with that diary I sent you?"

Harry turned to face his old professor. "Oh! Well with everything that's happened, I haven't really had the chance to work on it yet." Harry shifted his gaze from Lupin's nervously. In truth, he had thought about the diary several times since receiving it two days before, but found himself too afraid to do anything about it. He missed Sirius so much, especially at times like this, when everyone was gathered together. It just felt like Sirius should be there, and Harry was worried that if he read the diary, it would only make things worse. What if he found out more things about Sirius that bothered him, as he had when he'd gone into Snape's Pensieve last year? He didn't want to remember Sirius as the arrogant, immature boy Snape had known. But most of all he didn't want to think about Sirius too much at all. Thinking about his godfather was painful and wrenching; it brought back all those feelings from last summer of heartache and fury and guilt and betrayal.

Lupin had been silent for a long moment, watching Harry thoughtfully. "Don't try to rush it, Harry. When you're ready, well..." He smiled sadly. "I think you'll find it amusing, anyway."

Harry was distracted by the buzz of the doorbell ringing from the front of the house. "I'll get it," he offered, thankful for an excuse to get away from Lupin's knowing gaze.

"Wait a sec," Willow said, holding up her hand. She closed her eyes briefly and a few sparks flew from her fingers and dissipated into the air. "It's a human. Looks like some sort of solicitor. Selling...cookies? Do you guys have Girl Scouts in England?"

"I'll just tell her we're at dinner then," Harry said again, already striding from the room. He had begun to feel claustrophobic, surrounded by so many loud, boisterous people. He breathed a sigh of relief when he reached the front hallway, thankful to be on his own for a few moments. The buzzer rang again, almost impatiently, and Harry swung open the door feeling slightly annoyed.

Standing on the doorstep was a girl no older than six, clutching a ragged teddy bear and sucking on the end of one pig tail, tears sparkling in her eyes.

"C-can you help m-me, sir?" she whimpered, the tears spilling over onto her cheeks. "I l-lost my mummy and I...I..." And with that the little girl burst into full-fledged sobs, hiding her face in her teddy bear and howling pathetically.

"Er..." said Harry, who had very little experience with children. "I suppose you'd better come in," he offered. "Do you know your telephone number?"

The little girl shook her head 'yes' vigorously and stepped over the threshold. Whereupon she threw down the bear, flashed a smile full of razor-sharp teeth, and with a loud crack, promptly turned into a gigantic purple demon with serrated black spikes poking out of its face. Harry did the only thing that seemed to make sense in the situation: he screamed.

The demon growled and knocked Harry aside with one swing of its massive arm before lumbering off down the hall. Buffy came sprinting from the dining room, called by Harry's yell, quickly followed by the rest of the diners, who watched in dumbfounded silence as Buffy performed a flying kick at it. Her feet connected with the purple thing's chest; the demon merely rocked back on its heels a bit, while Buffy fell backward onto her bottom. Lupin pulled out his wand while Buffy scrambled to her feet, looking less graceful than Harry had ever seen her.

"Stupefy!" Lupin yelled, sending a jet of red at the demon. It hit the demon straight in the chest, but the massive purple thing merely shook its head as if to clear it before advancing on the Slayer once more.

"Weapon!" Buffy yelled out desperately. "Something big! Preferably sharp!"

Giles ran into the parlor opposite looking flustered, while Buffy attempted hand-to-hand combat with the demon again. Spike leapt on the thing's back, apparently trying to strangle it into submission, while Buffy managed to land a series of kicks and punches to its head and chest. All of this slowed the demon down, but even with Spike hanging off its neck and Buffy blocking it in front, the demon was still managing to make its way inexorably into the house, further and further down the hall.

"Buffy!" Giles called out, throwing a large, silvery object across the corridor. The blonde girl's head whipped about and her hand reached up automatically to snatch the thing from the air--a double-headed ax.

Buffy grinned. "This'll do. Okay Barney. It's time to learn a new song. I call this one, 'Death Rattle.'" After a few moments of furiously exchanging blows with the demon, the combined efforts of Buffy and Spike seemed to be too much for it. It reached back to try to dislodge the vampire from its neck; as it did so Buffy swung the ax in a wide arc, neatly lopping off the demon's spiked head, which fell to the floor and rolled, coming to a stop only when it reached the toe of Harry's worn trainer. The demon's beady black eyes seemed to stare at him. Then they blinked.

"Ugh!" Harry yelled, scrambling up from the floor and backing away toward the Slayer. "It moved! I think it winked at me!"

Meanwhile, Fred was eyeing the demon parts speculatively. Harry shook his head; he didn't want to know what sort of trick the twins could possibly want demon bits for.

"I wonder what that was about?" Lupin asked, kneeling down to examine the demon's head.

"I thought you said it was human?" Harry asked, staring pointedly at Willow.

She flushed. "It must've used a cloaking spell I couldn't detect. Harry, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let you go..."

Harry shook his head. "I was just surprised, that's all. At first it was a little girl, saying she'd lost her mum. Then once I let her in, she turned into that thing, whatever it was."

George grinned and slung his arm around Harry's shoulders. "Harry's just embarrassed because he screams like a little girl," he said with a wink.

Ginny giggled and Giles clucked his tongue disapprovingly.

"It was a child at first, you say?" he said, speaking more to himself than to Harry. "Yes well, this may take a bit of research. If you don't mind, I'd like to head straight to my study to begin sorting all this out. This could be indicative of something much larger..." he trailed off, already moving down the hall.

Buffy and Willow exchanged glances before Buffy shrugged and gave a loud, exaggerated yawn.

"Well, I'm going to bed. If the apocalypse comes, I'll be in my room."

The group scattered quickly after that. Willow and Ginny dragged the demon's body and its severed head onto the back lawn before Willow incinerated it in a magical fire. Dawn and Spike settled down in front of the television to watch a film, while Fred, George, and Lupin all Disapparated after saying their good-byes. Harry and Ron helped Hermione up the stairs, and the three of them remained silent until they reached the boys' room.

Harry threw himself onto his bed with a muffled groan while Hermione and Ron settled on the other bed. All Harry wanted to do was go to sleep, after the day he'd had. Lately he felt like he couldn't get away from the tension and anger and constant fighting no matter what he did--sleep was his only real escape, and even then his dreams were littered with visions of Buffy's past and unnerving messages from the future.

"So this potion you mentioned earlier," Ron said, his voice unusually grim, "when do you reckon we can have it done by?"

"Voir Vrai," Hermione said, shaking her bushy head. "It's not just a potion, but a series of spells as well. Not for a while yet. The potion itself will only take a few hours to brew, but then it has to stew for two weeks, and the ingredients we need will be very difficult to come by."

"We'll just nick them from Snape's private stores," Ron said promptly. "If we can convince him it's for a good cause, Dobby might even do it for us!"

Hermione sent him a frustrated glare. "We're not stealing from Snape. Again," she told them firmly. "And anyway, it's not those kinds of ingredients we need. For one, we'll need something personal of Ginny's. And not just any little thing, it has to be something she really cares about and uses often. The more personal it is, the more certain we'll be able to say whether she's under some sort of spell."

Ron sat thoughtfully for a moment before shaking his head. "All right, we'll think of something later for that. What else do we need?"

Hermione sighed heavily. "Blood," she replied with a shiver. "Voir Vrai requires some sort of sample of the person you're testing, like the Polyjuice Potion. But if we just use a hair or a toenail, it can only tell us whether or not a spell has been performed on her recently, and that's no good. She's got spells being performed on her all the time, during classes and things. If we use blood, the potion, when brewed properly and read with the correct Arithmantic equations, should be able to tell us not only if she's under some kind of spell, but which spell and how long she's been under its influence."

Harry was impressed. Hermione's knowledge of seemingly everything never failed to surprise him.

"But how are we going to get some of her blood?" he asked. "We can't exactly walk up to her in the common room one evening and ask for a pint."

Hermione sighed and got to her feet. "We'll figure it out later," she told them, putting her hand to her forehead and rubbing it tiredly. "I'm just so exhausted. I don't know how I'll manage once school starts up again."

"You'll feel better by then," Ron reassured her.

After Hermione had left, Harry and Ron changed into their pajamas and got into bed, although it was still quite early. Ron's breathing grew deeper and deeper, until it turned into soft snores, while Harry stared up at the ceiling, trying to think up ways to get the ingredients they needed for the Voir Vrai Potion. The whole idea of creating a potion from Ginny's blood suddenly seemed rather creepy to him. He'd done a lot of strange things with Ron and Hermione since starting at Hogwarts, but he'd never stolen from a friend, much less stolen bits of a friend. Harry hated being in this position. He wished they could just ask Ginny what was going on, why she was going round with Malfoy and yelling at them and refusing to discuss Halloween... but he'd been through all that before. He'd tried to confront her and it had only confused him even more.

Harry found himself fervently hoping that the potion worked and that it showed Ginny was under a love potion or spell of some kind. Because if she wasn't, how could he begin to explain her actions of the past few months? Unless he'd been right about Ginny's connection to Voldemort... and for once, Harry really didn't want to be right. It had been years since the Chamber of Secrets. If Tom Riddle really had poured some of his own soul into Ginny's, it would've manifested itself somehow before now, wouldn't it?

Not wanting to think anymore, Harry swung his legs over the side of his bed, intent on a glass of water. He needed to get out of the room, just do something to get his mind off of Ginny. He padded across the room and pushed the door open gently, shutting it as quietly as possible behind him so as not to wake Ron. Once in the bathroom, he rested his forehead against the mirror and shut his eyes, letting the coolness of the glass soothe his aching scar. Lately his scar always seemed to be twitching or aching; Harry wondered if perhaps part of the prophecy about him and Voldemort really meant that Harry couldn't survive while Voldemort lived because the headaches would drive him to the nut house.

Harry jerked upright suddenly, shocked out of his reverie by voices that seemed to be coming from the walls. Listening intently, he heard an echoing voice that was nonetheless distinctly Hermione's. His eyes followed the sound until they found a small square vent in the wall near the ceiling. Hermione was arguing with someone by the sound of it, and Harry could hear every word through the vent that must lead to the girls' bedroom.

"--can't keep doing this, Ginny! It's not right to shut us out like this! Harry was attacked today--you do realize he could have been killed?"

"That thing was after the Slayer. It never wanted to hurt Harry," Ginny said, her voice low and shaking with anger. "And besides, it didn't have a chance with all the power in this house."

"That's not the point and you know it!" Hermione replied. "Ginny, what about Malfoy? I've seen you with him, and... how can you do this to Ron? To Harry? Maybe they don't show it all the time, but they care about you a great deal, and seeing you like this is killing them!"

"They care about me?" Ginny replied scathingly. "Since when? Oh, I'll tell you when--since Halloween, when suddenly I knew something that they didn't! They only care now because they think I might be useful to them. They're using you too, you know. They need you to be clever for them, because neither of them is capable of figuring anything out on his own!"

Harry heard Hermione's sharp intake of breath, then, "Harry and Ron are the best friends I've ever had. I help them because I care about them, and they've helped me plenty of times in return! And anyway, do you honestly think Draco Malfoy is any better? I know you think you can, I don't know, redeem him or something. But he's using you too, Ginny. Don't fool yourself into thinking he's actually your friend or that he somehow cares."

"You don't know him, Hermione! All he's ever been to you is a caricature, some sort of convenient petty villain for the three of you to hate. But you've never bothered to try to get to know him, have you? To find out if there's anything to him other than what he shows the world?"

"Right. Because all those times he called me 'Mudblood' and hexed me when my back was turned really inspired me to try to get to know the real Draco," Hermione replied. "Ginny this is ridiculous. Let's just tell Harry and Ron before they do something stupid. They're so worried about you, and I don't see why--"

"No!" Ginny yelled. "I will not drag them into this! It's my problem, and I will deal with it. It's bad enough that you know. Remember, I chose this, you three didn't! I've got help. I'll be fine. Just... can't you keep them out of my way? I hate fighting with them..." she trailed off, her voice sounding desperate and weary.

"I'm sorry Ginny, but I won't do that," Hermione said, sounding equally tired but harshly determined. "I think you're making a big mistake trusting Malfoy, and--"

"If I trust him, why can't you?" Ginny interrupted pleadingly.

"That's the whole point," Hermione said, sounding as if she were about to cry. "If you trust him, then how can we trust you?"

"Fine. Be that way," Ginny said, sounding equal parts petulant and sad. "I'm going to bed."

"Ginny." There was no reply. Harry waited a few more minutes before sneaking back to his room, too curious and confused by the conversation he'd overheard to really feel guilty about eavesdropping. He lay awake late into the night, going over the girls' words in his mind, trying to figure out what it all had meant. The biggest question remained: what was it that Ginny was hiding from them and that Hermione was now hiding as well? And why--why--did Ginny place so much trust in Draco Malfoy?

Harry waited all through the next day for Hermione to tell them about the argument she'd had with Ginny, but his friend remained strangely silent on the subject. Harry felt reticent about mentioning it himself. He didn't want Hermione to think he'd been spying on them, and she still looked so tired and sick. Somehow it didn't feel right accusing her of keeping things from them when she was still so ill and weak; Harry was keeping things from Ron and Hermione himself, about Ginny and about the prophecy. He couldn't very well get upset at her, when he was doing the very same thing.

The argument haunted him nevertheless. More than ever he wanted to know what had happened to Ginny on Halloween and why she had been acting so strangely ever since. With that intense curiosity driving him, Harry was even more determined to discover the source of Ginny's sudden turnabout. Unfortunately the attack by the mysterious purple demon forced Giles and the rest of Buffy's friends into a flurry of research and patrolling. Hermione joined in gladly, and Harry and Ron had no choice but to help once Willow threatened to turn them both into rats.

It was thus that Harry found himself sitting in one of the shabby armchairs in Giles's study the following evening, pouring through Demons, Demons, and Even More Demons in an attempt to be useful. Buffy and Spike had left as soon as the sun set to search for clues and beat up the local snitches for information. Spike had seemed particularly cheerful at the prospect--the obvious pleasure he took in violence made Harry wonder if there really was such a thing as a reformed vampire.

The book itself was surprisingly dull for something about evil beasts, and so far Harry had found nothing that remotely resembled a purple demon with spikes in its face that could disguise itself as a lost child. Across from him, Dawn was seated on the floor with a book open in her lap, another lying to her right, and a blank book to her left. In front of her burned a purple candle, and as Harry watched, Dawn took a fistful of herbs from a bowl next to her and began spreading the mixture into a complicated pattern on the floor in front of her. When she had completed her design, which to Harry greatly resembled a lumpy-headed goat, she picked up the candle and carefully touched the flame to the edge of the design. Purple light flared into life, springing up throughout the design and burning eerily in the dim light of the study. Dawn began chanting, reading from the book in her lap. The book to her right shuddered and the pages began to flutter, turning over on their own. To her left, words began to appear in the blank book, scrawling in black across the page as if by an unseen hand. Harry watched in fascination for a few minutes, but when Dawn simply continued to chant and the blank book continued to fill itself, he quickly became bored. He loved magic; the idea of it, the surging power he felt using it, the sense of accomplishment he felt when he mastered a difficult spell, but sometimes it could be very tedious. With a sigh and a last look at the purple flames, he turned back to his research.

"Oh!" Ron exclaimed from his sprawled position on the floor in front of the fireplace. "I think I've got something! This demon can disguise itself as a child and a puppy, and is known for trying to trick its way into unsuspecting people's houses..." He frowned as his eyes scanned the page in front of him. "Only it says here this demon is only about three feet high and eats primarily lint."

"Yes, well, keep looking everyone," Giles said distractedly, pacing with a book open in his arms. "It is imperative that we discover what that thing was. It was a directed attack on the Slayer, that much is obvious."

"Couldn't it have been a random attack?" Hermione asked, drooping tiredly in her chair with a stack of books piled next to her.

"I-I'm afraid not," Giles said. "It is highly unlikely that a demon would randomly choose the house of a Slayer to attack. No, this attack had a motive. The demon itself seemed rather low-level, lacking in intelligence and insight. I believe someone ordered it here and paid it to kill the Slayer."

"An assassin?" Harry asked. "Who would try to take out Buffy like that?"

Giles took of his spectacles and cleaned them on his shirt tail. "It's happened before and it will happen again, I'm sure. To these people, or whatever they may be, the Slayer is a symbol, a sort of prize. Killing a Slayer is considered a mark of high honor in some circles. Spike, for example, killed two Slayers in his day. Vampires from all around the world make it a game, trying to kill the Slayer."

Hermione shuddered. "It makes me glad I'm not a slayer. Super powers might be nice, but that would be awful, being hunted constantly by lunatic demons."

"This one time, they held a whole competition in Sunnydale to try to take out Buffy and Faith," Dawn said. She had finished her spell as they talked and was cleaning up her herbs and candle. "Slayerfest 1999. Ironically enough, it was sponsored by the mayor of Sunnydale, who turned out to be a giant snake demon."

"Sounds like the kind of fun that's not," Ginny said, looking ill.

But Harry's attention was caught by the name that Dawn had let slip. "Faith?" he asked quickly.

Dawn waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. "Another Slayer, called when Kendra was killed. But she's a major head case, turned seriously evil for a while. And I don't need to tell you that 'When Good Slayers Go Bad' isn't exactly your Fox special Friday night fun. She's safe behind bars now."

"She's in prison?" Ron asked, shooting Harry a significant look.

"No, we keep her in a cage and threaten to take away her exercise wheel if she misbehaves," Dawn replied sarcastically. "Anyway, it totally sucks for Buffy--since Faith is the active Slayer, there won't be any help for her until Faith dies. But on the bright side, I've heard prison can be a really vicious place. Maybe she'll piss off the wrong person and get shanked."

Giles gave Dawn a stern look and clucked disapprovingly. "Yes well, as thrilling as discussing old times might be, need I remind you all that we've got a demon to find? Dawn, is that translation complete?"

"Yes, Massah," Dawn replied with a curtsey. "Don't be such a meanie Giles. I have this recurring nightmare that you're the overseer from Gone with the Wind and we're all your slaves. Then you order us to brew tea for you and wave giant fans in front of demons to keep them cool so you can examine them." Everyone in the room stared at Dawn in silence as she rambled. She flushed and tossed the translation to Giles. "If we're done here, I think I'll just go die of embarrassment in the privacy of my room."

Dawn left, followed quickly by Ginny who claimed to need a nap to get rid of her headache, leaving Ron, Hermione, and Harry to continue researching the demon with Giles. After a few more minutes of trying to read the decidedly boring text in front of him, Harry could feel himself drifting off...

Harry was in a room that greatly resembled the Hogwarts library with several long tables in the center. The stacks were on the second level, and seated on one of the tables was Willow, a crystal ball sparkling faintly in front of her. A circle made of bones, runes, and candles surrounded the ball—a sacred circle, Harry recognized. Giles, Xander, and the dark-haired girl from Harry's previous dream stood around the table, waving smoking herbs. Another girl with a long dark braid that reminded him distantly of Susan Bones stood near the doors of the library, tossing a stake from one hand to the other. Willow nodded to Giles and he opened the ancient tome he was holding and began reading.

“Quod perditum est, invenietur.”

While Giles chanted, the dark haired girl waved a small bundle of burning herbs near the crystal ball. Willow tossed a handful of white objects that clattered loudly into the center of their circle--runes, Harry thought. She took a deep breath and nodded to herself as Giles finished his Latin chanting.

"Not dead, nor of the living," Willow said. "Spirits of the interregnum I call. Let him know the pain of humanity, gods. Reach your wizened hands to me. Give me the sword--"

And then the library doors burst open with a crash and vampires seemed to appear from everywhere at once. The girl standing guard leapt immediately into battle, taking on several at once and holding her own quite well. A vampire leapt onto Xander’s back from the stacks, bringing him crashing down.

“Get out! Go!” Giles yelled, motioning for Willow and the other girl to run out the back exit through the stacks.

Giles joined in the fight, and Harry was surprised by how well the older man fought. The girl fighting with him couldn't be anything but a Slayer—she moved with the same unmistakable grace and power that Buffy did.

Up on the second level, Xander tried to fight off a vampire to give the girls time to escape. Harry cringed at the sound of crunching bone as the demon snapped his arm. Gasping, Xander cried out. "Go!" he yelled frantically, trying to hold the vampire off with one arm.

The girls ran, but before Willow could escape, another vampire shoved hard at one of the towering bookcases that served as the stacks, sending it tumbling straight into her. Willow went down with a strangled cry and was silent, still.

Below, Giles and the Slayer were fighting a losing battle. A vampire hit Giles hard in the head, sending him sprawling. Hey lay on the floor of the library, unconscious, while the Slayer backed herself into a corner, surrounded on all sides but still determined to fight. Then from the front of the library, a tall, dark haired woman in a dress so red it accented the ghastly paleness of her skin strode forward, smiling slightly. She clapped twice, calling off the vampires.

"Enough," she said. The vampires scattered, leaving the Slayer to face this new foe. The fight was quick. The tall woman, obviously a vampire, and a strong one at that from her show of strength, quickly overcame the Slayer, until she had the girl by her throat, slowly choking her.

"Look at me, dearie," the vampire said, her voice strangely sing song. She held two fingers in front of the Slayer's eyes. "Be… in my eyes," she told the Slayer hypnotically. "Be… in me."

The Slayer's eyes became glassy and unfocused. She stopped struggling and stood there, entranced. The vampire let go of her neck, continuing to stare into the Slayer's eyes with a small, amused smile on her pale, porcelain face. The vampire swayed from side to side; the Slayer mirrored her movements in an eerie dance. Harry wanted to scream, to run forward and attack the terribly beautiful woman in front of him, but he could do nothing but watch as the vampire flexed her right hand and prepared to attack. His stomach seemed to drop and he thought he'd be sick, wondering inanely if it were possible to be sick in someone else's dream. Then lightening quick the woman's arm streaked toward the Slayer, leaving behind a thin red line across the girl's slim throat. A bubbling, gurgling sound escaped the Slayer and Harry really was sick then. He fell to his knees and wretched--dry, gasping heaves that left him clammy and ghost pale as he watched the Slayer fall to the ground. She fell as gracefully as she had fought; everything seemed to grind to a halt for those moments that marked the warrior's defeat.

“Night night,” the vampire said, kissing the air in a mocking salute. The vampire turned from her, snapping her fingers at her minions. "Let's get what we came for, dears" she commanded, striding from the library. The vampires followed, two of them dragging an unconscious Giles between them.

Harry thought the dream would end then, but instead he waited for several long minutes, watching with increasing rage and horror as the Slayer's life blood seeped into the floor of the library, congealing against the smooth skin of her throat and collecting in small pools on the floor, staining the end of her braid a deep rust.

And then he heard it. Footsteps, running down the hall, coming closer and closer. The library doors burst open once more and a familiar blonde girl flew through them--Buffy. She threw herself onto her knees beside the fallen Slayer, her face a picture of conflicting emotions: grief, despair, hatred, and over everything else, immeasurable guilt.

"Harry?" Willow's voice floated into his head, forcing him awake. "Harry, wake up."

Harry's eyes fluttered open to find an amused-looking Willow standing over him. Straightening his glasses, which had slipped off his face to hang off his ear, Harry cleared his throat and grimaced at the stale taste of dinner in his mouth. "What time is it?" he asked groggily.

"Past midnight," Willow said, shaking her head. "The others went to bed a long time ago. I stayed up to keep researching the demon for Giles. That was a big waste of time. But I probably wouldn't be sleeping anyway, so I thought I should be, you know, useful. I'm research girl, big time. Or at least, I used to be, before," she added with a frown.

"Before what?" Harry asked, still shaken by the dream he'd had. He found himself wondering what Willow and the others had been doing before the vampires interrupted them. Some sort of spell, that was certain, but none he'd ever seen or heard of.

Willow's eyes darkened and she looked away from him quickly before answering. "Oh, you know. In high school. Those were the good old days, just hanging in the library, researching the latest monster or apocalypse. Learning magic and fighting the bad guys."

Harry had a strange feeling that she was lying to him, but couldn't say exactly why. She seemed so wistful and sad. He wished there was something he could do for her. The very idea of trying to comfort her made him uncomfortable. Shifting awkwardly in his chair, Harry instead decided to leave her be, since she obviously didn’t want to discuss it, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

"I guess I'd better get off to bed," Harry said, standing quickly. "Thanks for waking me. Good night, then."

"Good night, Harry," Willow called out after him, looking strangely wistful and sad. "Sweet dreams."

"Fat chance of that," Harry muttered to himself as he climbed the stairs. He climbed into bed a few minutes later, still thinking about the dream he'd had. He wondered how it was possible for him to be somehow inside Buffy's dreams. He'd had dreams that weren't really dreams before this, when he’d dreamed of Voldemort, but those had occurred through the connection they shared by the curse that failed. As Harry floated into a restless sleep full of shadowy images and disorientingly familiar scenes, he wondered what connection he and the Slayer had, that made this recent series of dreams possible.

The next day, the day before Harry and the others were due to return to Hogwarts, Harry, Ron, and Hermione begged off researching Giles's demon with the excuse that they had homework still to finish before the start of winter term. Excuses made, the three of them locked themselves in Harry and Ron's room shortly after breakfast, Hermione's copy of Most Potente Potions open on the floor between the beds, where it could easily be shoved underneath and hidden should someone happen to walk in on them.

Hermione sat cross-legged in front of the book, leafing through its delicate pages, while Ron paced the room agitatedly and Harry lay on his bed, feeling both resigned and conflicted. He wanted to know what was going on with Ginny, whether or not she was under the influence of some sort of love potion, but at the same time he feared the results, because in his heart he suspected that Hermione, for once in her life, was wrong; Ginny was acting of her own free will, and that was the last thing Harry wanted to discover. If he was right, and everything that had happened with her this past year all led back to the Chamber of Secrets and Tom Riddle's diary... Harry shuddered at the thought. Hermione had to be right. There was no other option.

"Here it is," Hermione said after another minutes of flipping pages. "The Voir Vrai Potion. It says here that, when brewed correctly, Voir Vrai reveals the true motivations of the subject—that’s whoever’s blood we put in the potion. It's very tricky, very finicky," she added, her brow furrowed in concern. She heaved a great sigh. "I suppose there's nothing to it but to try. If we don't succeed we'll know--the Arithmantical readings will be off the charts, indecipherable."

"What do we need to do?" Ron asked, ignoring Hermione's lack of enthusiasm for the project. It was strange, Harry thought, staring hard at his friend. Usually Hermione would be excited about attempting a potion as difficult and complicated as this one, but now she seemed lackluster, as if she were only going along with it to appease Ron. Her attitude made him wonder again about the conversation he'd overheard between Hermione and Ginny. Could it be that Hermione didn't care about the potion they were considering brewing because she already knew what it would tell them?

Pushing his misgivings aside--Harry refused to begin questioning Hermione's loyalty after everything that had happened this year--he tried to concentrate instead on what Hermione was saying.

"As I said before, we'll need something of hers, a personal item she uses on a regular basis."

"Will this do?" Ron asked, his voice grim as he rummaged through his trunk to pull out a shining silver knife with an elaborately carved handle--Ginny's dagger, the one Malfoy had given her for Christmas.

Hermione frowned again. "How did you get that?" she asked. "Never mind, I don't want to know. I suppose it's personal enough, but does she ever use it? I was under the impression Giles was still studying it to discover if it had any mystical properties...?"

"She uses it," Ron told her grimly, shoving the knife out of sight back into his trunk. "When I nicked it there was still blood on it. Who's or what's, I couldn't tell."

Hermione's eyes slid from Ron's and dropped back onto the page before her. "All right then. But we still need some of her blood. The rest of the ingredients will be relatively easy to get--mugwart, shrivelfigs, daisy root... we'll need to wait for the full moon to pick some night blossoming oleander, don't know how we'll do that in the middle of winter, but I suppose Sprout probably has some in the greenhouses." She sighed heavily and shut the book gently, marking her place with a thin strip of leather. "We won't be able to start brewing until we get back to school. The full moon's not for another two weeks. If we can get the blood before then, I suppose we could start the readings in a little less than three weeks."

Ron groaned and stopped in mid-pace. "Three weeks! That's ages away, and in the meantime Ginny will be back at school with Malfoy, doing Merlin knows what!"

"Well I can't help that, Ron!" Hermione snapped, looking more alive than she had since her arrival at Giles's house. "We've got to wait for the full moon, and the potion itself needs to sit for a full two weeks before it will be ready for reading. I wish I had never suggested this in the first place! Stealing from Ginny, doing blood magic on her... it just doesn't feel right. It's just plain not right! She's got a right to privacy!"

"Of course she does," Harry said quietly, amazed at the vehemence emanating from his friend. He'd never seen Hermione so upset about something like this before. "But she also has the right to know if someone's fed her an illegal potion, hasn't she? If it turns out she's not under a spell, then we'll return the knife and she need never know what we did. And if she is, then maybe we can figure out a way to help her. It's the only option right now, can't you see that?"

Hermione stared at him blankly for a long moment before nodded. "I do," she said, "but I don't have to like it, do I? And how are we going to get her blood, anyway? It's not exactly the same as nicking a dagger."

Harry shrugged, looking from Ron to Hermione and back again. Ron had remained silent during their exchange, but his emotions seemed palpable to Harry--excited, angry, frightened, and overlaying all of that, guilt over what they were planning. But Ron had that look in his eye, the one that Harry had come to understand meant that Ron would not back down, no matter what. He was determined to see this through. Harry sighed. "Will the potion see through a Sleeping Draught or a Stunning Spell?"

Hermione nodded. "It will show up in the Arithmantical readings, of course, but if I know it's there, I'll be able to account for it when I'm calculating the Runic matrices."

"Er, right," said Harry, who hadn't understood a word Hermione had said. "I was thinking we could give Ginny a Sleeping Draught, like we did Crabbe and Goyle back in second year. Or we could Stun her in her sleep. We could get the blood while she's unconscious--I think that's the best way to do it without alarming her to what we're up to."

Hermione put her hand to her forehead and clenched her eyes shut. "I can't believe we're considering drugging one of our friends and stealing her blood."

Harry stared at the coverlet on his bed blankly, lost in thought. What if they brewed the potion only to discover that Ginny was acting on her own? Harry swallowed hard, and his conversation with Buffy the night after the attacks came back to him suddenly.

"And... and if a friend ever turned, if you thought they'd betrayed you, what would you do then?"

"I would kill him, if I had to. Kill him before he killed me or worse, innocent people."

Would Harry be able to do it? If Ginny were truly a traitor, if it had been she who had betrayed their position at the safe house and allowed for the attacks that had hurt Hermione and killed Colin and the others, could he bring himself to turn her in or, worse, to kill her himself? It was one thing to kill an enemy, Harry thought to himself, picturing Ginny's laughing face in his mind, but what about someone he'd always thought of as a friend, almost as family? Harry thought of himself as a strong person. He'd been through a lot, survived a lot of terrible things. But he didn't know if, when the time came, he'd be strong enough to look Ginny in the eye and do what needed to be done.