An Odd Place For It

It was, Harry decided, an odd place for it. When Hermione and Lupin's research revealed that Ravenclaw's Horcrux was made from her ancient student grimoire, he wasn't terribly surprised. Southern California, however, was totally unexpected. Standing in the bright California sunlight, he found it nearly impossibly to picture Voldemort just strolling into this school and leaving a piece of his soul in the library with all the science and American Muggle history textbooks. Of course, he found just as nearly impossible to picture himself just strolling in there to retrieve it. Yet here he was, surrounded by brightly clad American kids talking about nothing in their strange, hard accents. He wondered briefly what he was doing here, saving the world for these sheep who didn't even know it needed saving.

"Well," Ron interrupted Harry's musings, "this should be a cinch. We wander about in our new Muggle disguises" --he gestured to his ill-fitting jeans and garish Hawaiian shirt-- "find the library, grab the book, and be home for supper."

"Really think it will be that easy to find?" asked Harry.

"Come on Harry. How many ancient magical texts is this school likely to have?" he retorted.

"What if someone sees us?" worried Hermione.

"Honestly Hermione, other than you, how many people our age hang out in the library?"

*********

As it turned out, four people their age hung out in the library. They, along with the bespeckled middle-aged librarian, greeted Harry, Ron and Hermione's entrance with looks of startled annoyance.

"Rude much?" snapped the heavily made up brunette girl. "It's a private conversation and you can't just waltz in here --"

"Ah, technically they can what with this being a public place and all," interrupted the redhead.

"And on that note..." the blonde rose from her seat. "Time for class."

"Yes...quite rather. I suppose we'll finish this later then," said the librarian in a voice rich with the accent of home.

"Not me," announced the brunette. "I have way more important stuff to do tonight."

"Right," said the only boy in the group, "'cause cheerleading is going to save the world."

She shot him a death glare in response before flouncing out. The other girls followed her giggling together as the librarian turned to assist them.

"We're looking for a book," Hermione answered trying to sound as American as the exiting students and failing abysmally. The librarian didn't seem to notice as he told them to call for him when they were ready to check out, but out of the corner of his eye Harry noticed the suspicious look on the boy's face as he headed for class.

*******

A quick glance at the stacks revealed that a school like this could, in fact, have a rather vast collection of ancient magical texts.

"Bloody hell," hissed Ron. "What kind of Muggle school has this many books on the occult? Do we at least know what we're looking for?"

"Well," said Hermione reasonably as she ticked off each trait on her fingers, "we know that it's a spell book, it's bound in brown leather, it has some sort of symbol on the cover, and she wrote her name on one of the pages." There was a pregnant pause.

"Gee, thanks, Hermione. That really narrows it down," grumbled Harry.

"So," said Ron in the tones of someone who knows that truth but desperately wants to be lied to, "essentially what you're saying is that we're going to have to go through every book here." At Hermione's slow nod a look of righteous anger flooded Ron's face and ears with color. "Ok, now he REALLY has to die!" And, with that, the first bell rang the start of classes.

******

Two bells and what seemed like a million books later found Harry on the floor reading a book about the role of possession demons in Bacchic orgies. He was pondering whether this could be considered Dark Arts or good, although not so clean, fun when the door opened and a woman called out "Rupert" in a furtive voice.

"Jenny?" responded the librarian. "Jenny, I'm not entirely sure this is the best time to-"

"Rupert," she interrupted in a sultry voice, "don't be such a fuddy-duddy." This exchange was followed by some very odd, yet strangely familiar, noises and the thump of a book hitting the floor.

When this not quite silence became protracted, Harry leaned around the book shelf to see the tweed-clad librarian and a dark-haired woman in sensible shoes kissing like a pair of teenagers by the reference desk. Harry watched them for several long moments recalling what it was like to loose himself in love like that. For a moment he wished that he and Ginny were more like Rupert and Jenny; in love with nothing more to worry about than being spotted snogging by the students. It would be a long time before he could have that luxury. Harry sighed, closed the book on Eyghon, and picked up another.

*******

By the time the last bell rang around three, Harry was miserable. His eyes ached and burned from reading fading print in poor light and his nose ran with the dust of ages. The sandwiches lovingly prepared for them by Mrs. Weasley were long gone and Harry's stomach was almost painfully empty. Added to that was the frustration of this seemingly endless and impossible task. As the din from the halls swelled to a fever pitch, Harry slammed shut the book on animal possession with a muffled bang which caused Ron and Hermione's heads to appear from behind their respective shelves.

"I can't do this any more," Harry informed them. "I'm starving and my brains are about to leak out my ears. I say we break for supper and come back when everyone's gone home. Maybe then we can use some magic to get this done before we graduate."

"Harry," began Hermione in the cautious tones of someone giving bad news to a man already on edge, "I don't know if magic will-"

"I'm game," interrupted Ron. "Let's go see what Muggles eat."

*******

Pizza made everything better. Ron had quickly decided that it was the best food ever, excepting chocolate of course, and said as much after ever third bite while Hermione smiled patiently and dissected her's with near surgical precision. Harry's own full stomach buoyed his spirits nearly as much as the conversation. Ron's restored optimism was contagious, and more importantly, Hermione believed she had discovered a pattern.

"It wasn't just a random assortment of magical books," she explained. "At least, the section I was in was organized around a theme. Organ harvesting actually. It was" --she suddenly looked rather queezy-- "rather graphic."

"I'll bet it was. I got to read all about vampires myself. How to find them, how to kill them, their fun and disturbing adventures. There was," Ron paused to chew his mouthful of food, "this one crazy bird that could see the future and her boy used to torture people with railroad spikes and you don't even want to know what that one bloke did to that puppy."

"Er...I had a section about possession."

"Well," said Hermione with a look of dawning revelation, "we had been assuming that, as Muggles, they really wouldn't have known enough to organize the books into different subsections of the occult but-"

"Muggles aren't daft. After all," said Ron waving his slice about, "they did invent this pizza stuff. We just need to find the sections with actual spells."

"You mean I won't get to read any more about orgy-inducing possession demons?" joked Harry. "Spoil all my fun."

Ron got the sort of goggle-eyed look of any healthy seventeen-year-old boy in a discussion about orgies while Hermione looked rather scandalized. "I can't imagine anyone as proper-seeming as that librarian having something like that in his library," she commented.

"Oh, I don't know about that," said Harry and proceeded to tell them about Jenny and Rupert's romantic liaison. His attempts to make the word fuddy-duddy sound as American and sexy as it had for Jenny had Ron snorting his coke and even got a smile out of Hermione. The boy buying pizza at the counter got a good chuckle out of it as well.

******

There were people talking inside when they eventually returned to the library. "...Spies?" someone was saying.

"They're rather young for it," pointed out a voice Harry recognized as Rupert the librarian's.

"Plus," added a girl, "did you see her hair? God, I would totally kill myself before going out in public like that."

"Channeling Cordelia are we?" asked a boy in tones of wry amusement.

Harry grabbed his friends by their elbows and dragged them out of earshot down the corridor. "Now what?" he hissed.

"Well," offered Hermione after a bit of worried lip chewing, "we could just wait some more until they leave..."

"Who knows when that will be?!" exclaimed Ron, setting off a mini round of half-hearted bickering about the most sensible course of action.

"We'll just go in," interrupted Harry. They both gaped at him for a moment, their faces stamped with near identical looks of horror. "No, really, this is a good plan," Harry attempted to assure them. "Rupert at least knows what's in his library so he probably wont be too surprised when we ask him for a spell book, and we can always just obliviate them when we leave." With that, Harry strode purposefully towards the library door as his friends scrambled to keep up.

******

The scene inside looked much as it had this morning except for the subtraction of the brown haired girl and the addition of a half-empty box of pizza. "Well, well," said the blonde, looking smug. "Speak of the devil."

The meaning of what she had said took a moment to reach Harry's brain. "You think we're spies?" His voice broke on the word.

Ron, however, jumped strait to the important bit. "What's wrong with Hermione's hair?" he demanded. "She has great hair!" Hermione suddenly found the floor intensely interesting. The two girls exchanged looks while the boy unsuccessfully attempted to turn his bark of laughter into a cough. Rupert just sighed and began to clean his glasses.

"Not to get off topic," Harry shot Ron a quick glare, "but we're not spies. We actually just need your help. We're looking for this book, you see. It's rather important."

Suddenly they were all business, sitting straighter in their chairs and looking strangely focused. "So, how important are we talking?" asked the boy. "Getting an A on that paper or say...saving the world?"

"That last bit actually," clarified Ron. None of their hosts looked the least bit surprised.

"Ah," said Rupert removing his glasses and posing with them thoughtfully. "I assume you need a book of spells or perhaps prophecy."

"We are looking for a spell book," admitted Hermione, "but not for the content so much as that, well, this particular one is a Horcrux."

The natives stared blankly. "I'm not familiar with-" began the librarian.

"Oh, oh!" exclaimed the redhead as she bounced in her chair and frantically fluttered her hands. "I know this. I read this. It's a piece of a soul right?" At Harry's silent and wary nod she continued on in a frighteningly cheerful display of Hermione-esk knowledge. "It's so cool! You split your soul and bind it to something so you can live forever. Of course, you have to kill someone to do it which less cool 'cause, you know, killing bad."

"How did you-" asked Rupert sounding as shocked as Harry felt.

"Oh, I came across it while we were trying to figure out who would want the Master's bones," she explained with a wave of her hand. The librarian looked mollified, but Harry still felt a little unsure about any girl who could babble excitedly about achieving immortality though murder. Her friends were congratulating her on her on being knowledge girl and Hermione looked rather put out at the possibility of being upstaged as the reigning queen of obscure information.

"Right then," said Rupert bracingly, "what's the tittle?"

"We don't actually know." Hermione sounded embarrassed to be missing such a vital clue. "We know it's a spell book that once belonged to a woman by the name of Rowena Ravenclaw, but she's not the author, and that it's somewhere in this library."

"Sounds needle in a hay stack-y," said the blonde girl rising from her chair. "Good thing I promised Angel we'd patrol together."

"Oh, right," groused the boy. "Abandon us to go fight legions of the undead."

"Yes, well," Rupert began to take charge. "Do be careful, Buffy, and come back afterwards." She nodded and strode out. "In the meantime, Willow, you and Xander see if you can find that book on Horcruxes while you three.." he turned to the Hogwarts trio and Hermione helpfully provided their names. "Yes, you three come with me and we'll look through the spell books."

"Maybe," suggested Willow tentatively, "maybe we should call Ms. Calender. I mean, it's magic so we might need some magic."

Rupert agreed, but marched off into the stacks looking unaccountably flustered.

****

They'd been looking for roughly an hour and a half when Buffy joined them looking somewhat mussed. "How was patrol? Any luck?" asked Rupert.

She shrugged. "Better luck than you're having," she answered, pulling a random book from the shelf and beginning to flip through its pages. "Why are you guys looking for this hero-croaks thingy anyway?"

"Horcrux," Harry corrected her. "It was made by this really Dark wizard and destroying it is the only way to stop him."

That brought her head out of the book and stilled her hand through its pages as she gave him a good looking over. "No offense," she began, "but you don't exactly seem the thwarting evil type."

Harry felt himself flush at her casual dismissal. "There's this prophecy, see," Ron tried to explain on his behalf.

"Ah. Prophecy." She sighed and turned to return the book to its shelf. "There is always a prophecy," she continued sounding thoughtful and more than a little sad. Her hand stroked up and down the book's spine and Harry wished he could see her face. "Always a Chosen One...or three." She spun abruptly. "See guys, the funny thing about prophecy is -"

"Hey," interrupted Xander, "I think we may have found something."

*****

Willow and Ms. Calender, Ms. Jenny Calender as it turned out, were seated at the table with a fat ancient book spread open between them when Harry emerged from the stacks. "Here it is, Giles," greeted Willow, "we weren't certain about some of the words..."

The librarian came over them and slid the book towards himself. Harry watched his eyes as they flickered down the page. "Think it will work?" queried Xander.

"Oh yes," Rupert nodded, "it's all rather simple really."

"Then, not to ask stupid questions," began Ron, "but what is it?"

"It's so cool!" exclaimed Willow, clearly interrupting Rupert's pre-speech pause. "The Horcrux has a piece of a soul right? Well, this spell will help us make a sort of soul detector." She wrapped up looking inordinately pleased with herself while the librarian looked slightly miffed.

"Aw, I think poor Giles wanted to explain," said Buffy in tones of mock sympathy.

"Yeah Will, shame on you," added Xander with a reproving shake of his finger. "Stealing Giles' thunder. Whose library is this anyway?"

"Yes, well, what do you think?" Rupert said turning to his girlfriend.

Jenny slid the book closer and ran her finger down the page. "Shouldn't be too hard to cast. We have all these ingredients right here in the science labs except for this crystal and some virgins' saliva."

"Hmm," the man leaned over her as he too studied the ingredients list. "I have a crystal that size in my office, and I'm sure the children would be happy to oblige us with that last bit."

"Needs two to cast the spell," she purred, leaning into him. "Ready to make some magic?"

*******

Harry stood in the center of the room and watched as a bunch of truly loony Muggle strangers bustled about gathering supplies to help save his world. He felt oddly as though his destiny was being hijacked and was totally unable to decide if he should be upset or just sit back and let someone else do the work for a change.

Hermione, however, had a rather definite opinion of the subject. "We should help them," she whispered with all the compressed force of a boiling tea kettle. "We have magic after all, and this is not the sort of thing to leave to amateurs."

"I don't know if you noticed, Hermione, but that book wasn't in English," retorted Ron with an exasperated eye roll. "And I'm pretty sure the labels on those bottles aren't in English either. What the hell is ZnO₂ anyway?"

If the names on the labels were any indication, the bottles being gathered up by their hosts seemed to contain nothing so much as random strings of letters and numbers. The flaming contraption that Jenny was setting up seemed far more complicated than a simple magical flame and Harry felt out of his depth just watching. He was almost relieved when Rupert came round with his mostly filled flask of virgins' spit. Not only was it something he could handle; as potion ingredients went, it was refreshingly normal. Willow, Buffy and Xander had apparently already contributed generously, but when it came for their turn, Ron and Hermione both declined, turning various shades of red. Harry goggled open mouthed at them for several long moments before topping off the flask.

There was a long, awkward silence before Ron broke it in a rush of words. "I'm awfully glad you spat, mate. I'd hate to have to beat you up for stealing my sister's virtue."

"What? Like you took Hermione's?" Harry retorted. He knew that it wasn't quite the same, but the idea of his two best friends having sex was infinitely more disturbing than even watching old people kiss.

Ron was still sputtering and turning funny colors when Hermione, her face still pink with residual embarrassment, told them to be quiet so she could learn the spell. So the three of them stood together in silence and watched as Rupert and Jenny poured their mystery chemicals, chanted in incomprehensible Latin and filled the room with an eldritch light. It was strange and beautiful and like no magic Harry had ever seen.

*******

Less than twenty minutes later found Harry with the soul detector in one hand and the Horcrux in the other. Compared to the hell he had gone through to get the locket it had been appallingly simple. Everyone seemed to be looking at him to see what came next and Harry felt obliged to make some sort of speech.

"I really appreciate all the help," he began, more than a little awkwardly. "This wasn't your burden, your destiny, but you took the time and....er...thanks."

"Hey, no problem," said Buffy with a careless wave of her hand. "Besides, saving the world, kind of in my job description."

"Yeah," added Xander, "plus it's not like we had anything better to do."

"What about homework?" demanded Hermione and Willow in identically aggrieved tones to which Ron, Xander and Buffy all responded with a loud "phff" and synchronized eye roll.

"Look kid," said Jenny in a more serious tone, "not to sound like an inspirational slogan, but saving the world isn't just about you. It's something we all have a stake in. I mean," she added, reaching out to run her hand down Rupert's arm, "I know I have some things I wouldn't mind saving."

Harry gazed solemnly into her dark eyes for a long minute before grinning. "I know what you mean," he said before turning to his friends. "Come on Ron! Let's go home so I can kiss your sister."