InsaneJournal

FIC: A Series of (mostly) Un-Apocalyptic Events --10/15 BtVS/HP
full header & previous parts:
an unexpected meeting || unusual conversations || un-imaginary friends and places, really || unlikely coincidence || unplanned vacation || unsanctioned dragon(s) pt1 || unsanctioned dragon(s) pt2 || unhappy dragons and people || unrepentent stubbornness and unapologetic smart alecs || un-named part nine



~uncomplicated evening, yeah right~

"See he's not imaginary!" George declared as Neville stepped out of the floo.

"Damn, first you guys think I'm some kinda super spy now I'm Mr. Snuffalupagus?" Xander snorted getting completely blank looks from the other four. "It's an American thing, or maybe just an American no-mojo thing." he sighed.

"So you're muggle born?" Luna pressed.

George groaned. "Luna."

"Uh you mean did my parents know anything about magic--no. Big big no." Xander shook his head.

"So you're muggle-born. A wizard with non-magical parents."

"Uh..." Xander stared.

"You can't tell me you're not a Wizard." George glared. "You're a bloody T'bori potions master! And it was another T'bori Potions Master that said so."

Xander shook his head. "I'd possibly kill myself if I tried to use a wand. I can do some stuff. And Kafu taught me a lot of his brewing because if he's ever the one's that's hurt and we're out or it's something that needs made now I can do that. If someone else does the steering on a teleportation spell I can hang on and I can feel stuff if I'm paying attention--magic, curses, demons...depends. When I don't pay attention I kinda just stumble into all hell breaking loose or an apocalypse or three like I did back in school. Course it's easier to notice stuff. Cleveland had me spinning when I was there last year after Kafu had been teaching how to pay attention. But I can't do point the stick abracadabra like you do."

"You're like Bill, or should have been." Charlie said which garnered curious looks from Neville and Luna and a slight frown from George. There were enough years between himself and Bill, that George wasn't quite aware of the exact details of a lot of the trouble Bill had found himself in when he was younger. He'd been too young himself and later in far too much trouble of his and Fred's own making for his mother to do anything but throw their older brothers achievements at them with "Bill-Charlie-Percy never made Filch's office doorknob shout insults for a week or turned Hufflepuffs blue" and so on.

Charlie continued "You feel magic, drawn to it trying to figure it out and get tangled up in it. Bill found a couple old booby traps and passages in Hogwarts that nearly landed him and a couple others in the hospital wing his first year until Dumbledore and Flitwick clued in on what he was. Lot of curse breakers are that way, just extra sensitive to power fluctuations or dark magics or something like that, at least the best ones."

"Did the hellmouth do it?" Luna frowned. "Your magic got broken right? Was it the hellmouth?"

"Not directly." Xander shakes his head. He knew Kafu's theories on how he should have been a wizard, and on how he could sense the girls so easily, just by sight find the one even in she was in with a dozen other girls from her village. He accounted that to the fact that the joining spell used to help Buffy defeat ADAM had been permanent. It left threads of the others in each of them, had left a thread of Giles Chaos-leaning magic and Willows more Earth based magic and a thread of Buffy's slayerness.

The night on the bluff was when Kafu decided Xander's supposed Wizardness took the last blow it would for him to ever be properly taught. His own magic pulled on the Earth and Chaos threads and better believe he had been silently praying in the back of his head to any non demonic god or goddess he'd ever heard of just then. He survived Willow's blasts when he probably shouldn't have, it also left him more than a little allergic to Willow's power. To the point she cast around him he was all but guaranteed a headache and cast on him he was guaranteed a migraine from hell. He'd done his best not to let on to Willow, or Buffy and Giles, about that one because it would have set Willow off

"What was all the excitement here today? We saw the dragon when we were out working on the greenhouse, Filius and I."

"Snape and Hagrid ran off again and Norbert came to fetch them home." Charlie laughed.

"You have seen the Sunnydale Hellmouth, haven't you?" Luna accused quietly sidling up next to Xander as George and Charlie explained that comment and who exactly Snape, Hagrid and Norbert were.

"I was there when it closed permanently..."

"So you've seen Slayers! And the Wicca--"

Xander winced.

"Oh, it was her? I'm sorry. Have you seen demons?"

Xander started laughing. "Yeah. Seen plenty of demons, even dated a few."

"That's not nice!" Luna scowled. "You shouldn't call your ex-girlfriends demons."

"Oh I don't know, that bint you were carrying on with around Halloween two years back might qualify as one. Too pretty to be a hag despite her personality." Neville spoke up.

George glanced worriedly at Xander. The Wizarding world tended to ignore and sweep such couples under the rug as a whole. Unless it was something to try to sell gossip rags like the mud Rita Skeeter tried slinging about Dumbledore and Grindlewald and Harry. Hermione said Muggles weren't any better and in some cases worse.

Xander didn't so much as blink.

"You've seen a Slayer though?" Luna wasn't about to give up on confirmation of Slayer's being real.

"Vampire Slayers are a bloody myth, Luna." George sighed exasperated.

"So're dragons if you ask most people." Xander shrugged.

"You can't possibly believe Slayers are real," Charlie stared.

"Not my secrets to tell,"

Luna beamed triumphantly at Neville and George. "What are they like? Are they like the stories say? Violent, attacking magical beings without any thought?"

Xander opened his mouth to protest that description flat out but considering the Old Council's methods, or even general religious frenzies of the really not so distant past, especially in Wizarding terms since Wizards lived a good deal longer than non-magical people and certainly longer than Slayers. "No." he shook his head. "They're just girls. You get a little bit of everything good and bad just like you would randomly picking girls here and there through the world without super powers. Short, tall, plain, pretty, smart, never seen a fat or an honestly unintelligent slayer at least not beyond willful teenage stupid."

"You've seen a few then?" George said curiously. "And they didn't attack you?"

Xander laughed. "Nope."

"Fyarl?" Luna questioned.

"Big, stupid, strong, pretty tough hides. Not that hard to kill in general and if you got a bunch of Fyarl making coordinated attacks or raids you've got at least some little wanna be evil overlord making a territory bid." was Xander's automatic response.

"So what do you do, Xan?" George prodded. "C'mon. Charlie's a Dragon Handler, and I've got the shop. Neville teaches Herbology at Hogwarts and McGonagall's trying to convince him to take over Gryffindor House. Luna runs the Quibbler, it was her father's and she's kept it going. It's a monthly magazine."

"Er," Xander frowned, trying to think of exactly how to class his job. "Kinda depends on what day it is. Medraut gets a vision or Giles' calls with something for us to check out. A couple times other groups have hired us."

"A mercenary?" Neville said wide eyed.

"Kinda, I guess," Xander said sheepishly. "But only for good guys."

"That sounds exciting. How do you go about becoming a mercenary?" Luna wanted to know.

"Er...payroll mistake?" Xander offered. He wasn't all that sure he was a mercenary but Giles seemed to think so. They were at least mostly "freelance" and had been the whole time he'd been in Africa.

"Must've been some mistake," Charlie snorted.

"Had enough of that kind of exciting during the war," Neville shook his head. "Teachings dangerous enough for me."

"Uh huh, out of control mutant dragon's breath, Neville?" George teased.

"They're in the greenhouse, they haven't spread out of it, they're still controlled." Neville attempted to argue.

"Riiiight," George rolled his eyes.

"Malaka's like marshmallows." Xander said with a shrug.

"What?"

"Kafu's wife Malaka has a bunch of underground greenhouses that are just magicked up to the hilt. Her dragon's breath patch--they love marshmallows and peeps. Toss 'em in the air and they'll fry 'em then eat 'em, and the sticky keeps them busy for hours."


*

Giles sighed as he closed the bedroom door. Willow was finally asleep. He left Katherine stationed at the door. Melissa and Marnie had the first watch outside Willow's window. It wasn't likely that Willow would be waking up within the next twenty four hours or more.

"Rupert,"

He sighed again. "Margaret."

"Are you going to have a nice cup of tea and help me sort this out or are you going to be as much of a blind stubborn fool as your father was?"

Giles snorted. Margaret Bell had a knack for making him feel about six once again.

"Ah I see, you're going to be a maudlin idiot and bemoan failing your children with a bottle of brandy, is that it?"

Giles shook his head. "When did you add mind reading to your repertoire, Margaret?"

"I've known you since your mother brought you home from the hospital, Rupert. And I knew your mother from the time we were six. I do not need to be a mind reader to have a good idea of what's running through that head of yours."

Giles shook his head with a rueful smile.

"She's got a difficult road ahead of her, Rupert, but there's no cause to give up hope."

*

Xander rolled his eyes at Medraut's crow-call ring tone. "Phone." Xander said reassuringly as the others startled.

"I thought they just rang." George frowned.

Xander frowned it was Digger's number. "Yeah, Digger?"

"Kafu, Henry and Medraut have been taken into custody."

"What's the charges?"

"I have no idea. They wouldn't tell me, it's not a Goblin matter and I could be glad they didn't arrest me as well."

"Oh for hells sake. Have you called Wolfgang and Nat yet?"

"No. They were going to stay in Muggle London. Henry called Wolfgang earlier."

"All right. Call Wolf, tell them to keep their asses parked somewhere visible and to call anyone he can think of that might be helpful. We'll get this sorted. I'm really really not liking British Wizards. Kafu's right on the rhino shit for brains."

Xander groaned ending the call and quickly dialed Giles number.

"Rupert Giles speaking may I help you?"

"It's me G-man you sound like shit what's going on? My--I don't have a Willow headache? Kafu didn't kill her did he? He swore he wouldn't?"

"No she's sleeping, she's had a geis put on her to stop her from casting any spells on your team, even a scrying spell without express permission from you or Kafu's village elders...Xander, are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Half my team seems to be in the Wizard houscow at the moment for god knows what. I'm not sure if Natalia's got her passport and what all with her. Can you cover that for us? Just in case, it shouldn't come up because Wolfgang is with her and his stuff is still in date and does the presto-change-o thing if it needs to but...just in case."

"Of course." Giles agreed. "Do keep me posted--"

"Giles? What the hell aren't you telling me?"

"Willow's fine. She's been stripped of magic unnatural to her, and she's less than pleased with all of us, she's also quite drained and is sleeping."

"She didn't try to go all Darth Willow again?"

"She didn't have the opportunity. I'm not certain it would have come to that if she had but..."

"Damn it"

"Willow is safe, the situation is as under control and we're doing everything that can be. Concentrate on getting the situation with your team taken care of."

"Charlie, you floo Ron and find out what he knows if he can find anything. We'll apparate to Diagon Square and head for the leaky. This time just hang on--you up to it?"

Xander nodded. "Yeah. Digger should have some headache potion and replenishing potion in his pack they all carry some, actually I have some there..." Xander glanced at the pile of junk he had from his own satchel now gone with the dragons.

"I'll pop down and get a sack from the shop." George said.