by Lisette: Lisette_an@hotmail.com

Legalese: The television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all related characters and material belong to Joss Whedon and UPN.  All things Harry Potter belong to JK Rowling.  I claim ownership solely of the story idea - no profit will be made by this.

Author's Note: Once more, your amazing reviews are prompting me to post far sooner than I had anticipated!  If I keep this up, I'm going to be posting as I write!.. well, that's not true.  So far, we're looking at around 27 chapters and we'll see how that number fluctuates with time! ;p Anyway, a huge thanks, as always, to Molly of the Pointy Ears, poppie, Rosie, Mountain William, Lynn, Julie, Harry (SD won't be forgotten - just give it time), Jeanne, Tara, Lady Lana (nice tally so far - keep reading to find out their fates! ;p), Saturn Maiden, Midnight, Auroa, lala, X-Lander, Empress, and Aeris.  As for a response to general questions that some seemed to share, yes, there will be some pairings in this fic - but you'll have to wait to see who all ends up with who.  Once more, the relationships aren't really key to the fic, but kind of fall into place as we go... for the most part.

Angel: Ginny is a year younger than Ron, Hermione, and Harry.  For this fic, she's in sixth year while the others are in their seventh year.  Also, for the record, the only ship that has been revealed has been a minor Ron/Hermione pairing.  In addition, there's a reason that I stopped watching Angel after pretty much the first season.  I mean, Angel and Cordy???  Sorry Angel/Cordy fans, but I just can't stomach the thought.  I liked her character much better as the pompous, stuck-up and ditzy ex-cheerleader.  In general, I'm also a B/A shipper - but that doesn't mean that circumstances can't warrant different situations.

"Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel.  And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too - even when you're in the dark.  Even when you're falling."
-Morrie Schwartz-

    "Well, personally I think that you're both being quite foolish," Hermione stated, casting a glance at her two companions as they made their way down the drafty castle corridors.  Talk of secret missions and the state of the outside world had quickly, and inevitably, led the trio to discuss the matter that seemed to be a favorite for the boys.  "It doesn't matter if Professor Snape is-"

    "A stupid greasy git," Ron supplied with a wide grin, a dimple flashing in each cheek.

    Frowning at the redhead, Hermione slowly shook her head, long auburn hair billowing around her slender shoulders.  "What I was trying to say is that we all know perfectly well that despite his past dealings as a Death Eater, we have it on good authority that he was working as a spy for Dumbledore.  He's not really on their side."

    "But 'mione," Harry interrupted, his green eyes betraying his doubt as he ran a hand through his messy black hair, "that's what we all thought.  But that was months ago!  No one has heard from him since the school closed back in October!  He could have been playing our side the whole time, really working as a spy for Voldemort," he explained, throwing his friends an apologetic glance as they both winced at the use of the Dark Lord's name.

    "But it doesn't make sense," Hermione protested as she swept into the Great Hall, her friends flanking her on either side.  "Why would he.." she trailed off, frowning softly and stopping so suddenly that Ron plowed into her from behind.

    "Ow, bloody hell!" Ron cursed, rubbing a knee that had collided with a nearby table in his haste to avoid landing in a heap on the floor.

    "Ron, don't curse," Hermione automatically corrected as her eyes settled on their far table, her brow tightening in confusion.  "And it looks as though your family has company," she added, nodding towards the table that the Weasley's had claimed as their own.

    Just as the other two boys finally took note of the strangers, a new voice added to their own.  "Hello Harry, Hermione," Neville Longbottom greeted quickly before his eyes followed theirs.  "Ron, my grandparents have been wondering - d'ya know who the man and the girl is that's sitting with your family?  Everyone's been talking about them!"

    Frowning, Ron allowed his eyes to settle on the unfamiliar strangers - the ones that were dressed so differently than the rest of the people at Hogwarts.  "I don't know," he admitted.  The man seemed to be engrossed in conversation with his father and eldest brother while the blonde girl, who looked to be about their age, sat alone, apparently lost in thought as she played with the food on the plate before her.

    "They're dressed like muggles," Hermione observed thoughtfully, her eyes taking in the girl's white shirt and jean overalls.  Frowning, she slowly started forward, her chin held high and the very picture of a woman on a mission.  "Well, let's find out," she muttered as she crossed over to the table.  As Ron quickly slipped into the open seat beside Bill, directly across from the strange girl, Hermione settled beside him with a swirl of dark robes.  "Good evening everyone," she said, nodding down the table.  Then, as Harry settled across from her, beside the girl, she slowly turned and eyed the blond with evident curiosity.  "I don't believe that we've been introduced," she stated simply before reaching her hand across the table.  "My name is Hermione Granger."

    "Ron Weasley," Ron added from beside her, smiling innocently as he offered his hand once hers was released.

    Knowing what was to come next, Harry turned to the stranger sitting beside him with a small sigh and extended his own hand.  Green eyes met green as her gaze seemed to tick up to the lightning shaped scar so prominently displayed on his forehead - red and tender from his connection to Voldemort - before almost casually dismissing it and meeting his gaze once again.  Surprised, Harry shared a look with his friends before adding the final kicker.  "And I'm Harry Potter," he finished, waiting for the recognition that usually followed... and strangely, didn't.

    "Hi, I'm Buffy," she replied simply, her grip firm before she slowly turned and gestured towards the older man who sat beside her, engrossed in conversation with Mr. Weasley.  "And that's Giles."

    "So you're Yanks, then," Ron broke in, correctly placing the girl's strange accent as he shrugged his shoulders subtlety at Harry's questioning look.  It wasn't every day that Harry didn't get some kind of a reaction to his name or his scar.  After all, as much as Harry despised the fact, he was famous in their world.  There wasn't a child who didn't grow up hearing stories of The Boy-Who-Lived.

    "Well, I am at least," Buffy admitted with a small smile, "although I prefer to go with the term Southern Californian - or American even," she added bemusedly before nodding her head at her watcher.  "Giles, on the other hand, is one of yours, I'm afraid - all British and stuffy upper-lippish," she explained with a dramatic sigh.  "Thankfully, after four years with us, we've managed to loosen him up a..." she trailed off before she frowned thoughtfully.  "And suddenly realizing that the British jokes just aren't that funny when surrounded by a whole lot of British people," she added with a sheepish grin.

    Not sure quite how to take the girl's strange ramblings, Harry took pity on her and quickly changed the subject.  "Well what brings you to Hogwarts?" he asked, knowing that it was the question on his friends' minds.  After all, as Neville had so obviously pointed out, it wasn't every day that Hogwarts received guests - especially guests that looked as strange as these two.  The older man looked ordinary enough for a muggle, with clothing that many muggles in London wore.  The girl, on the other hand, had a look that was so strange it immediately caught the eye.  For one thing, she was blonde.  Not just blonde, but she had pale blonde hair that shined and off-set her green eyes and tanned skin.  Which was the second thing.  Not only were there few blondes in England, but there were very few tanned blondes in the area at this time of year.  The climate just didn't support such things.  Then, there was the clothes, so obviously of muggle origin.  All in all, the fact that she wasn't from around there was all too easily supported.  He just had to wonder why they were both dressed as muggles - it wasn't like they were in a muggle community or anything.

    "The really old Dumb-Door guy asked us to come," Buffy returned evenly, characteristically slaughtering any name that was at all different from what she was accustomed to, making virtually anyone at Hogwarts fair game.  And as the two boys began to snicker at her pronunciation, Buffy couldn't help the small grin.  So maybe this whole meeting new people thing wasn't too scary.  After all, she was forced to do it four years ago when she first relocated to Sunnydale, therefore, she could do it again now.  Besides, from the look of the room around her, it sure seemed that finding people her own age was going to be kind of difficult, making these three a gift.

    Ignoring her friends' snickers at the girl's words, Hermione turned bright eyes on the blond.  "Professor Dumbledore did?" she asked, her eyes narrowing slightly as she took in the girl's strange clothing once again.  In the end, it always came back to that because the clothes were just so different than the customary black robes that many youths wore, or compared to any robes that any of the wizarding community wore.  "Your father must be a very powerful wizard then, if Dumbledore invited you all the way from the United States to help us."

    "My father?" Buffy returned, frowning in confusion as she thought of the man she hadn't seen in longer than she could remember - definitely not since everything... But before her mind could venture down that track, Buffy's eyes suddenly widened in understanding.  "Oh, Giles isn't my dad," she quickly countered, all the while mentally adding that her real father wasn't more than a sperm donor in her mind, these days.  In all ways that mattered, Giles might as well have been her father.  "Plus, we're not really big in the whole witchy thing," she added.

    "You're muggles then!" Hermione quickly stated, as though Buffy had merely confirmed something that she had been thinking all along.  As the girl arched a blond brow at her, Hermione quickly explained.  "Well, I didn't think that American witches would dress that differently from us," she said, waving offhandedly at Buffy's clothes, "and more importantly, you didn't stare at Harry's scar."

    Confused, Buffy turned her head and took in the scar that marred the guy's forehead beside her, watching as his face flushed under her scrutiny, before turning once more back to the girl opposite her.  "Yep, that's a scar - got a few myself," she revealed almost conspiratorially before straightening.  "And why would I stare?  I don't know how it is here," she added, before the girl could respond, "but in the United States we call that whole staring thing rude."

    "But-" Hermione sputtered, her own face flushing at the girl's words.

    "But Harry's the Boy-Who-Lived!" Ron added, his voice indignant as Harry groaned audibly and slouched further in his seat.

    "The boy who lived?" Buffy returned skeptically, her eyes turning to take in the guy beside her once again.  Average height, slender, messy black hair, glasses, ouchy-looking scar - certainly nothing remarkable there.  But then, as she really took in the guy with all of her senses, she felt her slayer sense, her spider sense, as Xander liked to call it, begin to tingle.  The guy just felt... different.  Well, everyone in the room felt kind of different, being all witchy and magical and all, but just as Dumbledore had felt kind of off, so did this Harry Potter.  The feeling was almost like power, but not.  Shrugging slightly, she slowly turned away and looked at the other two once again.  "Okay, excuse my confusion here," she said, getting back to their earlier statement, "but is he the Boy Who Lived because he died and then, well, lived again or because he keeps living?  Because if gets a special title because of the second, well... what, do you want a cookie or something for living like the rest of us?" she asked, unable to keep the sarcasm from her voice.  "I mean, geez!  I technically died three years ago and you don't see anybody calling me The Girl Who Died... and er... then Lived Again," she finished, her scowl turning into a small smile at the ridiculousness of the conversation.

    "But Harry defeated You-Know-Who when he was just a baby!" Hermione countered, looking quickly to her friends for help.

    At the girl's words, Buffy quickly turned bright green eyes to Harry, understanding finally crossing her features.  "Hey, wait a sec!" she muttered, a slow smile lifting her lips.  "Yeah, I have heard about you," she confirmed, nodding her head slowly as she seemed to look at him with a new light.  She'd have to ask Giles about him later.  Whatever she felt most likely had to do with what happened to him as a baby.  With whatever happened to give him the painful looking scar that he still bore.  "Hey, great job on pulling a baby Bam-Bam on the Moldy-Wart guy!  I'm hoping to kick his ass before going home," she added as she threw a brief glance to her watcher.

    "Baby Bam-Bam?" Ron asked, voicing everyone's confusion as they looked at the girl much the same way she had been looking at them.  "Moldy Wart?"

    "Oooh, my bad," Buffy countered with a slight grin.  "Moldy Wart seems a fitting name for your Big Bad and the other, well, pop culture reference," she explained with a small shrug.  "But from the looks of things, you guys don't have a lot of that pop culture thing going on.  But that's okay, Giles never gets them either," she added sympathetically as she nodded once more to her watcher, oblivious to their conversation.  "Although without a Xander or a Willow to get my witty repartee... well, that makes them a whole lot less witty," she added to herself with a small frown.  Sighing, she slowly shrugged her shoulders before turning back to the confused teens.  "I guess that you guys will just have to take my word that they're usually quite funny."

    "Er... right," Harry said, nodding weakly at Buffy before slowly turning back to his friends.  He knew that he had lived a sheltered life, but he had no idea that American English was that different than British English.  He felt as though she was speaking a completely different language at times.

    As the confused hush fell over the group, Buffy felt her forced cheer slowly begin to slip.  Desperate to hold onto it as she realized that was what was giving her the confidence to face this strange world, Buffy quickly pushed on.  "So, Ron, I get that those are your parents over there," she said, breaking the silence as she nodded towards the assortment of redheads to her left, "but what's the story with you two?"

    "Oh, Sirius Black is my godfather," Harry explained, silently wishing him and Remus well.  "He's my guardian," he added, beaming at the words.  "He and Professor Lupin were best friends with my parents - they look after me," he added.

    Wincing at the words, Buffy felt her cheeks stain with the reminder of her earlier actions.  "Heh... well, when you talk to him later, just remember that it was his fault.  He really did start it," she explained weakly before turning bright eyes to Hermione.  "And where's your family?"

    "South Africa, actually," Hermione stated, pushing a wave of long auburn hair over one shoulder.  "My parents are dentists and South Africa is notorious for their poor dental practices."

    "And so they just decided to head to South Africa?" Buffy returned, frowning at the girl's words.

    "Well, no, of course not," Hermione countered.  "They left because of You-Know-Who," she explained, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.  But when Buffy continued to stare at her as though she were really some strange sort of creature, she quickly continued.  "Since You-Know-Who has risen, he has begun taking out all muggle-born witches and wizards.  Thus, pretty much all muggle-born witches and wizards and their families have left the country.  I can't protect my family against Death Eaters, and they couldn't very well come to Hogwarts, so they've gone away until... well, until things are better," Hermione explained, faltering slightly as she wondered, not for the first time, if she'd ever see her parents again.

    "So... if things are so dangerous for 'muggle-born' witches and wizards, why didn't you go with your parents?" Buffy asked slowly, eying the bright girl that sat opposite of her.

    "And leave Ron and Harry to get into trouble by themselves?" she asked, arching an eyebrow at the girl before turning to the two guys with a knowing look.  "If I weren't here, who would be the one to be clever and get them out of the scrapes they always find their way into?"

    "Oh, come off it 'mione," Ron quickly countered as he rolled his eyes dramatically at the blond.  "Clever or not, don't act like you never get into any trouble on your own.  After all, I believe that you're the one who was petrified by the basilisk in our second year.  Not us."

    "What?" Hermione squeaked as she practically shoved the taller teen off the bench.  "If you two would have been a little bit quicker with finding my notes that practically spelled out what the danger was..."

    Smiling at the two friends' bickering and at the obvious affection between the three, Buffy couldn't help the wave of nostalgia that burned through her veins like fire.  Well, not exactly like fire.  She had tried that one before, unwillingly, and had no desire to do a repeat performance.  Plus, her bout of homesickness for her friends wasn't even in the same arena as the tortures that... damn, and down that route we go again.  Sighing softly, Buffy slowly turned away from the two friends and realized that Harry was watching her - probably had been for a few minutes.  Flushing slightly, she allowed her eyes to meet his, almost challenging him to voice his thoughts.

    "So why did Dumbledore invite two muggles all the way from the United States to Hogwarts?" he asked, his eyes watching hers intently.

    "Hmm," Buffy murmured, as though she were contemplating his question, one slim finger slowly tapping against her chin.  "Now, I never did say that we were muggles, did I?"

    "But if you're not muggles, and you're not wizards," Ron said, finishing his argument in time to overhear Buffy's words, "then what are you?"

    "Well, I don't know what you guys call ex-Wizards, but my friends and I call Giles a Watcher," she said, watching as Hermione started, her eyes growing wide as she turned to look at her watcher with undisguised interest.  Then, as her eyes returned to hers, Buffy knew that she, at least, understood the reference.  "And as for myself," Buffy began before throwing a pout to Giles' back, "I knew that I needed a shiny some-"

    "Mr. Giles?  Miss Summers?"

    Startled from his conversation, Giles mimicked his slayer and turned to take in the severe-looking woman who stood behind them.  "Professor McGonagall," Giles returned, smiling slightly as he stood from the table and shook the aging witch's hand.  The woman who stood before him wasn't quite the young witch that he remembered as his Transfiguration professor, but there was no mistaking her, despite the added lines and wrinkles.  Especially that voice.  "It's good to see you again."

    "And you as well," McGonagall replied, a small smile lifting the corners of her thin lips as she eyed the man that her student had become.  "I see that you've managed to keep yourself out of trouble through the years."

    "For the most part," Giles agreed with a small smile, sharing a look with his young slayer who watched undisguised interest.

    "And from what Albus has told me, you've done very well with yourself," McGonagall added, her eyes shifting to take in the young woman who had been mid-conversation with three of Hogwarts' most notorious students.  "We always knew that you would," she added, eyes returning to Giles before turning to nod at the rest of the gathered witches and wizards who watched the exchange curiously.  "If you'll excuse the interruption, Professor Dumbledore asked me to see our guests to their rooms," she said, nodding politely to Arthur and Molly Weasley before frowning disapprovingly at young Harry Potter.  "And he also asked that you, Mr. Potter, tell your godfather the next time you see him to come to his office immediately."

    "That most likely won't be until tomorrow," Harry returned quickly with a brief nod at the bright moon shining overhead, "but I will pass along the message."

    "See that you do," McGonagall muttered, her lips forming a thin line before she gestured for Giles and Buffy to follow her from the hall.  "This way, please," she instructed, quickly leading the two from the hall, a loud din of speculating conversation flowing in their wake, everyone no doubt curious about the identity of the castle's newest inhabitants.  Then again, from the look in Granger's eyes, McGonagall knew that their real purpose would be spread throughout the Great Hall by the end of dinner.

To be continued...