Hannah and Hermione and Dawn, oh my!
Hello, I am back! I have fic! This is for lalejandra's birthday, which I missed. It is a sequel to this fic, and is a Buffy/Harry Potter/Lotrips crossover, with reference to the BtVS episode "Normal Again". Unlike practically every other post on my flist at the moment, there are no HBP spoilers.
You're All In My Head
***
It feels like Hannah and Hermione and Dawn fly in the car for days and days, nothing around them but gray clouds and mist. When they fly through the clouds, it's wet and sort of unpleasant, and on the third day of this Hannah begins to wonder if the ground even exists anymore.
"Of course the ground exists," Hermione says. "Don't be stupid."
"So let's fly down and see it," Hannah says.
"No, it's too dangerous," Hermione says, and she usually knows everything, or thinks she does, so there's no point in arguing.
"I like flying better anyway," Dawn says, and so they fly and fly.
Hannah's dreams have gotten strange. She dreams she's in a mental institution and the doctor keeps talking to her.
"Hannah," he keeps saying. "Hannah, do you understand me?"
He tells her that Buffy has died. "Your roommate's dead, Hannah."
"Buffy wasn't my roommate," she tells him. "She was that Slayer girl. And I know she's dead. What, do you think I'm stupid?"
"Hannah," he says patiently, and it's like he's very excited and trying to hold back. "Listen to me. You don't have to stay in Buffy's delusion. She wasn't a Slayer, she was just a very disturbed girl who pulled you into her fantasies. You can come out of it, now."
"Uh, whatever," Hannah says, and wakes up.
Dawn's watching her from the front seat. "Are you okay?" she asks.
"Yeah," Hannah says. "I just had this dream. I was in an asylum and the doctor said that you all were just Buffy's delusions that I, uh, 'participated in'."
"That's stupid," Hermione says. "I never even met Buffy."
"He said that's why the world's dissolving," Hannah says. "That since it's Buffy's world I can't keep it together."
"That's even stupider," Dawn says.
"Yeah, the world's not dissolving," Hermione says. "It's right down there."
"Where?" Hannah says, and looks, but all she sees is more clouds.
"It's down there," Hermione says. "Trust me."
**
Hannah dreams that she's sitting in a gray institutional chair, and her mother is reading her a story. It's all about witches and wizards at a school called Hogwarts, and a boy named Harry Potter, and the Triwizard Tournament. The funniest part is that Hermione's in the book too.
"You were in my dream," Hannah tells her when she wakes up. "You were in a book my mother was reading to me."
"Weird," Hermione says.
"You were my favorite character," Hannah says. "You went to a school named Hogwarts."
"I know," Hermione says. "I told you about how I went there, remember? You must've put that in your dream."
"I guess," Hannah says.
"You know what?" Hermione says. "We should go there. To Hogwarts. I bet Dumbledore will know what to do about the sun."
"That's a really good idea," Dawn says.
"Will it take long to get there?" Hannah asks.
"No, not long," says Hermione.
**
Hannah dreams she overhears the doctor talking to her mother in the hallway outside her room.
"She's becoming more and more lucid," the doctor is saying. "The world of her delusions, the world that Buffy created, is falling apart. It's been reduced to a flying car with just Hannah and apparently her two favorite people from the delusion."
Her mother says something Hannah doesn't catch.
"Well, they're the little sister that Buffy fabricated out of nothing, and, strangely, the character Hermione from the Harry Potter novels, whom Hannah herself seems to have inserted into Buffy's world."
"I've been reading those books to her," Hannah just barely hears her mother say.
"I believe that with the world Hannah's been living in crumbling around her, there's a good chance we could get her to come out of these delusions entirely. I'll adjust her medications, and we'll hope that she doesn't begin to create her own internal world to replace Buffy's."
When Hannah wakes up, she doesn't tell Hermione and Dawn about the dream. She's beginning to worry - Dawn is becoming fainter, somehow. Hannah can see the can of Pringles through her head. She's pretty sure that's not right, but it doesn't seem to bother Hermione, so Hannah doesn't think much of it.
"We're here," Hermione says, bringing the car down out of the clouds. It's a Ford Anglia now, but it's still blue.
Hannah can see the castle across the lake. "Don't hit the Whomping Willow," she says, and Hermione nods.
"I hope we're in time for the sorting," Hermione says. "This is our last year."
**
The sorting hat puts Hannah into Gryffindor, and everyone cheers. "I knew you'd be a Gryffindor!" Hermione yells into her ear, and hugs her. She's back in her robes, and her hair is a lot bushier. She's got a badge pinned to her robes - Head Girl.
Hermione grabs Hannah's hand and pulls her over to sit with her and Harry and Ron.
"It's good to be seventh years, isn't it?" Ron says. "Look at all the ickle first years."
Harry is staring at Hannah. "You're very pretty," he says, then turns bright red.
After the sorting, when the feast has started, the ghosts all come flying in formation through the dining hall. A translucent Dawn is with them. Hannah waves.
"Hey guys!" Dawn says. "Hey! Watch this!" She does a back flip in the air. "Cool, right?"
"Awesome," Hannah agrees.
"Okay, well, me and Nearly Headless Nick are going to practice some formation gliding, I'll see you guys later!" Dawn says, and floats away.
"I like your trainers," Harry says to Hannah. He's still staring at her with a rather schmoopy look on his face. She looks at her pink Converse, peeking out from under her robes, and smiles.
"Thanks," she says. "I like your lightning bolt scar."
Harry blushes furiously and takes a drink of his pumpkin juice. "Thanks," he manages.
After the feast, she and Hermione go back to the Gryffindor common room.
"Hello, Hannah," the Fat Lady says when she lets them through.
"How do you know my name?" Hannah asks.
"Oh, all the portraits are talking about you," the Fat Lady says. "You're the most talented witch Hogwarts has ever seen. That's why Dumbledore let you transfer in so late."
"Oh, it's nothing," Hannah says modestly.
But that night in the girls' dormitory, she dreams of the institution again, the asylum. But this time Xander is there. Two eyed, so she knows he isn't real.
"Hey, Hannah," he says, and smiles his crooked smile, and sits in the chair next to her bed.
"You're the First Evil," she says. "I can tell."
"No," he says. "I'm Xander. Do you remember me? I'm a friend of Buffy's. I used to visit."
Of course she remembers. She's not crazy. "We would get coffee," she says. "In dreams."
"Yeah, that's right," he says. "I thought maybe we could go get some now. Or get a pizza. Are you hungry? I'm hungry."
Hannah turns her back on him. "I'm not listening to you. You're dead, and evil."
She hears him sit back in the chair, but she doesn't turn around. When she peeks over her shoulder a few minutes later, he's still there. That's funny - she'd expected him to vanish.
He shrugs at her. "Okay, so I'm evil. Do you want to play cards?"
They play Egyptian Ratscrew. She thinks she used to play that in high school, in the hallways. Waiting for Spanish Club to start, maybe, or backstage before drama. She's good at the slapping - she beats Xander easily.
They play again. She slaps on a king and Xander groans.
"So how come you still visit me now that Buffy's dead?"
Xander shrugs. "I like you, I guess."
**
She wakes up in a four poster, with Hermione sleeping in the next bed. She lies awake thinking about her dream until Dawn comes floating in.
"Oh, you're awake," Dawn says. "FINALLY. Being a ghost is really boring. You can only taunt Mrs. Norris for so long."
"Ghosts don't sleep?" Hannah asks.
"Duh," Dawn says. "We're dead."
"When did you die?" Hannah asks, but Dawn's already floating away.
"C'mon," she throws back over her shoulder. "Dumbledore wants to talk to you before breakfast."
Dawn knows the password, but doesn't wait for Hannah to go up the spiral staircase, just floats straight through the ceiling.
"Cheater," Hannah says, and hears Dawn laugh up above her.
"Welcome to Hogwarts," Dumbledore says when Hannah's settled in a chair. Fawkes, his phoenix, comes over to sit on Hannah's arm. He nibbles affectionately at her hair.
"Remarkable," Dumbledore says.
Dawn hovers near the ceiling. "Oh, everyone loves Hannah," she says.
"Well, I just wanted to give you your schedule," Dumbledore says, and hands Hannah a piece of paper. "I'm sure it'll all be rather elementary for a witch of your abilities, but they are the most advanced classes Hogwarts offers." Hannah looks at it; Advanced Potions, Advanced Transfiguration, Advanced Charms, Advanced Arithmancy. They're all N.E.W.T. level courses.
"Is there anything else you'd like to discuss?" Dumbledore asks, and looks at her over his glasses.
"Well, I've been having these dreams," Hannah says. "I dream that I'm in an institution and this is all my delusion."
"Hmm," Dumbledore says and steeples his fingers. "Very interesting."
"What does it mean?" Hannah asks. Fawkes flies back to his perch.
"Well, it makes perfect sense," Dumbledore says. "After your traumatic experiences in Los Angeles, of course your mind wishes to believe this is all a hallucination."
"But it's not," Hannah says.
"Of course not," Dumbledore says. "I'm as real as you are. And as you make more connections here at Hogwarts, your dreams of this asylum will no doubt disappear."
"Well, good," Hannah says, but she feels uneasy.
"You're safe now," Dumbledore says, and shows her out.
**
The Gryffindor Quidditch team needs new Chasers, and Hannah tries out. When Harry tosses her the quaffle, she makes an amazing catch, then turns and puts it through the middle hoop from midfield. Everyone applauds.
"Brilliant!" Harry says. "You're on the team!"
Ron claps her on the back. "I've never seen anything like it."
She and Harry are the last two in the locker room after the tryouts. She hangs up her new Quidditch robes, and when she turns around, he's standing right there.
"Hannah," he says. "You're the most amazing girl I've ever met."
She smiles. He leans in and kisses her. He tastes rather unpleasantly of pumpkin, but she kisses him back anyway. He's Harry Potter, after all.
**
Her days at Hogwarts get really busy, what with Quidditch practice and all the studying she and Hermione are doing for their N.E.W.T.s, not to mention the DA practices that she leads to train everyone to fight Voldemort. She hardly manages to fit in long moonlit strolls holding hands with her new boyfriend Harry.
His palms are kind of clammy, but she ignores that.
Dumbledore was right. Now she's much too busy to dream about the institution. Except for Xander. She still dreams about Xander sometimes, but she doesn't tell anyone, not even Hermione.
"So you're dating Harry Potter, huh?" Xander says, dealing the cards out.
"Yeah," says Hannah.
"What's that like?"
"It's okay," Hannah says. She puts down a queen and Xander puts down two cards, a ten and a two. Hannah takes the stack. "He's kind of…." She trails off.
Xander looks at her, and plays an ace. Hannah starts to put down cards.
"What?" Xander says.
"Boring," Hannah says. "And he tastes like pumpkin."
Xander laughs, and she slaps two eights in a row while he's not paying attention.
"You suck at this game," Hannah says. "I don't know why you keep coming back to play it."
Xander shrugs. "Oh, I think I'm in love with you."
Hannah laughs. "Whatever."
"Why not?" Xander says. "Everybody at Hogwarts is."
"Well, I'm very likable," Hannah says. "Just yesterday Draco tried to kiss me in the Herbology shed." She takes Xander's last three cards. "I win."
"Play again?" Xander asks. She beats him three more times.
**
At first she liked Hogwarts, but after a few weeks it gets a little, well, boring. And not just Harry, either, though he's pretty bad. She breaks up with him after a Charms lesson and he gets so red in the face she wonders how she ever found him attractive.
"WELL, I NEVER LIKED YOU ANYWAY," Harry says, and stomps off.
Then she quits the Quidditch team. She always scores all the goals anyway, and getting paraded around on everyone's shoulders is only fun the first couple of times.
After that she stops going to classes. She doesn't know why, she's just sick of it all. She misses Dawn and Hermione; she realizes she hasn't seen Dawn for at least a week, and Hermione isn't fun anymore.
She asks Xander about it. "Do you think Dawn's disappeared because she was part of Buffy's delusion and I can't keep it going without Buffy around?"
"Do I look like a psychiatrist?" Xander says. "Anyway, it's your turn to deal."
Hannah tries to research delusions and hallucinations in the Hogwarts library, but everything they have there is on magical hallucinations, and it doesn't really help. Hermione comes and finds her there.
"What are you doing? Why weren't you in Arithmancy earlier?"
Hannah shrugs. "Didn't feel like it. Have you seen Dawn?"
Hermione looks confused. "Who?"
"Yeah, exactly," Hannah says. "I'm researching hallucinations but the library doesn't have much on non-magical stuff. And Xander didn't know anything."
"Xander," Hermione says. "That boy you used to dream about? Are you still dreaming about him?"
"Uh, sort of," Hannah says. "It's not really him, though. He has two eyes. So it's really the First Evil. Did you know that evil sucks at cards?"
Hermione's eyes are wide. "Voldemort is coming to you in dreams, disguised as Xander?"
"That's not really what I sa-" Hannah starts, but Hermione's already standing up, panicky.
"We have to tell Dumbledore!"
"Oh, sit down," Hannah says. "It's not Voldemort. Don't be ridiculous." But Hermione's already rushed off.
"This is a dumb delusion!" Hannah yells, and she's sitting at a table in the asylum's day room, holding a deck of cards.
"Hey," Xander says. "Keep it down, will you? The nurses'll think I'm torturing you."
"Am I dreaming?"
"Nah," Xander says. "No pumpkin tasting saviors of all wizarding kind lurking around this place. It's kind of dull that way."
"Thank God," says Hannah.
"Hurry up and deal," Xander says. "I haven't been massacred at Egyptian Ratscrew in three days. I hardly know what to do with myself."
Hannah wins the first game in record time. "So I think I'm quitting that whole Hogwarts delusion thing," she says, dealing the next game.
"Oh yeah?" Xander says. "Cool."
"Although," Hannah says, "do I really have any guarantees that this is any more real? I mean, how do I know I'm not making this whole reality up too?"
Xander shrugs and plays his first card. It's a nine. "For one thing, you're not that important here," he says, and smiles at her.
Hannah looks at him and flips over her next card. It's also a nine.
"Except maybe to me," he says as they both slap frantically at the doubled cards. She's faster by a split second, so her hand is underneath his. He leaves his there for a long moment, and his palms aren't clammy, not at all. She has a feeling he doesn't taste like pumpkin, either. They look at each other.
Finally Hannah says, "So are you going to kiss me already or what?"
Xander shrugs and does. He's a good kisser.
"Well," she says, when they pull back. "You're no Draco."
"I can't tell you how many girls have told me that," Xander says, smiling, and plays his next card.
**
END
You're All In My Head
***
It feels like Hannah and Hermione and Dawn fly in the car for days and days, nothing around them but gray clouds and mist. When they fly through the clouds, it's wet and sort of unpleasant, and on the third day of this Hannah begins to wonder if the ground even exists anymore.
"Of course the ground exists," Hermione says. "Don't be stupid."
"So let's fly down and see it," Hannah says.
"No, it's too dangerous," Hermione says, and she usually knows everything, or thinks she does, so there's no point in arguing.
"I like flying better anyway," Dawn says, and so they fly and fly.
Hannah's dreams have gotten strange. She dreams she's in a mental institution and the doctor keeps talking to her.
"Hannah," he keeps saying. "Hannah, do you understand me?"
He tells her that Buffy has died. "Your roommate's dead, Hannah."
"Buffy wasn't my roommate," she tells him. "She was that Slayer girl. And I know she's dead. What, do you think I'm stupid?"
"Hannah," he says patiently, and it's like he's very excited and trying to hold back. "Listen to me. You don't have to stay in Buffy's delusion. She wasn't a Slayer, she was just a very disturbed girl who pulled you into her fantasies. You can come out of it, now."
"Uh, whatever," Hannah says, and wakes up.
Dawn's watching her from the front seat. "Are you okay?" she asks.
"Yeah," Hannah says. "I just had this dream. I was in an asylum and the doctor said that you all were just Buffy's delusions that I, uh, 'participated in'."
"That's stupid," Hermione says. "I never even met Buffy."
"He said that's why the world's dissolving," Hannah says. "That since it's Buffy's world I can't keep it together."
"That's even stupider," Dawn says.
"Yeah, the world's not dissolving," Hermione says. "It's right down there."
"Where?" Hannah says, and looks, but all she sees is more clouds.
"It's down there," Hermione says. "Trust me."
**
Hannah dreams that she's sitting in a gray institutional chair, and her mother is reading her a story. It's all about witches and wizards at a school called Hogwarts, and a boy named Harry Potter, and the Triwizard Tournament. The funniest part is that Hermione's in the book too.
"You were in my dream," Hannah tells her when she wakes up. "You were in a book my mother was reading to me."
"Weird," Hermione says.
"You were my favorite character," Hannah says. "You went to a school named Hogwarts."
"I know," Hermione says. "I told you about how I went there, remember? You must've put that in your dream."
"I guess," Hannah says.
"You know what?" Hermione says. "We should go there. To Hogwarts. I bet Dumbledore will know what to do about the sun."
"That's a really good idea," Dawn says.
"Will it take long to get there?" Hannah asks.
"No, not long," says Hermione.
**
Hannah dreams she overhears the doctor talking to her mother in the hallway outside her room.
"She's becoming more and more lucid," the doctor is saying. "The world of her delusions, the world that Buffy created, is falling apart. It's been reduced to a flying car with just Hannah and apparently her two favorite people from the delusion."
Her mother says something Hannah doesn't catch.
"Well, they're the little sister that Buffy fabricated out of nothing, and, strangely, the character Hermione from the Harry Potter novels, whom Hannah herself seems to have inserted into Buffy's world."
"I've been reading those books to her," Hannah just barely hears her mother say.
"I believe that with the world Hannah's been living in crumbling around her, there's a good chance we could get her to come out of these delusions entirely. I'll adjust her medications, and we'll hope that she doesn't begin to create her own internal world to replace Buffy's."
When Hannah wakes up, she doesn't tell Hermione and Dawn about the dream. She's beginning to worry - Dawn is becoming fainter, somehow. Hannah can see the can of Pringles through her head. She's pretty sure that's not right, but it doesn't seem to bother Hermione, so Hannah doesn't think much of it.
"We're here," Hermione says, bringing the car down out of the clouds. It's a Ford Anglia now, but it's still blue.
Hannah can see the castle across the lake. "Don't hit the Whomping Willow," she says, and Hermione nods.
"I hope we're in time for the sorting," Hermione says. "This is our last year."
**
The sorting hat puts Hannah into Gryffindor, and everyone cheers. "I knew you'd be a Gryffindor!" Hermione yells into her ear, and hugs her. She's back in her robes, and her hair is a lot bushier. She's got a badge pinned to her robes - Head Girl.
Hermione grabs Hannah's hand and pulls her over to sit with her and Harry and Ron.
"It's good to be seventh years, isn't it?" Ron says. "Look at all the ickle first years."
Harry is staring at Hannah. "You're very pretty," he says, then turns bright red.
After the sorting, when the feast has started, the ghosts all come flying in formation through the dining hall. A translucent Dawn is with them. Hannah waves.
"Hey guys!" Dawn says. "Hey! Watch this!" She does a back flip in the air. "Cool, right?"
"Awesome," Hannah agrees.
"Okay, well, me and Nearly Headless Nick are going to practice some formation gliding, I'll see you guys later!" Dawn says, and floats away.
"I like your trainers," Harry says to Hannah. He's still staring at her with a rather schmoopy look on his face. She looks at her pink Converse, peeking out from under her robes, and smiles.
"Thanks," she says. "I like your lightning bolt scar."
Harry blushes furiously and takes a drink of his pumpkin juice. "Thanks," he manages.
After the feast, she and Hermione go back to the Gryffindor common room.
"Hello, Hannah," the Fat Lady says when she lets them through.
"How do you know my name?" Hannah asks.
"Oh, all the portraits are talking about you," the Fat Lady says. "You're the most talented witch Hogwarts has ever seen. That's why Dumbledore let you transfer in so late."
"Oh, it's nothing," Hannah says modestly.
But that night in the girls' dormitory, she dreams of the institution again, the asylum. But this time Xander is there. Two eyed, so she knows he isn't real.
"Hey, Hannah," he says, and smiles his crooked smile, and sits in the chair next to her bed.
"You're the First Evil," she says. "I can tell."
"No," he says. "I'm Xander. Do you remember me? I'm a friend of Buffy's. I used to visit."
Of course she remembers. She's not crazy. "We would get coffee," she says. "In dreams."
"Yeah, that's right," he says. "I thought maybe we could go get some now. Or get a pizza. Are you hungry? I'm hungry."
Hannah turns her back on him. "I'm not listening to you. You're dead, and evil."
She hears him sit back in the chair, but she doesn't turn around. When she peeks over her shoulder a few minutes later, he's still there. That's funny - she'd expected him to vanish.
He shrugs at her. "Okay, so I'm evil. Do you want to play cards?"
They play Egyptian Ratscrew. She thinks she used to play that in high school, in the hallways. Waiting for Spanish Club to start, maybe, or backstage before drama. She's good at the slapping - she beats Xander easily.
They play again. She slaps on a king and Xander groans.
"So how come you still visit me now that Buffy's dead?"
Xander shrugs. "I like you, I guess."
**
She wakes up in a four poster, with Hermione sleeping in the next bed. She lies awake thinking about her dream until Dawn comes floating in.
"Oh, you're awake," Dawn says. "FINALLY. Being a ghost is really boring. You can only taunt Mrs. Norris for so long."
"Ghosts don't sleep?" Hannah asks.
"Duh," Dawn says. "We're dead."
"When did you die?" Hannah asks, but Dawn's already floating away.
"C'mon," she throws back over her shoulder. "Dumbledore wants to talk to you before breakfast."
Dawn knows the password, but doesn't wait for Hannah to go up the spiral staircase, just floats straight through the ceiling.
"Cheater," Hannah says, and hears Dawn laugh up above her.
"Welcome to Hogwarts," Dumbledore says when Hannah's settled in a chair. Fawkes, his phoenix, comes over to sit on Hannah's arm. He nibbles affectionately at her hair.
"Remarkable," Dumbledore says.
Dawn hovers near the ceiling. "Oh, everyone loves Hannah," she says.
"Well, I just wanted to give you your schedule," Dumbledore says, and hands Hannah a piece of paper. "I'm sure it'll all be rather elementary for a witch of your abilities, but they are the most advanced classes Hogwarts offers." Hannah looks at it; Advanced Potions, Advanced Transfiguration, Advanced Charms, Advanced Arithmancy. They're all N.E.W.T. level courses.
"Is there anything else you'd like to discuss?" Dumbledore asks, and looks at her over his glasses.
"Well, I've been having these dreams," Hannah says. "I dream that I'm in an institution and this is all my delusion."
"Hmm," Dumbledore says and steeples his fingers. "Very interesting."
"What does it mean?" Hannah asks. Fawkes flies back to his perch.
"Well, it makes perfect sense," Dumbledore says. "After your traumatic experiences in Los Angeles, of course your mind wishes to believe this is all a hallucination."
"But it's not," Hannah says.
"Of course not," Dumbledore says. "I'm as real as you are. And as you make more connections here at Hogwarts, your dreams of this asylum will no doubt disappear."
"Well, good," Hannah says, but she feels uneasy.
"You're safe now," Dumbledore says, and shows her out.
**
The Gryffindor Quidditch team needs new Chasers, and Hannah tries out. When Harry tosses her the quaffle, she makes an amazing catch, then turns and puts it through the middle hoop from midfield. Everyone applauds.
"Brilliant!" Harry says. "You're on the team!"
Ron claps her on the back. "I've never seen anything like it."
She and Harry are the last two in the locker room after the tryouts. She hangs up her new Quidditch robes, and when she turns around, he's standing right there.
"Hannah," he says. "You're the most amazing girl I've ever met."
She smiles. He leans in and kisses her. He tastes rather unpleasantly of pumpkin, but she kisses him back anyway. He's Harry Potter, after all.
**
Her days at Hogwarts get really busy, what with Quidditch practice and all the studying she and Hermione are doing for their N.E.W.T.s, not to mention the DA practices that she leads to train everyone to fight Voldemort. She hardly manages to fit in long moonlit strolls holding hands with her new boyfriend Harry.
His palms are kind of clammy, but she ignores that.
Dumbledore was right. Now she's much too busy to dream about the institution. Except for Xander. She still dreams about Xander sometimes, but she doesn't tell anyone, not even Hermione.
"So you're dating Harry Potter, huh?" Xander says, dealing the cards out.
"Yeah," says Hannah.
"What's that like?"
"It's okay," Hannah says. She puts down a queen and Xander puts down two cards, a ten and a two. Hannah takes the stack. "He's kind of…." She trails off.
Xander looks at her, and plays an ace. Hannah starts to put down cards.
"What?" Xander says.
"Boring," Hannah says. "And he tastes like pumpkin."
Xander laughs, and she slaps two eights in a row while he's not paying attention.
"You suck at this game," Hannah says. "I don't know why you keep coming back to play it."
Xander shrugs. "Oh, I think I'm in love with you."
Hannah laughs. "Whatever."
"Why not?" Xander says. "Everybody at Hogwarts is."
"Well, I'm very likable," Hannah says. "Just yesterday Draco tried to kiss me in the Herbology shed." She takes Xander's last three cards. "I win."
"Play again?" Xander asks. She beats him three more times.
**
At first she liked Hogwarts, but after a few weeks it gets a little, well, boring. And not just Harry, either, though he's pretty bad. She breaks up with him after a Charms lesson and he gets so red in the face she wonders how she ever found him attractive.
"WELL, I NEVER LIKED YOU ANYWAY," Harry says, and stomps off.
Then she quits the Quidditch team. She always scores all the goals anyway, and getting paraded around on everyone's shoulders is only fun the first couple of times.
After that she stops going to classes. She doesn't know why, she's just sick of it all. She misses Dawn and Hermione; she realizes she hasn't seen Dawn for at least a week, and Hermione isn't fun anymore.
She asks Xander about it. "Do you think Dawn's disappeared because she was part of Buffy's delusion and I can't keep it going without Buffy around?"
"Do I look like a psychiatrist?" Xander says. "Anyway, it's your turn to deal."
Hannah tries to research delusions and hallucinations in the Hogwarts library, but everything they have there is on magical hallucinations, and it doesn't really help. Hermione comes and finds her there.
"What are you doing? Why weren't you in Arithmancy earlier?"
Hannah shrugs. "Didn't feel like it. Have you seen Dawn?"
Hermione looks confused. "Who?"
"Yeah, exactly," Hannah says. "I'm researching hallucinations but the library doesn't have much on non-magical stuff. And Xander didn't know anything."
"Xander," Hermione says. "That boy you used to dream about? Are you still dreaming about him?"
"Uh, sort of," Hannah says. "It's not really him, though. He has two eyes. So it's really the First Evil. Did you know that evil sucks at cards?"
Hermione's eyes are wide. "Voldemort is coming to you in dreams, disguised as Xander?"
"That's not really what I sa-" Hannah starts, but Hermione's already standing up, panicky.
"We have to tell Dumbledore!"
"Oh, sit down," Hannah says. "It's not Voldemort. Don't be ridiculous." But Hermione's already rushed off.
"This is a dumb delusion!" Hannah yells, and she's sitting at a table in the asylum's day room, holding a deck of cards.
"Hey," Xander says. "Keep it down, will you? The nurses'll think I'm torturing you."
"Am I dreaming?"
"Nah," Xander says. "No pumpkin tasting saviors of all wizarding kind lurking around this place. It's kind of dull that way."
"Thank God," says Hannah.
"Hurry up and deal," Xander says. "I haven't been massacred at Egyptian Ratscrew in three days. I hardly know what to do with myself."
Hannah wins the first game in record time. "So I think I'm quitting that whole Hogwarts delusion thing," she says, dealing the next game.
"Oh yeah?" Xander says. "Cool."
"Although," Hannah says, "do I really have any guarantees that this is any more real? I mean, how do I know I'm not making this whole reality up too?"
Xander shrugs and plays his first card. It's a nine. "For one thing, you're not that important here," he says, and smiles at her.
Hannah looks at him and flips over her next card. It's also a nine.
"Except maybe to me," he says as they both slap frantically at the doubled cards. She's faster by a split second, so her hand is underneath his. He leaves his there for a long moment, and his palms aren't clammy, not at all. She has a feeling he doesn't taste like pumpkin, either. They look at each other.
Finally Hannah says, "So are you going to kiss me already or what?"
Xander shrugs and does. He's a good kisser.
"Well," she says, when they pull back. "You're no Draco."
"I can't tell you how many girls have told me that," Xander says, smiling, and plays his next card.
**
END