FEST FIC: Salix Catharsis (BtVS, Hermione/Oz)
Title: Salix Catharsis
Author: maebynot
Crossover Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Summary: “The actual title is the Remus J. Lupin Memorial Foundation for Werewolves in Need, but essentially, yes, Werewolves Anonymous,” Giles said, handing Oz a business card. “And I think you’d be a great help to Ms. Granger.”
Rating: G is for Gen.
Pairing/Prompt: Hermione/Oz (more hinting at what could happen than a true pairing.)
Word Count: 5,550
Author's Notes: Takes place immediately following “New Moon Rising” and a bit after the end of Deathly Hallows (but way before the epilogue). Pretty Buffy-heavy at first, but as in everything else I have ever written, there’s a lot of build-up before the actual plot starts to happen.
*
He hadn’t planned on Tibet being so cold.
He wished he had packed a parka or something. But thoughts of parkas reminded him of the first time he saw Willow, and so he took a deep breath, grasped his prayer beads a bit tighter, and returned to meditation.
*
Returning to Sunnydale was like listening to “Dazed and Confused” stoned for the first time: you know each lick of the guitar, and all the lyrics, but it’s ten times brighter and each note is a different color.
Licks of the guitar: the Scoobies were gathered at Giles’s, the standard meeting place since Buffy blew the library up. The stoned part: there were Scoobies there that hadn’t been there before (so much for the Slayer being a Secret), and Willow had shorter hair and Buffy’s was curlier and Xander was awkward and Giles smelled of depression.
The same. Yet different.
He sighed as he watched her walk back to her dorm, knowing tears were still rolling down her cheeks, and that choosing him instead of Tara wouldn’t have made them stop.
He said he was leaving ‘pretty much now.’
But where was he going to go?
*
He both was and wasn’t surprised to find Giles sitting alone in his apartment, valiantly trying to read a book by the light of the few candles he had put out to combat the darkness that hadn’t lifted yet.
“Oz,” he said when he entered, quietly surprised. “What brings you here?”
He shrugged. “Hitting the road again. Said goodbye to everyone else but you. Wanted to fix that.”
Even in the dark, he could swear he caught Giles blush. “Er, yes. Well - goodbye, you say?” He brought his head up shortly, not sure he heard Oz correctly.
“I say hello, right?” Oz walked past the desk and sat down on the arm of the couch.
Giles smoothly tried to hide the tumbler of whisky that was almost empty behind his book. “What happened?”
“Willow still loves me, but not like she used to. And she brings the wolf out in me, which, bad stuff. So, I’m leaving again. Thought I’d say goodbye.”
“Oh, Oz, I’m so sorry.” Giles took off his glasses, wiped his face, and then stood up to pour another drink. He handed it to Oz. At the boy’s surprised look, Giles explained, “You can stay here and be off in the morning.”
“Thanks.” Oz took the tumbler and toasted Giles briefly. The whisky burned a path down his throat and settled into a comfortable glow in his stomach. As his eyes stopped watering, he said, “While you’re handing out stuff, can I ask you something?” Giles nodded and had his hand halfway to his wallet when Oz put out a hand to stop him. “Not that, but thanks. Look, for the past nine months, I’ve had a goal - control the wolf. Done that. Now I need another goal, and … I thought maybe you would have a direction for me.”
Giles looked past Oz for a few moments, then asked, “What did you have in mind?”
Oz shrugged. “Don’t know. Something not here, preferably. But, I’ve been fighting the forces of evil for almost two years - minus the nine months as a globetrotter. I’d like to keep that going.”
Giles picked up his drink and swirled the liquid around, thinking. After a minute, he said, “There’s another hellmouth in Cleveland.”
“Hall of Fame. Awesome.”
“You’d need training.” Giles gave Oz a sidelong glance.
“I almost had the E-flat diminished ninth, but I had to sell my guitar for passage to Europe.”
“I was talking about being a Watcher.”
Oz looked at the former librarian in awe. “You - you think I could be a Watcher?”
Giles sat back down at his desk and regarded Oz for a moment. Into the dark, he quietly asked, “I think the question is, do you think you could be a Watcher?”
Oz took another sip and really thought about it. Research, no problem. He normally wasn’t one for speeches, but when he did speak, people listened - even Buffy. But finally, the idea of sending off a young girl (who, for some reason, was dressed like an Eskimo - he’d have to ask if there was a hellmouth in Alaska) to fight demons and vampires and ultimately get herself killed was enough to turn his stomach. He shook his head.
Giles caught the motion in the dim candlelight and smiled. “I didn’t think so. Xander forgets that while Buffy has cheated death numerous times, the other girls didn’t, and whoever comes next probably won’t either. No, Watching wouldn’t do for you. But,” he said, getting out of his chair and crossing to one of his bookcases, “there may be someone else who can help you. And maybe, you can help them, what with your new talents.”
Oz snickered. “Werewolves Anonymous?”
“The actual title is the Remus J. Lupin Memorial Foundation for Werewolves in Need, but essentially, yes, Werewolves Anonymous.” Giles handed Oz a business card. Oz turned it over in his hands as Giles continued.
“Before I came over here to be Buffy’s Watcher, back in England, a war had been waged by witches and wizards against one that was called ‘He Who Must Not Be Named’, an evil wizard who killed those with a mixture of magical and non-magical blood, hoping to … well, it was a form of genocide, really. The war ended just before I moved to Sunnydale. I had many friends that died in the final battle, including the Remus Lupin for whom the foundation is named. Remus was a werewolf,” Giles said, looking at Oz pointedly. “And one of Remus’s former students created the foundation to help those afflicted by lycanthropy. And I think you’d be a great help to Ms. Granger.”
Oz took another sip as the pale candlelight glinted over the title ‘Hermione Granger, Chief Executive Officer’. “How do I get in contact with her?”
“Don’t worry; I can arrange a meeting for you. For now, however, I think it’d be best if you get some sleep. We can make flight arrangements in the morning.”
“Sure. No problem.” Giles took their glasses into the kitchen as Oz fluffed up the pillow at the end of the couch. As Giles passed back to the stairs, Oz called out, “Thanks, Giles.”
Giles paused at the bottom of the stairs, hand on the banister. He sounded slightly choked up as he said, “Thank you, Oz. Good night.”
*
London. Somewhere in the middle. Not nearly as warm as Sunnydale, but not nearly as cold as Tibet. No thoughts of parkas invaded his mind as he hailed a cab outside of Heathrow.
“Number seventeen Charing Cross Road, please,” he said. At the driver’s glance at his dark auburn hair, he added, “There’s a record shop there.”
The driver nodded, all understanding, and the cab jumped into gear. The sights of London passed by in a blur. Oz hadn’t spent much time in Europe. He had trudged through Mexico, made friends with a migrant farmer who was heading down to Venezuela, and a month later he ended up in Brazil. He took a trip up the Paraná with a witch doctor to locate a tribe of Amazonians. After getting recipes for some pastes and potions that lessened the pain of transforming, he returned to São Paulo and met a wealthy entrepreneur who also happened to go wolfy once a month. He told Oz to go to Romania and find a warlock at the base of the Carpathians. From there it was Greece, Kazakhstan, and finally Tibet.
He had completely bypassed the civilized magical areas. He didn’t even realize there was such a thing in London. He should have, though. As Buffy had once said about Oxford, that’s where they made Gileses. Of course London would be a huge magical center.
The cab sputtered to a stop at number seventeen Charing Cross. Oz took a couple of pounds out of his pocket and paid the driver, mentally adding the total to the amount he owed Giles, though he knew the librarian would never accept reimbursement. He stepped into the record shop and once the smell of CDs and hemp hit his nose, he switched to automatic.
It had been a long time since he’d set foot in a record store; they’re kind of endangered in the far reaches of Tibet. He headed to the new release section and perused the artists. He hadn’t heard of most of them, but he picked up a few titles that sounded interesting. From there to the recommended artists. When in doubt, turn to the experts - or, at least, those who considered themselves to be experts. And record store guys knew everything about music and nothing about anything else, in his experience.
He glanced at his watch, then realized he hadn’t set it to Greenwich Mean Time yet. He put down his CDs and tried to do the math. He was counting on his fingers when he heard, “Fourteen hundred exactly.”
He turned to find a bright-eyed and bushy-haired woman in a light blue suit looking at him as if he were on exhibit. “I’m sorry?”
“The time. Although I think you call it two o’clock.” She nodded at the pile of CDs. “Apparently you were early.”
“Oh, thanks.” Oz changed his watch, then picked up his CDs, not hurrying in the least. He shifted the pile to his left hand and held out his right. “Ms. Granger, I presume?”
“Mr. Osbourne,” she acknowledged, gripping his hand and shaking it once. “Pleasure. I trust you were able to find the place all right?”
Oz shrugged. “I’m here. Guess I did.”
Ms. Granger gave Oz a look, slightly confused. “Right. Let’s adjourn to the actual meeting place, shall we?”
“What’s wrong with here?”
“I’m not sure we want to be overheard.” In a sharp whisper, she said, “Muggles still react weirdly to talk of lycanthropy.”
“Right. Give me a minute.” He went to the counter and purchased his CDs, and when they were in a bag and his change was in his pocket, he turned to Ms. Granger. “Let’s go.”
“Erm, yes.” She turned on her heel and marched out of the store at a brisk pace, then turned to her left. When Oz caught up with her, she was standing in front of a dilapidated warehouse.
“Here?”
“Not quite. Take my hand.” She held out her hand to him, and he looked at it. She gave a huff of impatience. “Please, I won’t bite, and you won’t be able to follow unless I’m bringing you, and I can’t do that unless you’re holding my hand.”
“Oh. All right.” Oz took the hand and followed her into the warehouse, which turned out to be a pleasant pub. She sat at a table in a corner and folded her hands in front of her. As soon as Oz had settled himself, she started in.
“You have come highly recommended, Mr. Osbourne, and I just-”
“Oz.”
She blinked. “Pardon?”
“Call me Oz.”
“Oh.” Discomfited, she carried on. “I just wanted to extend my gratitude for your coming here from America and being willing to assist us with the Foundation. Mr. Giles tells me that you also suffer from lycanthropy?”
“Yeah.” She blinked again. When he realized she wanted him to go into further detail, he continued. “I mean, I used to.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, ‘used to’? Are you a-” she dropped her voice “-werewolf, or not?”
“Am, but don’t change anymore. At least, when I’m not around Willow.”
Her eyes widened. “Interesting.” From out of nowhere, she had taken out a pad of paper and a quill. She muttered to herself as she jotted down notes. ”Not around willow. Just one particular species of willow, or do all willow trees keep you from transforming?”
“Particular. Rosenberg.”
“Is the Rosenberg Willow indigenous to Southern California?”
“She hasn’t traveled much, no.”
Ms. Granger abruptly stopped scribbling and looked up, eyes dark with irritation. “Willow is a woman?”
“My ex, actually.” He was finding it easier to talk about her a hemisphere away. The tightness in his chest was loosening every day. “Willow Rosenberg. When I went back home after my trip, I got jealous of her new girlfriend. And boom, wolfy.”
“Boom, wolfy?” Ms. Granger’s voice rose with skepticism. “Are you sure you’re aware of your plight, Mr. Osbourne?”
“I told you, Oz, and yes. I figured out how to control my changes; it’s just around her that I go wolf now. It’s why I’m in England - partly separation, partly to help other wolves.”
She seemed to like that explanation. She picked up her quill again. “How are you able to control your transformations? Do you take a potion, or is it a charm?”
“A combo of meditation and prayer beads. And some monk chanted something the first time. To be honest, I’m curious to see if I can keep from transforming this month. I’m hoping that contact with Willow didn’t affect the spell, because if it did - I don’t think I’ll be able to get a-hold of Thelonious anytime soon.”
Ms. Granger put her quill down and looked him square in the eye. “I’ll make a deal with you, erm, Oz. The full moon is due in a week. If you are willing to undergo surveillance during its phase, and you are successful in your attempt to curb your transformation, I have a spot on the Foundation board that is yours.”
“And if I can’t ‘curb’?”
Ms. Granger shrugged. “Then we’ll talk again and see what we can do for you.”
“Deal.” She shook his hand. “I’m staying at-”
“Tom will set you up.” She stood up and called for Tom, and almost immediately an old man with a hunch came over to the table. “Tom will send for your things, and you’re to stay here until Thursday.” She stood. “While your room is being taken care of, I’ll introduce you to Diagon Alley and the Wizarding World.”
*
The Wizarding World was kind of awesome, he discovered.
His room was fine - no deluxe suite, but it had a bed, which was always a plus. It overlooked Charing Cross Road, not the more fantastical Diagon Alley, but Oz preferred his view. It was easier to fall asleep to the sounds of taxi cabs and quiet book shops than the constantly-exploding sign for Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes.
Leading up to a full moon, a wolf needed all the sleep he could get.
He would never admit it to Hermione - just before she left him, she had finally allowed him to call her Hermione - , but he was a bit nervous about Thursday night. If he hadn’t returned to Sunnydale, he knew he’d be fine. But he wasn’t sure what Riley’s pals had done to him, and he was afraid that they’d messed up what he’d worked so hard to develop over nine months.
If he turned into a wolf again, he may just kill himself. He couldn’t go through locking himself up in a cage every month again.
He spent the next couple of days wandering Diagon Alley, buying books from Flourish and Botts (and charging them to Hermione, as he had been instructed), mostly on magical music techniques and healing charms. He enjoyed Fortescue’s heartily, though he’d never really been a big fan of ice cream. He stocked up on some of his herbs at the Apothecary in preparation for Thursday night.
He also had a magic pass, of sorts, to cross back and forth between Real London and Magic London. He carried his Discman in his coat pocket and rode the Tube for hours on end, saw the sights, made sure to pay pilgrimage to Abbey Road, and left a bouquet of flowers at the gates of Buckingham Palace for Diana.
Finally, Thursday arrived. At six, there was a soft knock on his door, followed by, “Oz? It’s time.”
He grabbed his jacket and his prayer beads, leaving behind his Discman and the books he had purchased. Hermione was dressed differently; not in the suit he had met her in or another like it, but in hiking pants and boots, with her curly hair tied back in a messy, bushy ponytail.
Oz looked at her up and down and asked, “Should I change?”
“I believe that’s the question, isn’t it?”
“My clothes. Are you going to lead me to the moors and leave me alone?”
“You hardly seem to be a sullen, Heathcliff-type character.”
His mouth quirked up into a small smile. “Touché. So. Where’re we headed?”
“A place for seclusion. Just in case.” She glanced behind him at the disarray of his room. “Bring everything you may need, because we’re going to be there for the duration.”
Oz started. “We?”
“Of course. You said that you were willing to be observed during your transformation. Who did you expect would be doing the observing?”
“Scientists? Army guys?”
She tilted her head. “Don’t be ridiculous. Who else better to observe than the founder of the … well, the foundation? Now come on, it’s nearly four o’clock, and you’ve never Apparated before, as far as I know.”
“Apparated?”
“It hurts a bit if you’ve never done it before, but it’s over quickly.”
“Oh,” he said as he shut the door behind them. “So, exactly like turning into a werewolf.”
*
He opened his eyes as he tried to get his breath back into his lungs. “Note to self,” he gasped. “Never Apparate again.”
Hermione brushed invisible dust off of her jacket. “It gets easier the more times you do it.” She stopped mid-brush and turned to him, just realizing something. “Although, you’re a Muggle. I’m not sure how many more chances you’d have to experience it.”
“None. I’m not doing it again.”
Hermione smirked. “Right.”
Oz looked around. He was in a dirty room; creaky, rotting hardwood floors under his feet, a couple of chairs covered in a thick layer of dust, no curtains on windows that hadn’t been washed in decades.
“Where are we?”
“The Shrieking Shack. It’s where Remus used to go during his transformation period. It’s isolated, and the residents of Hogsmeade believe it to be haunted. So if you do happen to change, no one will investigate any noise; they’ll just assume it’s the spirit of Severus Snape, trying to get peace in the afterlife.”
Oz nodded. Giles had told him the finer points of the final battle so he wouldn’t have to ask too many questions. Which was thoughtful, because Oz wasn’t a fan of asking too many questions.
Hermione wiped some dust off of the mantle. “So, what do you do to prepare for your change?”
“Well, I used to strip naked and lock myself in a cage with a couple of friends outside with a tranq gun.” Oz snuck a look at Hermione. She had paled considerably, and he smirked to himself, now even for the Apparition unpleasantness. “But lately, meditation.”
“Oh.” Her breathing returned to normal and she crossed to one of the chairs. “Well, don’t let me interrupt. I’m only here to observe, after all. We’ve got about an hour until sundown. Do you feel anything?”
“Nope.” He sat down Indian-style in front of the cold fireplace. “It hurts when it starts, but up until then, whole lotta nothing.”
Her quill and paper had materialized again, and she sat down on a dusty chair across from him. “Tell me about the last time you transformed.”
Unbidden, images of the lecture hall flashed through his head. The sun that was so pleasantly warm one minute and blinding white fire the next. Tara’s screaming face. The electrical shocks of the Initiative’s tasers.
“Oz?” Hermione asked quietly, bringing him back to the dust-covered present. He blinked a couple of times, then cleared his throat. “It was … different, from all the other times.”
“How?”
He fidgeted. “Well, for one, it was about two o’clock in the afternoon, two days after the full moon.”
Her eyes widened, and she almost dropped her quill. “You never told me that,” she said in a hushed voice.
He shrugged. “It never came up.”
Silence descended for a moment. Hermione fiddled with her quill, then the laces on her hiking boots. Finally, she looked up. “What caused it?”
“Willow.” He knew she wouldn’t be satisfied with that answer, but he needed to build himself up to really talk about it. He had skirted the issue with Giles before, didn’t want to explain the entire situation - truthfully, wasn’t sure how he could explain the situation to one of his closest friends. Maybe, it would be easier telling someone who had never met her, never loved her, what exactly had caused everything.
With a great sigh, he said, “I smelled her on another girl. One of her friends. Turns out, they were more than friends.”
“Oh.” A pause. Then, her eyes widening as she caught on, a gesture that inexplicably reminded him of Buffy, “oh.”
“I got jealous, and angry, and then, boom-”
“Wolfy,” Hermione finished. She scratched a couple of words onto the paper, then scratched them out in frustration. She tapped the quill a couple of times, lost in thought. She sighed, trying to put her thoughts into words. She said feebly, “I’ve never heard of that happening before.” She looked so forlorn.
The way that Willow would look when she couldn’t solve a problem, hack into a government system, cast a spell right.
He grew uncomfortable. He got up, brushed off the seat of his pants, and started to pace. He saw Hermione flinch at his movement. “Don’t worry. I just can’t sit still any longer.”
“Is it starting?” she asked in a cautious tone.
“No, I’ve got some time.” He crossed to the window and tried to make out any sign of landscape through the decades of dirt on the glass. “I’d never heard of it happening before, either. Course, I was the only werewolf in Sunnydale besides my cousin Jordy for the longest time, so, not a lot of people to commiserate with about my furry little problem. I spent all day yesterday at Flourish and Botts, trying to find another instance of a werewolf turning in the middle of the day. Nothing.”
Hermione snorted. “Flourish and Botts wouldn’t have that type of book. They deal in textbooks, greeting cards, and mass-market paperbacks. They even sell Muggle novels, occasionally.”
“That explains the large amount of books with Fabio on the cover in aisle five. I didn’t think he was a wizard.”
“Tomorrow,” she continued, “we’ll research at Hogwarts. If other werewolves have transformed outside of the full moon phase, it would be documented in one of the volumes in the Restricted Section.” Her voice had taken on an excited tenor, and he could see her walk out of the stacks, carrying her weight in leather-bound volumes and placing them reverently on a long library table.
“Cool,” he choked out against the memories of afternoons in the library sitting across from her. When he jerked himself out of his reverie, he realized that she hadn’t said if you don’t transform, or when you’re human again. It was just tomorrow. It was nice of her to give him that small sliver of hope. He turned back to Hermione with a smile. “You know, you remind me of her, a bit.”
She blushed, then fidgeted, slightly uncomfortable. She murmured, “Well, have no fear about me being more than friends with Luna Lovegood.”
He gave a brief grin and continued. “You’re both smart, funny witches that talk way more than you should to get your point across.” He tapped the window sill behind his back as more memories of Willow flitted through his brain. Her smile, her nose, her courage, her tears. “I loved her more than anything. Still do. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop.” He turned back to the mottled landscape through the window and caught a glimpse of the sun, setting just past the horizon. “Not too long now. You may want to step back.”
He heard her scramble up from her seated position and take a stand over by the doorway. “Do you feel like you might transform?”
“No. But then, I wasn’t expecting to morph in the middle of a psychology lecture the last time.”
“Fair enough.”
He could feel despair taking over, the niggling worry in his stomach turning into a weight, fear that all his hard work may now be for naught. In a panic, he turned back to Hermione, and said quickly, “Talk to me about something.”
She opened her eyes wide, startled and confused. “What?”
“I can’t think about what may happen anymore. Get my mind off it. Talk about something. Anything. Let’s do it Monty Python-style, something completely different. Like you, for instance.”
She laughed nervously. “What could you possibly want to talk about me for?”
“It beats the alternative.”
“What alternative?”
“Angst-ridden silence waiting to see if I’m a werewolf still or not.”
She bit her bottom lip and glanced past him at the sunset. He moved his head to be back in her line of vision. “It doesn’t have to be personal, just … noise. I don’t want to think about the thoughts in my head any more. I want to think about your thoughts.”
“About what?”
“Like I said, anything.” He smirked slightly. “I never thought that, between the two of us, I’d be the chatterbox.”
She blushed again at that, and started talking. About her pet that recently died. About the Battle for Hogwarts, where the namesake of the Foundation lost his life. About Lupin, and Tonks, and her friend’s godson Teddy. About the fabulous Harry Potter, and the war hero that died about four feet from where they were currently sitting. About the Wolfsbane Potion that Snape helped develop that was currently helping about forty werewolves transform with less pain. That got them around to what Oz had discovered in Romania and Tibet, the prayer beads, the pastes from the Amazon. Why he left Sunnydale led them to discuss Veruca, Graduation and the Mayor, Buffy and the Scoobies, and yet again, Willow.
By the time he finished with the tale of seeing the Eskimo at the World Culture Dance, it was ten p.m., and Oz was decidedly not a werewolf.
“You may want to write that down,” he teased, as Hermione goggled at her watch. “American Werewolf in London fails to meet expectations.”
“I can’t believe we just … missed the sun setting!”
“Don’t feel bad; if I had transformed, you wouldn’t have missed it.” He stood up from where he had been sitting again, and crossed to the window. The dirt blocked more of the moonlight than the earlier sunlight, and he could barely see past the end of his very-human nose. “Twenty-nine days out of the month, I miss the sunset, and it’s no big deal. Then, on that thirtieth day, I’d miss it, but for an entirely different reason. Now that I don’t change, it’s a third and completely different reason that I hate missing that last sunset.” His cool words belied the excitement and relief he felt. He was relieved that his brief sojourn in Sunnydale hadn’t ruined everything. He was thankful that Riley and his commandos hadn’t messed up his hard work. And he was amazed that Willow and Tara hadn’t completely screwed him over.
“Come on,” Hermione said, excited, holding a hand out to him. “We have to get back so we can continue our research.”
He eyed the proffered hand warily. “I’m not Apparating again, remember?”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry; we’re walking to our next destination.”
“Oh.” He took the hand and followed her out through a door and into an underground passageway. “We’re going to walk back to London?”
“No. We’re going to walk back to Hogwarts, do some research in the library, and tomorrow afternoon, catch the Hogwarts Express back to London.”
“Oh.” He ducked to avoid a low-hanging branch. “You have privileges at the library?”
“I graduated from Hogwarts top of my class, and I occasionally guest-lecture in Muggle Studies and Care of Magical Creatures, so yes, I have privileges.”
“Cool.”
They walked in silence until he could see the moonlight through a small hole in the ceiling. “Wait here,” Hermione said as she passed him and climbed out through the hole. He paused, glancing up at the elaborate root system above him. He could hear Hermione grunting and moving things outside the passage. After a couple of minutes, he heard her call out, “Okay, come on up.”
He climbed through the hole into the moonlight, grabbing Hermione’s hands for leverage. As he straightened his back out, he gazed at the full moon that was shining over Hogwarts. It was his first glimpse at the wizarding school, and he briefly wondered how much Willow would have loved learning here. It was a quiet country, peaceful, and she wouldn’t have had to worry about tutoring Percy, or keeping out of Snyder’s persecution, and they probably wouldn’t have had to keep Buffy’s ‘secret’ identity a secret.
But it was in the past now. He had left that life, and Willow, behind. And, most importantly, the life of a werewolf behind. Last month’s incident was just that, an incident, not an occurrence. An accident.
He had cured himself. And, hopefully, he can take his knowledge and help other werewolves in need.
Now sharing his companion’s enthusiasm for research, he turned around to find Hermione, anxious to hit the books. She was leaning against a tree that, upon closer inspection, was hiding the hole they had just climbed out of. She had an interesting expression on her face. “What is it?” he asked.
She shrugged and kicked herself off the trunk. “I’m just glad that those idiot Army boys were unable to mess your rhythm up, as you so eloquently put it.”
“Well, not turning into a man-eating dog is always a bonus in my book.” His voice quieted as the moonlight drifted through the leaves of the… “What kind of tree is that?”
“Oh, this one? It’s a salix whompus.” At his confused look, she stated with another smirk, “More commonly known as a Whomping Willow.” His stomach tightened a bit as she continued. “Dumbledore planted it here when Remus joined Hogwarts, to act as camouflage for the passage to the Shrieking Shack. I put it in the Foundation’s logo. I wanted it to be a symbol of haven for werewolves in need. We want those afflicted to know that they were always welcome with us, that they could turn to us when they needed help.” She turned to him. “Are you all right? You look a little pale.”
He met Hermione’s concerned expression with a small smile of his own. “It’s the light. I’m fine.”
She stood by him and looked at the willow tree with him for a moment. “You’re all right with it, right? Having a willow on our letterhead and business cards and everything else?”
“It’s fine. It’s not her picture on our letterhead, it’s a tree. And really, I’m not surprised.”
She looked at him. “You’re not?”
He grinned. “Nope. It’s like I turned a corner in Istanbul, and there she is. Not surprised at all.” He glanced over at her. “She’ll always be with me, I know that. I couldn’t let her go if I tried. And it fits. Every werewolf should have a willow to help him - or her - through the dark times.”
“I’m glad you feel that way.”
He lightly touched her elbow as he turned from the Whomping Willow. “Come on. I smell heavy-duty research mode coming on.”
*
Three weeks later, Hermione asked him, “Have you ever done magic before?”
“I almost had the E-flat diminished ninth, but I had to sell my guitar ten months ago.” She raised an eyebrow at him. He shrugged. “I helped Willow and Buffy out with some castings, but nothing on my own.”
She handed him a box. “Let’s see if you can do anything.”
He opened the box. Inside, nestled among tissue paper and cotton batting, was a wand.
“Mr. Ollivander said it would probably be the best for you,” she said as he picked it up. A rush of warmth spread up his arm, and Hermione grinned. “Looks like Mr. Ollivander was correct.”
“How? I never went into his store because it gave me the wiggins.”
“Mr. Ollivander is the best wandmaker in the country. I described your personality, your likes, dislikes, and-”
“You skipped over the part where I used to turn into a cold-blooded jelly doughnut, right?”
“Completely glossed over that part, yes. And he said you’d probably do very well with this.” She gestured to the wand. “Mr. Ollivander says that it’s 10 ½ inches, remarkably sturdy, made from willow tree, with dragon heartstring for a core. It’s excellent for transfiguration and potion work. It should suit you perfectly.”
He looked up at his colleague, who was very pleased that she had picked a wand so well. “Yeah,” he said, awed. “I think this will suit me fine.”
*
end.
*
Author: maebynot
Crossover Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Summary: “The actual title is the Remus J. Lupin Memorial Foundation for Werewolves in Need, but essentially, yes, Werewolves Anonymous,” Giles said, handing Oz a business card. “And I think you’d be a great help to Ms. Granger.”
Rating: G is for Gen.
Pairing/Prompt: Hermione/Oz (more hinting at what could happen than a true pairing.)
Word Count: 5,550
Author's Notes: Takes place immediately following “New Moon Rising” and a bit after the end of Deathly Hallows (but way before the epilogue). Pretty Buffy-heavy at first, but as in everything else I have ever written, there’s a lot of build-up before the actual plot starts to happen.
*
He hadn’t planned on Tibet being so cold.
He wished he had packed a parka or something. But thoughts of parkas reminded him of the first time he saw Willow, and so he took a deep breath, grasped his prayer beads a bit tighter, and returned to meditation.
*
Returning to Sunnydale was like listening to “Dazed and Confused” stoned for the first time: you know each lick of the guitar, and all the lyrics, but it’s ten times brighter and each note is a different color.
Licks of the guitar: the Scoobies were gathered at Giles’s, the standard meeting place since Buffy blew the library up. The stoned part: there were Scoobies there that hadn’t been there before (so much for the Slayer being a Secret), and Willow had shorter hair and Buffy’s was curlier and Xander was awkward and Giles smelled of depression.
The same. Yet different.
He sighed as he watched her walk back to her dorm, knowing tears were still rolling down her cheeks, and that choosing him instead of Tara wouldn’t have made them stop.
He said he was leaving ‘pretty much now.’
But where was he going to go?
*
He both was and wasn’t surprised to find Giles sitting alone in his apartment, valiantly trying to read a book by the light of the few candles he had put out to combat the darkness that hadn’t lifted yet.
“Oz,” he said when he entered, quietly surprised. “What brings you here?”
He shrugged. “Hitting the road again. Said goodbye to everyone else but you. Wanted to fix that.”
Even in the dark, he could swear he caught Giles blush. “Er, yes. Well - goodbye, you say?” He brought his head up shortly, not sure he heard Oz correctly.
“I say hello, right?” Oz walked past the desk and sat down on the arm of the couch.
Giles smoothly tried to hide the tumbler of whisky that was almost empty behind his book. “What happened?”
“Willow still loves me, but not like she used to. And she brings the wolf out in me, which, bad stuff. So, I’m leaving again. Thought I’d say goodbye.”
“Oh, Oz, I’m so sorry.” Giles took off his glasses, wiped his face, and then stood up to pour another drink. He handed it to Oz. At the boy’s surprised look, Giles explained, “You can stay here and be off in the morning.”
“Thanks.” Oz took the tumbler and toasted Giles briefly. The whisky burned a path down his throat and settled into a comfortable glow in his stomach. As his eyes stopped watering, he said, “While you’re handing out stuff, can I ask you something?” Giles nodded and had his hand halfway to his wallet when Oz put out a hand to stop him. “Not that, but thanks. Look, for the past nine months, I’ve had a goal - control the wolf. Done that. Now I need another goal, and … I thought maybe you would have a direction for me.”
Giles looked past Oz for a few moments, then asked, “What did you have in mind?”
Oz shrugged. “Don’t know. Something not here, preferably. But, I’ve been fighting the forces of evil for almost two years - minus the nine months as a globetrotter. I’d like to keep that going.”
Giles picked up his drink and swirled the liquid around, thinking. After a minute, he said, “There’s another hellmouth in Cleveland.”
“Hall of Fame. Awesome.”
“You’d need training.” Giles gave Oz a sidelong glance.
“I almost had the E-flat diminished ninth, but I had to sell my guitar for passage to Europe.”
“I was talking about being a Watcher.”
Oz looked at the former librarian in awe. “You - you think I could be a Watcher?”
Giles sat back down at his desk and regarded Oz for a moment. Into the dark, he quietly asked, “I think the question is, do you think you could be a Watcher?”
Oz took another sip and really thought about it. Research, no problem. He normally wasn’t one for speeches, but when he did speak, people listened - even Buffy. But finally, the idea of sending off a young girl (who, for some reason, was dressed like an Eskimo - he’d have to ask if there was a hellmouth in Alaska) to fight demons and vampires and ultimately get herself killed was enough to turn his stomach. He shook his head.
Giles caught the motion in the dim candlelight and smiled. “I didn’t think so. Xander forgets that while Buffy has cheated death numerous times, the other girls didn’t, and whoever comes next probably won’t either. No, Watching wouldn’t do for you. But,” he said, getting out of his chair and crossing to one of his bookcases, “there may be someone else who can help you. And maybe, you can help them, what with your new talents.”
Oz snickered. “Werewolves Anonymous?”
“The actual title is the Remus J. Lupin Memorial Foundation for Werewolves in Need, but essentially, yes, Werewolves Anonymous.” Giles handed Oz a business card. Oz turned it over in his hands as Giles continued.
“Before I came over here to be Buffy’s Watcher, back in England, a war had been waged by witches and wizards against one that was called ‘He Who Must Not Be Named’, an evil wizard who killed those with a mixture of magical and non-magical blood, hoping to … well, it was a form of genocide, really. The war ended just before I moved to Sunnydale. I had many friends that died in the final battle, including the Remus Lupin for whom the foundation is named. Remus was a werewolf,” Giles said, looking at Oz pointedly. “And one of Remus’s former students created the foundation to help those afflicted by lycanthropy. And I think you’d be a great help to Ms. Granger.”
Oz took another sip as the pale candlelight glinted over the title ‘Hermione Granger, Chief Executive Officer’. “How do I get in contact with her?”
“Don’t worry; I can arrange a meeting for you. For now, however, I think it’d be best if you get some sleep. We can make flight arrangements in the morning.”
“Sure. No problem.” Giles took their glasses into the kitchen as Oz fluffed up the pillow at the end of the couch. As Giles passed back to the stairs, Oz called out, “Thanks, Giles.”
Giles paused at the bottom of the stairs, hand on the banister. He sounded slightly choked up as he said, “Thank you, Oz. Good night.”
*
London. Somewhere in the middle. Not nearly as warm as Sunnydale, but not nearly as cold as Tibet. No thoughts of parkas invaded his mind as he hailed a cab outside of Heathrow.
“Number seventeen Charing Cross Road, please,” he said. At the driver’s glance at his dark auburn hair, he added, “There’s a record shop there.”
The driver nodded, all understanding, and the cab jumped into gear. The sights of London passed by in a blur. Oz hadn’t spent much time in Europe. He had trudged through Mexico, made friends with a migrant farmer who was heading down to Venezuela, and a month later he ended up in Brazil. He took a trip up the Paraná with a witch doctor to locate a tribe of Amazonians. After getting recipes for some pastes and potions that lessened the pain of transforming, he returned to São Paulo and met a wealthy entrepreneur who also happened to go wolfy once a month. He told Oz to go to Romania and find a warlock at the base of the Carpathians. From there it was Greece, Kazakhstan, and finally Tibet.
He had completely bypassed the civilized magical areas. He didn’t even realize there was such a thing in London. He should have, though. As Buffy had once said about Oxford, that’s where they made Gileses. Of course London would be a huge magical center.
The cab sputtered to a stop at number seventeen Charing Cross. Oz took a couple of pounds out of his pocket and paid the driver, mentally adding the total to the amount he owed Giles, though he knew the librarian would never accept reimbursement. He stepped into the record shop and once the smell of CDs and hemp hit his nose, he switched to automatic.
It had been a long time since he’d set foot in a record store; they’re kind of endangered in the far reaches of Tibet. He headed to the new release section and perused the artists. He hadn’t heard of most of them, but he picked up a few titles that sounded interesting. From there to the recommended artists. When in doubt, turn to the experts - or, at least, those who considered themselves to be experts. And record store guys knew everything about music and nothing about anything else, in his experience.
He glanced at his watch, then realized he hadn’t set it to Greenwich Mean Time yet. He put down his CDs and tried to do the math. He was counting on his fingers when he heard, “Fourteen hundred exactly.”
He turned to find a bright-eyed and bushy-haired woman in a light blue suit looking at him as if he were on exhibit. “I’m sorry?”
“The time. Although I think you call it two o’clock.” She nodded at the pile of CDs. “Apparently you were early.”
“Oh, thanks.” Oz changed his watch, then picked up his CDs, not hurrying in the least. He shifted the pile to his left hand and held out his right. “Ms. Granger, I presume?”
“Mr. Osbourne,” she acknowledged, gripping his hand and shaking it once. “Pleasure. I trust you were able to find the place all right?”
Oz shrugged. “I’m here. Guess I did.”
Ms. Granger gave Oz a look, slightly confused. “Right. Let’s adjourn to the actual meeting place, shall we?”
“What’s wrong with here?”
“I’m not sure we want to be overheard.” In a sharp whisper, she said, “Muggles still react weirdly to talk of lycanthropy.”
“Right. Give me a minute.” He went to the counter and purchased his CDs, and when they were in a bag and his change was in his pocket, he turned to Ms. Granger. “Let’s go.”
“Erm, yes.” She turned on her heel and marched out of the store at a brisk pace, then turned to her left. When Oz caught up with her, she was standing in front of a dilapidated warehouse.
“Here?”
“Not quite. Take my hand.” She held out her hand to him, and he looked at it. She gave a huff of impatience. “Please, I won’t bite, and you won’t be able to follow unless I’m bringing you, and I can’t do that unless you’re holding my hand.”
“Oh. All right.” Oz took the hand and followed her into the warehouse, which turned out to be a pleasant pub. She sat at a table in a corner and folded her hands in front of her. As soon as Oz had settled himself, she started in.
“You have come highly recommended, Mr. Osbourne, and I just-”
“Oz.”
She blinked. “Pardon?”
“Call me Oz.”
“Oh.” Discomfited, she carried on. “I just wanted to extend my gratitude for your coming here from America and being willing to assist us with the Foundation. Mr. Giles tells me that you also suffer from lycanthropy?”
“Yeah.” She blinked again. When he realized she wanted him to go into further detail, he continued. “I mean, I used to.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, ‘used to’? Are you a-” she dropped her voice “-werewolf, or not?”
“Am, but don’t change anymore. At least, when I’m not around Willow.”
Her eyes widened. “Interesting.” From out of nowhere, she had taken out a pad of paper and a quill. She muttered to herself as she jotted down notes. ”Not around willow. Just one particular species of willow, or do all willow trees keep you from transforming?”
“Particular. Rosenberg.”
“Is the Rosenberg Willow indigenous to Southern California?”
“She hasn’t traveled much, no.”
Ms. Granger abruptly stopped scribbling and looked up, eyes dark with irritation. “Willow is a woman?”
“My ex, actually.” He was finding it easier to talk about her a hemisphere away. The tightness in his chest was loosening every day. “Willow Rosenberg. When I went back home after my trip, I got jealous of her new girlfriend. And boom, wolfy.”
“Boom, wolfy?” Ms. Granger’s voice rose with skepticism. “Are you sure you’re aware of your plight, Mr. Osbourne?”
“I told you, Oz, and yes. I figured out how to control my changes; it’s just around her that I go wolf now. It’s why I’m in England - partly separation, partly to help other wolves.”
She seemed to like that explanation. She picked up her quill again. “How are you able to control your transformations? Do you take a potion, or is it a charm?”
“A combo of meditation and prayer beads. And some monk chanted something the first time. To be honest, I’m curious to see if I can keep from transforming this month. I’m hoping that contact with Willow didn’t affect the spell, because if it did - I don’t think I’ll be able to get a-hold of Thelonious anytime soon.”
Ms. Granger put her quill down and looked him square in the eye. “I’ll make a deal with you, erm, Oz. The full moon is due in a week. If you are willing to undergo surveillance during its phase, and you are successful in your attempt to curb your transformation, I have a spot on the Foundation board that is yours.”
“And if I can’t ‘curb’?”
Ms. Granger shrugged. “Then we’ll talk again and see what we can do for you.”
“Deal.” She shook his hand. “I’m staying at-”
“Tom will set you up.” She stood up and called for Tom, and almost immediately an old man with a hunch came over to the table. “Tom will send for your things, and you’re to stay here until Thursday.” She stood. “While your room is being taken care of, I’ll introduce you to Diagon Alley and the Wizarding World.”
*
The Wizarding World was kind of awesome, he discovered.
His room was fine - no deluxe suite, but it had a bed, which was always a plus. It overlooked Charing Cross Road, not the more fantastical Diagon Alley, but Oz preferred his view. It was easier to fall asleep to the sounds of taxi cabs and quiet book shops than the constantly-exploding sign for Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes.
Leading up to a full moon, a wolf needed all the sleep he could get.
He would never admit it to Hermione - just before she left him, she had finally allowed him to call her Hermione - , but he was a bit nervous about Thursday night. If he hadn’t returned to Sunnydale, he knew he’d be fine. But he wasn’t sure what Riley’s pals had done to him, and he was afraid that they’d messed up what he’d worked so hard to develop over nine months.
If he turned into a wolf again, he may just kill himself. He couldn’t go through locking himself up in a cage every month again.
He spent the next couple of days wandering Diagon Alley, buying books from Flourish and Botts (and charging them to Hermione, as he had been instructed), mostly on magical music techniques and healing charms. He enjoyed Fortescue’s heartily, though he’d never really been a big fan of ice cream. He stocked up on some of his herbs at the Apothecary in preparation for Thursday night.
He also had a magic pass, of sorts, to cross back and forth between Real London and Magic London. He carried his Discman in his coat pocket and rode the Tube for hours on end, saw the sights, made sure to pay pilgrimage to Abbey Road, and left a bouquet of flowers at the gates of Buckingham Palace for Diana.
Finally, Thursday arrived. At six, there was a soft knock on his door, followed by, “Oz? It’s time.”
He grabbed his jacket and his prayer beads, leaving behind his Discman and the books he had purchased. Hermione was dressed differently; not in the suit he had met her in or another like it, but in hiking pants and boots, with her curly hair tied back in a messy, bushy ponytail.
Oz looked at her up and down and asked, “Should I change?”
“I believe that’s the question, isn’t it?”
“My clothes. Are you going to lead me to the moors and leave me alone?”
“You hardly seem to be a sullen, Heathcliff-type character.”
His mouth quirked up into a small smile. “Touché. So. Where’re we headed?”
“A place for seclusion. Just in case.” She glanced behind him at the disarray of his room. “Bring everything you may need, because we’re going to be there for the duration.”
Oz started. “We?”
“Of course. You said that you were willing to be observed during your transformation. Who did you expect would be doing the observing?”
“Scientists? Army guys?”
She tilted her head. “Don’t be ridiculous. Who else better to observe than the founder of the … well, the foundation? Now come on, it’s nearly four o’clock, and you’ve never Apparated before, as far as I know.”
“Apparated?”
“It hurts a bit if you’ve never done it before, but it’s over quickly.”
“Oh,” he said as he shut the door behind them. “So, exactly like turning into a werewolf.”
*
He opened his eyes as he tried to get his breath back into his lungs. “Note to self,” he gasped. “Never Apparate again.”
Hermione brushed invisible dust off of her jacket. “It gets easier the more times you do it.” She stopped mid-brush and turned to him, just realizing something. “Although, you’re a Muggle. I’m not sure how many more chances you’d have to experience it.”
“None. I’m not doing it again.”
Hermione smirked. “Right.”
Oz looked around. He was in a dirty room; creaky, rotting hardwood floors under his feet, a couple of chairs covered in a thick layer of dust, no curtains on windows that hadn’t been washed in decades.
“Where are we?”
“The Shrieking Shack. It’s where Remus used to go during his transformation period. It’s isolated, and the residents of Hogsmeade believe it to be haunted. So if you do happen to change, no one will investigate any noise; they’ll just assume it’s the spirit of Severus Snape, trying to get peace in the afterlife.”
Oz nodded. Giles had told him the finer points of the final battle so he wouldn’t have to ask too many questions. Which was thoughtful, because Oz wasn’t a fan of asking too many questions.
Hermione wiped some dust off of the mantle. “So, what do you do to prepare for your change?”
“Well, I used to strip naked and lock myself in a cage with a couple of friends outside with a tranq gun.” Oz snuck a look at Hermione. She had paled considerably, and he smirked to himself, now even for the Apparition unpleasantness. “But lately, meditation.”
“Oh.” Her breathing returned to normal and she crossed to one of the chairs. “Well, don’t let me interrupt. I’m only here to observe, after all. We’ve got about an hour until sundown. Do you feel anything?”
“Nope.” He sat down Indian-style in front of the cold fireplace. “It hurts when it starts, but up until then, whole lotta nothing.”
Her quill and paper had materialized again, and she sat down on a dusty chair across from him. “Tell me about the last time you transformed.”
Unbidden, images of the lecture hall flashed through his head. The sun that was so pleasantly warm one minute and blinding white fire the next. Tara’s screaming face. The electrical shocks of the Initiative’s tasers.
“Oz?” Hermione asked quietly, bringing him back to the dust-covered present. He blinked a couple of times, then cleared his throat. “It was … different, from all the other times.”
“How?”
He fidgeted. “Well, for one, it was about two o’clock in the afternoon, two days after the full moon.”
Her eyes widened, and she almost dropped her quill. “You never told me that,” she said in a hushed voice.
He shrugged. “It never came up.”
Silence descended for a moment. Hermione fiddled with her quill, then the laces on her hiking boots. Finally, she looked up. “What caused it?”
“Willow.” He knew she wouldn’t be satisfied with that answer, but he needed to build himself up to really talk about it. He had skirted the issue with Giles before, didn’t want to explain the entire situation - truthfully, wasn’t sure how he could explain the situation to one of his closest friends. Maybe, it would be easier telling someone who had never met her, never loved her, what exactly had caused everything.
With a great sigh, he said, “I smelled her on another girl. One of her friends. Turns out, they were more than friends.”
“Oh.” A pause. Then, her eyes widening as she caught on, a gesture that inexplicably reminded him of Buffy, “oh.”
“I got jealous, and angry, and then, boom-”
“Wolfy,” Hermione finished. She scratched a couple of words onto the paper, then scratched them out in frustration. She tapped the quill a couple of times, lost in thought. She sighed, trying to put her thoughts into words. She said feebly, “I’ve never heard of that happening before.” She looked so forlorn.
The way that Willow would look when she couldn’t solve a problem, hack into a government system, cast a spell right.
He grew uncomfortable. He got up, brushed off the seat of his pants, and started to pace. He saw Hermione flinch at his movement. “Don’t worry. I just can’t sit still any longer.”
“Is it starting?” she asked in a cautious tone.
“No, I’ve got some time.” He crossed to the window and tried to make out any sign of landscape through the decades of dirt on the glass. “I’d never heard of it happening before, either. Course, I was the only werewolf in Sunnydale besides my cousin Jordy for the longest time, so, not a lot of people to commiserate with about my furry little problem. I spent all day yesterday at Flourish and Botts, trying to find another instance of a werewolf turning in the middle of the day. Nothing.”
Hermione snorted. “Flourish and Botts wouldn’t have that type of book. They deal in textbooks, greeting cards, and mass-market paperbacks. They even sell Muggle novels, occasionally.”
“That explains the large amount of books with Fabio on the cover in aisle five. I didn’t think he was a wizard.”
“Tomorrow,” she continued, “we’ll research at Hogwarts. If other werewolves have transformed outside of the full moon phase, it would be documented in one of the volumes in the Restricted Section.” Her voice had taken on an excited tenor, and he could see her walk out of the stacks, carrying her weight in leather-bound volumes and placing them reverently on a long library table.
“Cool,” he choked out against the memories of afternoons in the library sitting across from her. When he jerked himself out of his reverie, he realized that she hadn’t said if you don’t transform, or when you’re human again. It was just tomorrow. It was nice of her to give him that small sliver of hope. He turned back to Hermione with a smile. “You know, you remind me of her, a bit.”
She blushed, then fidgeted, slightly uncomfortable. She murmured, “Well, have no fear about me being more than friends with Luna Lovegood.”
He gave a brief grin and continued. “You’re both smart, funny witches that talk way more than you should to get your point across.” He tapped the window sill behind his back as more memories of Willow flitted through his brain. Her smile, her nose, her courage, her tears. “I loved her more than anything. Still do. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop.” He turned back to the mottled landscape through the window and caught a glimpse of the sun, setting just past the horizon. “Not too long now. You may want to step back.”
He heard her scramble up from her seated position and take a stand over by the doorway. “Do you feel like you might transform?”
“No. But then, I wasn’t expecting to morph in the middle of a psychology lecture the last time.”
“Fair enough.”
He could feel despair taking over, the niggling worry in his stomach turning into a weight, fear that all his hard work may now be for naught. In a panic, he turned back to Hermione, and said quickly, “Talk to me about something.”
She opened her eyes wide, startled and confused. “What?”
“I can’t think about what may happen anymore. Get my mind off it. Talk about something. Anything. Let’s do it Monty Python-style, something completely different. Like you, for instance.”
She laughed nervously. “What could you possibly want to talk about me for?”
“It beats the alternative.”
“What alternative?”
“Angst-ridden silence waiting to see if I’m a werewolf still or not.”
She bit her bottom lip and glanced past him at the sunset. He moved his head to be back in her line of vision. “It doesn’t have to be personal, just … noise. I don’t want to think about the thoughts in my head any more. I want to think about your thoughts.”
“About what?”
“Like I said, anything.” He smirked slightly. “I never thought that, between the two of us, I’d be the chatterbox.”
She blushed again at that, and started talking. About her pet that recently died. About the Battle for Hogwarts, where the namesake of the Foundation lost his life. About Lupin, and Tonks, and her friend’s godson Teddy. About the fabulous Harry Potter, and the war hero that died about four feet from where they were currently sitting. About the Wolfsbane Potion that Snape helped develop that was currently helping about forty werewolves transform with less pain. That got them around to what Oz had discovered in Romania and Tibet, the prayer beads, the pastes from the Amazon. Why he left Sunnydale led them to discuss Veruca, Graduation and the Mayor, Buffy and the Scoobies, and yet again, Willow.
By the time he finished with the tale of seeing the Eskimo at the World Culture Dance, it was ten p.m., and Oz was decidedly not a werewolf.
“You may want to write that down,” he teased, as Hermione goggled at her watch. “American Werewolf in London fails to meet expectations.”
“I can’t believe we just … missed the sun setting!”
“Don’t feel bad; if I had transformed, you wouldn’t have missed it.” He stood up from where he had been sitting again, and crossed to the window. The dirt blocked more of the moonlight than the earlier sunlight, and he could barely see past the end of his very-human nose. “Twenty-nine days out of the month, I miss the sunset, and it’s no big deal. Then, on that thirtieth day, I’d miss it, but for an entirely different reason. Now that I don’t change, it’s a third and completely different reason that I hate missing that last sunset.” His cool words belied the excitement and relief he felt. He was relieved that his brief sojourn in Sunnydale hadn’t ruined everything. He was thankful that Riley and his commandos hadn’t messed up his hard work. And he was amazed that Willow and Tara hadn’t completely screwed him over.
“Come on,” Hermione said, excited, holding a hand out to him. “We have to get back so we can continue our research.”
He eyed the proffered hand warily. “I’m not Apparating again, remember?”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry; we’re walking to our next destination.”
“Oh.” He took the hand and followed her out through a door and into an underground passageway. “We’re going to walk back to London?”
“No. We’re going to walk back to Hogwarts, do some research in the library, and tomorrow afternoon, catch the Hogwarts Express back to London.”
“Oh.” He ducked to avoid a low-hanging branch. “You have privileges at the library?”
“I graduated from Hogwarts top of my class, and I occasionally guest-lecture in Muggle Studies and Care of Magical Creatures, so yes, I have privileges.”
“Cool.”
They walked in silence until he could see the moonlight through a small hole in the ceiling. “Wait here,” Hermione said as she passed him and climbed out through the hole. He paused, glancing up at the elaborate root system above him. He could hear Hermione grunting and moving things outside the passage. After a couple of minutes, he heard her call out, “Okay, come on up.”
He climbed through the hole into the moonlight, grabbing Hermione’s hands for leverage. As he straightened his back out, he gazed at the full moon that was shining over Hogwarts. It was his first glimpse at the wizarding school, and he briefly wondered how much Willow would have loved learning here. It was a quiet country, peaceful, and she wouldn’t have had to worry about tutoring Percy, or keeping out of Snyder’s persecution, and they probably wouldn’t have had to keep Buffy’s ‘secret’ identity a secret.
But it was in the past now. He had left that life, and Willow, behind. And, most importantly, the life of a werewolf behind. Last month’s incident was just that, an incident, not an occurrence. An accident.
He had cured himself. And, hopefully, he can take his knowledge and help other werewolves in need.
Now sharing his companion’s enthusiasm for research, he turned around to find Hermione, anxious to hit the books. She was leaning against a tree that, upon closer inspection, was hiding the hole they had just climbed out of. She had an interesting expression on her face. “What is it?” he asked.
She shrugged and kicked herself off the trunk. “I’m just glad that those idiot Army boys were unable to mess your rhythm up, as you so eloquently put it.”
“Well, not turning into a man-eating dog is always a bonus in my book.” His voice quieted as the moonlight drifted through the leaves of the… “What kind of tree is that?”
“Oh, this one? It’s a salix whompus.” At his confused look, she stated with another smirk, “More commonly known as a Whomping Willow.” His stomach tightened a bit as she continued. “Dumbledore planted it here when Remus joined Hogwarts, to act as camouflage for the passage to the Shrieking Shack. I put it in the Foundation’s logo. I wanted it to be a symbol of haven for werewolves in need. We want those afflicted to know that they were always welcome with us, that they could turn to us when they needed help.” She turned to him. “Are you all right? You look a little pale.”
He met Hermione’s concerned expression with a small smile of his own. “It’s the light. I’m fine.”
She stood by him and looked at the willow tree with him for a moment. “You’re all right with it, right? Having a willow on our letterhead and business cards and everything else?”
“It’s fine. It’s not her picture on our letterhead, it’s a tree. And really, I’m not surprised.”
She looked at him. “You’re not?”
He grinned. “Nope. It’s like I turned a corner in Istanbul, and there she is. Not surprised at all.” He glanced over at her. “She’ll always be with me, I know that. I couldn’t let her go if I tried. And it fits. Every werewolf should have a willow to help him - or her - through the dark times.”
“I’m glad you feel that way.”
He lightly touched her elbow as he turned from the Whomping Willow. “Come on. I smell heavy-duty research mode coming on.”
*
Three weeks later, Hermione asked him, “Have you ever done magic before?”
“I almost had the E-flat diminished ninth, but I had to sell my guitar ten months ago.” She raised an eyebrow at him. He shrugged. “I helped Willow and Buffy out with some castings, but nothing on my own.”
She handed him a box. “Let’s see if you can do anything.”
He opened the box. Inside, nestled among tissue paper and cotton batting, was a wand.
“Mr. Ollivander said it would probably be the best for you,” she said as he picked it up. A rush of warmth spread up his arm, and Hermione grinned. “Looks like Mr. Ollivander was correct.”
“How? I never went into his store because it gave me the wiggins.”
“Mr. Ollivander is the best wandmaker in the country. I described your personality, your likes, dislikes, and-”
“You skipped over the part where I used to turn into a cold-blooded jelly doughnut, right?”
“Completely glossed over that part, yes. And he said you’d probably do very well with this.” She gestured to the wand. “Mr. Ollivander says that it’s 10 ½ inches, remarkably sturdy, made from willow tree, with dragon heartstring for a core. It’s excellent for transfiguration and potion work. It should suit you perfectly.”
He looked up at his colleague, who was very pleased that she had picked a wand so well. “Yeah,” he said, awed. “I think this will suit me fine.”
*
end.
*