Buffy Crossover Fic: An American Slayer in Northern England Part Six
Disclaimer etc. in Part One
Notes: Firstly, I haven’t watched BB&B in forever so I can’t recall all the details of the reversal spell. Second, the plants involved in the spell were picked using wikipedia as my reference for plants that are associated with Hecate and somewhat with Diana. If I’ve missed any other debts I owe in terms of this material, take it as read that just about anything you recognise that isn’t from one of my other fics has been taken from somewhere other than my own head. Next, I haven’t watched BB&B in forever so I can’t recall all the details of the reversal spell. Finally, the plants involved in the spell were picked using wikipedia as my reference for plants that are associated with Hecate and somewhat with Diana. If I’ve missed any other debts I owe in terms of this material, take it as read that just about anything you recognise that isn’t from one of my other fics has been taken from somewhere other than my own head.
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It was a goodly amount of time before Buffy had finished explaining to the headmaster and potions professor about vampires and Angel in particular. With frequent interruptions by Hermione in order to clarify some point or other of academic minutiae Buffy worked through the differences between the two types of vampires. The one type was a sort of magical curse, like that of a werewolf. As such, they were no more or less evil than any other creature, they simply had certain dietary requirements and restrictions as well as various lifestyle restrictions and advantages that distinguished them from ordinary humans.
The weaknesses mentioned by Snape back in the hallway to do with sunlight were some of the means usually used to determine if a person was a vampire. Contrary to popular opinion, crosses did not work on magical vampires as they did on demonic ones. Dumbledore and Snape listened to Buffy’s explanation of demonically created vampires with interest that rapidly translated into worry.
“As enlightening as this is, Miss Summers, I have yet to hear anything that leads me to believe that . . . Angel,” this was said with the utmost disgust, “Is not a danger to your fellow students.” Snape informed her.
“I was getting there,” Buffy told him irritably, then talked straight over his attempt at interruption and derision. “But if I’d started by saying that Angel was given back his soul by a gypsy curse in revenge for the killing of a daughter of their tribe by his demonic evil twin you wouldn’t know what I was talking about.”
Snape glared, but was unable to reply because she was right. And he still appreciated her confidence and lack of fear. Then he noted the blatant error in her explanation. “Gypsy curse? Are you, by any chance, referring to the occurrence known as ‘muggle magic’ Miss Summers? I had thought you more intelligent than to believe in such old wives’ tales.”
She glanced sideways at her friends but found no help there. Hermione had never really quite believed in Buffy’s stories of Amy and her mom and Drusilla’s foresight. Buffy had actually seen witches and other such people in action before, but it was one of the tenets of the wizarding world that no magic was possible save the magic that was performed by witches and wizards. As for Ron, Harry and Ginny, well, they just didn’t have any previous experience with it so they had no ideas about proof.
It took a moment, but Buffy recalled a couple experiences from the previous year and spoke up. “Okay, you don’t believe me, I get that. Can you give me just like, ten minutes to get some stuff and I’ll prove it?”
Snape seemed a little surprised and Dumbledore looked amused. Then again, it seemed that he was always amused by everything. However the headmaster nodded and Buffy then turned to the others. “Hermione, could you run down to the greenhouse and pick up some lavender, hellebore, regular muggle mandrake and aconite?” She turned to Snape, “Since you don’t trust anyone in your stores, could you get some black poplar leaves? Ginny could pick up the willow leaves. Other than that I just need some water and a cauldron.”
Twenty minutes later they had all reassembled in the headmaster’s office and were looking at Buffy eagerly. Buffy took all the items and laid them out in front of her. Then she cast a couple spells around the furniture. At their funny looks she shrugged a little and said, “It’ll be a little easier if there’s nowhere for him to hide.” No one’s expression changed in the slightest at her non-explanation and Buffy grinned before taking a deep breath in and concentrating very hard.
Willow had written to her about casting wiccan magic. First you had to determine exactly what the outcome of the spell was supposed to be. You had to have nothing in your mind but that outcome. Then you had to sense and collect the magical energy floating around the area. Buffy frowned. That was hard. She could sort of feel it tickling at the very edges of her consciousness, but it was nothing like the pervasive mist of power Willow insisted she saw everywhere. Which only went to prove that Willow was far more talented than Buffy at the whole wiccan witch thing.
With a sudden snap Buffy felt all the powers and things fall into place and began the invocation. “Goddess Hecate I conjure thee,” she said, the volume of her voice rising with each word. A gentle wind had sprung up in the room and Snape was looking startled and slightly concerned while Angel was looking almost resigned through the worry on his face. The others just watched with interest. “Before thee let the unclean thing crawl!” A nimbus of dark energy surrounded Buffy for a moment before hurtling out and striking Dumbledore. For a moment it swirled around him, and then he vanished leaving nothing but his robes behind. They fell to the floor in a heap and Ron let out a squeak of startlement.
Snape stared at her, “What did you do to the headmaster!” he roared in fury.
“This,” replied Angel. He stepped forward and picked up the rat that used to be Albus Dumbledore. “Did you have to use that spell? I hate rats. I hate the way they skitter around, I hate their beady little eyes and I hate the way they carry plague and you step on them when you’re trying to cross the street and then they look squashed and disgusting.”
Even Snape seemed put off by that description. “Way more info than we needed Angel,” Buffy informed him.
Dumbledore squeaked.
“You can turn him back right?” Hermione inquired with some worry.
“Yes. I picked this spell because I’ve seen it worked before.” Buffy shrugged and picked up the herbs and leaves and collected them into a little bunch. She separated out the aconite and shredded it. Then she tossed the other plants in the cauldron, filled it with water and lit a fire under it. In very little time it was simmering and Snape was looking on, interested in spite of himself. Buffy picked up her aconite and held it as she began the reversing incantation. “Goddess of creatures great and small, I conjure thee to withdraw.” She tossed the aconite into the cauldron watching the sparks fly out of it. “Hecate, I license thee to depart!”
In that instant another swirl of light shot out and surrounded the squeaking rodent, whose little legs were paddling frantically in the air. He glowed for a moment and then suddenly changed back into his usual form of a more than 150-year-old man. The sudden change in weight and weight distribution threw Angel off balance and he fell, with Dumbledore landing on top of him.
A naked Dumbledore landing on top of him.
Ron moaned. “I’m going to need an obliviator after this,” he whimpered, covering his eyes. Hermione and Harry whipped around to face the wall while Ginny and Snape stared in a sort of fascinated horror. It was at that less than auspicious moment that McGonagall burst into the office planning to ask what punishments and points were going to be meted out and taken from the students. At the sight of a naked Albus Dumbledore sitting atop a discombobulated young man and several students and Severus Snape standing in various places her lips thinned and she did something that surprised everyone but the headmaster. “Albus! What have you done now?” she demanded.
“Why Minerva, I haven’t the faintest notion of what mean,” the headmaster replied. Everyone but McGonagall stared at him, blinked, then shook their heads. With Albus Dumbledore, discretion was usually the better part of valour. Or something to that effect anyhow. However, her glare seemed to have some limited effect on him as he looked down at himself with irritating cheer and declared, “Oh! Do you mean my current state of dress?”
Angel swore he could hear the woman’s teeth grinding as she seemed to forcibly control the urge to do violence to the person of her headmaster. “Yes. I am speaking of your state of complete undress,” she spoke through clenched teeth. “And I would like to know why you are sitting atop Miss Summers’ . . . friend . . . in that state.”
“Ah. This is due to a small experiment we had Miss Summers run. It appears to have occurred at my expense.” Snape appeared to develop a stunning migraine in response to that statement, while Ron, Hermione and Ginny looked both horrified at the image of Dumbledore’s current situation and amused at his nonchalance. Harry was simply amused however, and McGonagall looked thoroughly irritated.
“And what experiment might that be?” She demanded frostily. Buffy, who was, despite all her earlier bravado, completely taken aback by Dumbledore’s response to being a rat, being naked and the upending of certain of his assumptions about the functioning of the world, hesitantly replied.
“I was . . . .um . . . trying to make a . . . point . . .” She trailed off at the look on the transfiguration professor’s face. “Sorry?” she added sheepishly.
Angel finally spoke up from the floor. “Mr. Dumbledore? Would you mind . . .?”
“Oh yes! Of course!” The headmaster leapt to his feet in a sprightly manner and gave everyone a discomfiting eyeful before they managed to turn away. “All right then. I am fully enrobed once more.” he informed them cheerily. When they all turned back, Angel was on his feet with the look of a man desperately trying to forget horrors recently seen and Dumbledore had his usual genial face on.
Several seconds were spent with an awkward silence filling the office before finally being broken by Hermione. “Well, I suppose that that . . . erm . . . proves Buffy’s point?” she inquired hesitantly.
“It would appear that Miss Summers has proven a myth to be true,” Snape said with an approving sort of contemplativeness. “It would appear that these . . . muggle . . . magical techniques could well be useful.”
Angel glared at Buffy. “Never again. You know damn well that was dark magic. Calling on Hecate is not something you do lightly.”
“Well, the only other spell I’d ever seen performed was when Amy’s Mom did that spell about the dark place having her enemy’s soul. I didn’t think that would go down all that well.” Buffy informed him a little sheepishly. Angel rolled his eyes, controlling the urge to shake some sense into her.
“And when did you see this one done?” he inquired.
She flushed, looking a little sheepish. “When Amy was all jealous because of that spell Xander made her cast.”
Everyone was looking at her now. Angel was glaring. “And it didn’t occur to you that this was dark magic what with it being used to attack you? Or the fact that Hecate is the dark goddess of witchcraft?”
That set Snape off. “You do realise the effects that dark magics can have on you? There is a reason they are known as dark and it is not solely in relation to the outcomes most of those spells are intended to have!”
“Umm . . . no?”
Collectively the others rolled their eyes. Angel sighed. “Just don’t do it again. My heart can’t take that kind of stress.”
“Your heart doesn’t beat,” Ron pointed out. “It’s not like it’ll do anything to you.” Hermione whacked him in the back of the head and the two descended into a quiet argument about colloquial expressions.
Buffy turned to Dumbledore and asked, “Have I proved my point?”
McGonagall broke in. “What point? What is going on? Why was Albus naked?” There was a collective wince.
“I’d been trying to forget that,” Ginny muttered.
Dumbledore turned to the students. “I am quite certain I will be capable of giving explanations from this point,” he informed them. I do believe you have classes to get to?”
With that they were chivvied out of the headmaster’s office. Hermione promptly dragged the others off to class, leaving Angel to his own devices again. Suddenly he looked over and spotted a familiar face. “Sean? That you?”
“Liam? Lord it’s been a while! How did you get here?” the portrait inquired. Angel spent the rest of the afternoon chatting with his old friend who had been taken off to a boarding school when he was eleven. They’d fallen out of touch when Angel had become a vampire so the two caught up on the news.
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Malfoy had not forgotten Buffy’s public humiliation of him in Diagon Alley or the way she had publicly flummoxed him in front of the whole school at the welcoming feast with her leather-clad legs. However, he had bided his time for the past couple months, hoping he would find some way to make her slip up. His plans of using potions class to so humiliate Buffy had been dashed when Professor Snape had clearly been duped into, at the very least, maintaining the appearance of liking the chit.
Now that Summers’ boyfriend was running around the school, a new opportunity had presented itself. Draco had determined the man was a muggle by his reactions to such ordinary things as portraits and the fact that he had stood around chatting with one for literally hours had only confirmed it. Everyone knew you didn’t actually spend any time speaking to portraits. The things were only good for being spies and decorations. Everyone knew that. Everyone but ignorant muggles and muggleborns.
His next step was working out some way of dealing with that muggle. Muggles didn’t belong anywhere near purebloods, and they belonged even less so in places like Hogwarts that were at the centre of the wizarding world. It was only a couple days after Draco had made his determination to get to Summers through her boyfriend that the opportunity presented itself.
The boyfriend was standing at the top of a flight of steps that had just moved. He was looking slightly irritated that his route down to the main floor had been compromised and, like a fool, was ignoring the sunlit stairs a little ways down that would take him to nearly the same place. It was a relatively short fall to the floor below, as such things went, so Draco decided to give him a little help down.
Just as he cast the weak banishing spell that would push the man over the edge, Summers appeared below. It was perfect timing and Draco snickered quietly from his hiding place as Angel lost his balance and fell toward the swathe of sunlit floor directly below, coming nowhere near the shaded areas the staircase he’d wanted to take would have gone.
“Angel!” Buffy shouted as she saw him hurtle down. He easily turned around in midair, landing catlike on his feet. Draco’s eyes widened in a combination of disbelief and annoyance.
Buffy was horrified. Angel was in the middle of a patch of sunlight. The staircase that normally would have led him over the window that was pouring sunlight into the building and into the safety of the shade on its far side was elsewhere. But to both Buffy’s and Angel’s shock, he was completely unharmed. “Angel?”
“I . . . I . . . I don’t . . . how?” he turned to her, helplessly. It was amazing. He wasn’t burning. He wasn’t even itching. He was standing in the sunlight and he was fine.
Buffy shook her head. “I don’t know how, but we’d better try to figure it out,” she said. “I’d hate to imagine that there might be more vampires that are immune to the sun.”
They hurried off to write to Willow and Giles to see if there was any sort of precedent, and to check the Hogwarts library to see what that had to say.
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Having enlisted Hermione’s help with the Hogwarts library and gotten an unrestricted pass to the Restricted Section of the library from Professor Snape, Buffy was now anxiously waiting for Willow’s response to her question. She had taken to staring balefully at her laptop in the vain hope that it would make Willow and Giles reply faster. Snape was being as helpful as he could in inquiring around about those who might know something about the situation, but with no idea of where Angel had been for those months he was missing, it was whistling in the dark.
Which turned out to be much what Giles said when Buffy finally had a return email in hand.
>>>>>>
Dear Buffy,
Jenny is typing into the infernal machine on my behalf. (He actually said that! Can you believe it? JC-G) I have yet to discover any precedent to a situation such as you described barring a misunderstanding of what you wrote in your incessant mangling of the English language. (I had no idea what I was in for when I agreed to play secretary for him JC-G). There are tales of an amulet which provided protection from the sunlight as well as a state of near-invincibility for a vampire. It was called the Gem of Amara. However, as you have not mentioned any kind of object in relation to Angel’s development I do not believe this item can be considered the cause.
I will continue to search. If any further incidents occur revealing more symptoms of this change do write. It would be worthwhile even if only from a research standpoint.
Sincerely,
Rupert Giles
PS I haven’t seen Rupert this enthusiastic about something since we had to research the cure for that love spell. It would be adorable if it weren’t cutting into our personal time.
Jenny
>>>>>
Buffy stared at the email for a moment and then shivered a little. “Ew,” she said.
“What?” Ron asked from his place in front of the common room fire. Ginny, Harry and Hermione had also all perked up.
Buffy winced. “You don’t wanna know.”
Frowning, Hermione said, “You’re our friend and something’s upset you. Why wouldn’t we want to know?”
“Ever imagined your parents or teachers having . . . um . . . well . . .” She trailed off trying to find a delicate way to say it.
Angel piped up with the shamelessness of centuries of debauchery and the massive social changes society had undergone since the Victorian period. “Making love?” He said from where he had been reading over her shoulder. “Or do you want the more delicate ‘being intimate’?”
“Ew,” chorused the teens a moment later.
Angel opened his mouth to say something and promptly shut it when Buffy hit him. “What was that for?” he said clutching his arm.
“You’re not going to say anything unless it’s not related to Giles and Jenny doing . . . it,” Buffy told him sternly. “And don’t be a baby. You can take it.”
He snorted. “First, I was going to ask if Giles had said anything useful at all, and second, when your girlfriend is the Slayer a punch like that hurts, vampire or not.”
“Oh, yes. Did Mr. Giles have anything helpful to add?” Hermione inquired eagerly.
Buffy’s nose wrinkled for a moment as she scanned the letter again. “He mentions a ‘Gem of Amara’, but he also said that it was an amulet. He also said that he didn’t think it was related, but that it was the only thing he’d come across so far that was at all like what happened.”
Those words were enough for Hermione to get up to check through the Hogwarts library stacks. Unfortunately she hadn’t found anything a week later either. “Amara derives from Latin and Greek. The Latin means ‘bitter’ and the Greek means ‘unfading’,” she informed them. “I’ve checked and checked, but I simply can’t find anything referring to Amara as the name of a person, place or thing, nor have I found anything that relates to the translations.”
“Well that was bloody useless,” Ron grumbled.
“Ron! Language!” Hermione said in irritation. At the same time Ginny hit him.
He flinched away and looked at Harry and Angel in confusion. “What’d I do?”
“If you can’t guess Ron, nothing I say will help,” Harry informed him. Angel just shook his head and turned back to the book he was reading on wizardly vampires. Ron continued to look confused as the girls walked off muttering amongst themselves about “emotional depth of a teaspoon.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Life settled into a routine for everyone. Angel moved out of the Room of Requirement and into an apartment in the dungeons. Buffy and Harry’s bunch continued taking classes. Everyone continued to think it was weird that Buffy and Snape got along that well. Still, no further evidence surfaced as to what had happened with Angel and how it was that he had become immune to sunlight. They had attempted the occasional test to see what kind of tolerance he had for it and had even discovered that he was no longer subject to burns when he was touched by holy objects or water as well as his continued immunity to sunlight.
Ron, Hermione, Harry and Ginny had also talked Buffy and Angel into teaching them some martial arts. Buffy had eventually given up on Ron and Hermione after Ron had attempted to do a spin kick and fallen on his butt for the fourteenth time. Given that he had yet to master any of the basics at all, it was more than a little exasperating to see him flinging his arms and legs around in a desperate attempt to imitate the motions of a professional sparring match between Buffy and Angel.
Hermione was less exasperating than Ron in that she paid attention to the directions and followed them to the letter. However, she lacked confidence in her physical abilities to the point that it severely affected her ability to perform even the most basic of movements. So, Buffy worked with Harry, who was quite gifted, and Ginny, who had all of Ron’s confidence in her physical capabilities, combined with Hermione’s sensible approach to learning. The two learned fighting techniques faster and so Buffy didn’t need the infinite patience that Angel displayed. So, Angel taught Ron and Hermione slowly but surely while Harry and Ginny took great pleasure in beating each other up and then cuddling and kissing each other better.
On having had Buffy and Angel’s relationship explained to her, McGonagall had taken the opportunity for some amusement for herself. She had arranged to speak to Angel alone and had promptly shown him the items Buffy had transfigured in her placement test. He had left with images of himself dressed in nothing but black leather trousers or completely in the buff, floating in his head, and the great relief of knowing that he couldn’t blush and so would not be caught in the halls looking as hideously embarrassed as he was.
All in all, it was a relaxing month for those concerned and Buffy had almost lost any sense of urgency about Angel and what might have caused his sudden immunity to sunlight. What brought that worry back to the fore was caused by a discussion between Angel and Harry about the current war against Voldemort and his Death Eaters.
Buffy hadn’t paid a great deal of attention to it because the war was primarily a Western European thing and there weren’t any countries in the Americas that had become involved in any way beyond the most peripheral sense. In point of fact, many of the Eastern and Central European countries had also expressed wishes not to be involved and many countries were actively distancing themselves from the rapidly developing situation in Britain. So when Angel expressed an interest in the mess Buffy could only refer him to the newspapers. Which Harry and Hermione had promptly informed him were utter trash and followed this up by telling him about everything they knew. Which was rather a lot what with Harry being at the centre of the whole war effort.
Harry and Angel were talking about battles as they walked through the halls on the way to dinner and gradually moved on to the topic of the Unforgiveable curses. Harry was describing the cruciatus curse from firsthand experience when Angel suddenly staggered, slamming into the wall. The breaths that he continued to have as both camouflage and out of habit sped up and he began to shudder.
“Angel?” Harry asked as he slowly approached the man. “Are you all right?” He didn’t reply and Harry moved closer, seeing the dark brown eyes widen and flicker back and forth as though seeing things invisible to Harry.
Suddenly, Angel’s legs seemed to give out and he collapsed to the floor.
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An hour later Buffy was pacing back and forth in the hospital wing while Hermione, Ron and Ginny all looked on in understanding and Madam Pomfrey worked with Snape to try to figure out what had caused Angel’s sudden collapse. Harry was only slightly less impatient than Buffy. “Why won’t she say anything to us?” Harry asked for the fourth time.
Rolling her eyes, Hermione sighed and responded for the fourth time, “Because she doesn’t have anything to tell us yet Harry.”
“Now you know how we feel,” Ron groused under his breath.
“What?” Harry asked.
It was Ginny’s turn to roll her eyes. “Honestly, with the amount of time you spend unconscious and on the verge of death in here we’re pretty much used to sitting here and waiting for you to either wake up or die.” She continued a moment later at Harry’s incredulous look. “It also means we’re used to no one telling us anything for hours while we wonder if you’ve bled to death.”
Buffy winced. “A little less talk about dying, please.” She said.
“Sorry,” said Ginny.
Finally Madam Pomfrey came out from behind the curtains concealing herself and Professor Snape. “I have absolutely no notion of what’s wrong with him as I have no notion of what his state should be normally,” the woman said. “However, he is conscious and lucid and I do not believe that he is in immediate danger.”
“So I can see him?” Buffy asked eagerly.
The nurse sighed. “Yes Miss Summers. You can go in to see him.”
Buffy promptly bounced past the nurse and up to Angel’s bedside. “How are you? What happened?” She asked him, taking his hand and settling on the mattress next to him.
He sighed and his hand tightened on hers briefly, searching for comfort, before he began. “Harry and I were talking about the . . . what did you call them, ‘unforgiven’ curses?”
“Unforgivables,” Harry picked up the narrative. “I was telling Angel what the cruciatus is like when he just . . .” Harry trailed off, uncertain how to describe Angel’s actions.
A wince crossed Angel’s face and he began to explain. “I think I remembered some of what happened to me. It was like I was reliving something that seems a lot like what Harry described.” He shuddered. “I could remember being somewhere . . . it seemed underground. There were people there and they were torturing me . . .” His eyes glazed over a little. “It was so unsubtle,” he continued with a ghost of a smile crossing his lips. “I did better in my heyday.”
Ron's eyes were wide. "You caused more pain than the cruciatus?" he squeaked.
Something that bore a resemblance to a chuckle emerged from Buffy's mouth. "It's not that he caused more physical pain Ron," she told him. She shook her head a little. "When you're torturing someone there are more important parts to the torture, especially when you can tell that the person won't fold because of some physical pain. The most important part of torture is the mental part. The way you make someone feel worse because of what you say or do. Humiliating them and stuff."
By the end of the speech Snape, Ron, Hermione and Ginny were staring in shock at Buffy while Angel looked resigned and Harry looked . . . for lack of a better term, intrigued. "You've had a great of experience in being tortured Miss Summers?" Snape inquired.
"She's tortured a few vampires in her day," Angel replied for her. "Although when you had the chance to humiliate as torture I don't recall. Must have happened after I left."
"Oh that," Buffy said. "That was Xander. He threatened someone he knew in kindergarten with telling some story about the time he wet his pants during free time. The vamp totally caved after that." Angel raised an eyebrow at her. "Okay, okay, maybe I broke a few bones too."
While Hermione, Ron and Snape went back to looking properly appalled, Ginny's sense of humour reasserted itself and Harry asked the question again. "Have you been tortured Buffy?"
"No. I've been beaten, threatened, attacked and seriously hurt, but I can't say I've ever been tortured," she answered.
Angel, however, saw what Harry was trying to find out without asking. The questions that were in Harry's eyes were obvious to the vampire. "The most important thing about torture is to prevent them from breaking you. It's all the more important in some ways when the torturer is actively looking for information. Different things work for different people. Sometimes you can find a weakness in the torturer's technique and exploit it by playing up how much one thing affects you and playing down another.
"The difficulty I found when I was being held by those . . . Death Eaters you call them?" The others nodded. "They enjoy causing pain so much it overwhelms any attempts to get information." Angel sighed in exasperation. "If it hadn't been for the fact that I would have suffered for it as the guinea pig, I would have given them tips. Driving your victim insane before you've even gotten the full amount of torture possible from them, nevermind information, is just such a waste."
Hermione twitched a little, but the others recognised the gallows humour for what it was -- an attempt to make light of the situation before the emotions had a chance to overwhelm. Ron asked the first thing that came to mind. "So are you starting to remember more?" Hermione hit him. "Ow!"
It did the trick. "Yes," Angel said. "It's still something of a blur but I remember now. I had gotten diverted to Yorkshire on the way back home and I was out to stretch my legs when several men in black robes with white masks called me 'muggle' a few times, insulted me and then hit me with something when my back was turned that knocked me out. When I woke up I was in someone's dungeon. They talked about casting curses and spells for a while until some other man came in."
"Other man?" Hermione prompted when Angel seemed to have lost track of what he was saying.
"Hmm?" He glanced up. "Oh. Sorry. Yeah. He played up being a villain for a while. All that stilted megalomaniacal talk," he smiled a little at Buffy who grinned back.
"Join me Luke," she said, and then put her hands over her mouth to recreate the sound of muffled, rattling breaths. "Join the Dark Side."
Hermione giggled and added, "I am your father."
Ron and Ginny looked baffled and Harry looked resigned. "That stupid film."
"You don't like Star Wars?" Buffy asked. "You're a guy."
"Dudley used to watch it all the time-" he started to reply.
Hermione cut in, "Which just means you've never actually seen the film. Don't mock."
Ginny and Ron suddenly stopped looking confused and mouthed, "Muggle thing," at each other.
"Is this one of those things Giles and I never get?" Angel asked.
Buffy rolled her eyes. "If Giles wouldn't get this he's been living under a rock for longer than I gave him credit for."
"So just me then."
"Yeah."
"Can I finish my story?" Angel inquired.
Ginny flopped down on the bed next to him and said, "Oh please Daddy, finish the story please. I want to know how the princess escaped from the dragon." She finished with widened eyes and a remarkably guileless appearance. Ron rolled his eyes but sat down as well. Buffy shoved Ginny over and laid claim to her boyfriend so Ginny shoved Harry into a chair and sat on his lap while Hermione took claim of the last chair.
When they were all settled again Angel took up the thread of his narrative. "As I was saying, he was talking like the villain of a Saturday serial matinee when he lifted up his hood and his face . . ." Angel shook his head a little as if to jar the image from his mind. "It was just this horrible scaled thing. You could see that he was once human and had changed himself somehow."
Harry looked very grim as he asked, "Did he have red eyes?"
"Yes," replied Angel. "How did you . . . Of course. I forgot, you've seen him." Harry just nodded in response. After a moment Angel continued. "They told him that I had taken the torture better than anyone they'd ever seen so they were . . . I don't know, seeing what my limit was. He postured, took off his hood and then told them to go on as they were." Buffy took his hand and Angel grasped it gratefully. "Everything after that is a blur, but I remember a green light coming at me some time later."
Hermione twitched upright and got a concentrated look on her face. "Hermione?" Harry asked.
"The killing curse . . ." She said musingly.
The others exchanged looks, but Snape, from where he stood supervising the visit spoke up. "You think that may have some bearing on the . . . changes Mr. Shaughnessy has experienced?" he asked. He had pointedly refused to call the vampire anything as ridiculous as 'Angel'.
Frowning, she said, "I can't be certain of course, but it seems plausible. What if somehow the killing curse managed to damage or even kill the demonic part of Angel? If it were somehow driven off or away it could effectively alter his entire spiritual and magical structure." She leapt to her feet. "I have to get to the library," she told them. "I have to see how the curse works and then we can consult with Mr. Giles on whether it could have had such an effect on Angel."
Everyone stared after her. Buffy said with amazement, "Wow. She's good."
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Notes: Firstly, I haven’t watched BB&B in forever so I can’t recall all the details of the reversal spell. Second, the plants involved in the spell were picked using wikipedia as my reference for plants that are associated with Hecate and somewhat with Diana. If I’ve missed any other debts I owe in terms of this material, take it as read that just about anything you recognise that isn’t from one of my other fics has been taken from somewhere other than my own head. Next, I haven’t watched BB&B in forever so I can’t recall all the details of the reversal spell. Finally, the plants involved in the spell were picked using wikipedia as my reference for plants that are associated with Hecate and somewhat with Diana. If I’ve missed any other debts I owe in terms of this material, take it as read that just about anything you recognise that isn’t from one of my other fics has been taken from somewhere other than my own head.
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It was a goodly amount of time before Buffy had finished explaining to the headmaster and potions professor about vampires and Angel in particular. With frequent interruptions by Hermione in order to clarify some point or other of academic minutiae Buffy worked through the differences between the two types of vampires. The one type was a sort of magical curse, like that of a werewolf. As such, they were no more or less evil than any other creature, they simply had certain dietary requirements and restrictions as well as various lifestyle restrictions and advantages that distinguished them from ordinary humans.
The weaknesses mentioned by Snape back in the hallway to do with sunlight were some of the means usually used to determine if a person was a vampire. Contrary to popular opinion, crosses did not work on magical vampires as they did on demonic ones. Dumbledore and Snape listened to Buffy’s explanation of demonically created vampires with interest that rapidly translated into worry.
“As enlightening as this is, Miss Summers, I have yet to hear anything that leads me to believe that . . . Angel,” this was said with the utmost disgust, “Is not a danger to your fellow students.” Snape informed her.
“I was getting there,” Buffy told him irritably, then talked straight over his attempt at interruption and derision. “But if I’d started by saying that Angel was given back his soul by a gypsy curse in revenge for the killing of a daughter of their tribe by his demonic evil twin you wouldn’t know what I was talking about.”
Snape glared, but was unable to reply because she was right. And he still appreciated her confidence and lack of fear. Then he noted the blatant error in her explanation. “Gypsy curse? Are you, by any chance, referring to the occurrence known as ‘muggle magic’ Miss Summers? I had thought you more intelligent than to believe in such old wives’ tales.”
She glanced sideways at her friends but found no help there. Hermione had never really quite believed in Buffy’s stories of Amy and her mom and Drusilla’s foresight. Buffy had actually seen witches and other such people in action before, but it was one of the tenets of the wizarding world that no magic was possible save the magic that was performed by witches and wizards. As for Ron, Harry and Ginny, well, they just didn’t have any previous experience with it so they had no ideas about proof.
It took a moment, but Buffy recalled a couple experiences from the previous year and spoke up. “Okay, you don’t believe me, I get that. Can you give me just like, ten minutes to get some stuff and I’ll prove it?”
Snape seemed a little surprised and Dumbledore looked amused. Then again, it seemed that he was always amused by everything. However the headmaster nodded and Buffy then turned to the others. “Hermione, could you run down to the greenhouse and pick up some lavender, hellebore, regular muggle mandrake and aconite?” She turned to Snape, “Since you don’t trust anyone in your stores, could you get some black poplar leaves? Ginny could pick up the willow leaves. Other than that I just need some water and a cauldron.”
Twenty minutes later they had all reassembled in the headmaster’s office and were looking at Buffy eagerly. Buffy took all the items and laid them out in front of her. Then she cast a couple spells around the furniture. At their funny looks she shrugged a little and said, “It’ll be a little easier if there’s nowhere for him to hide.” No one’s expression changed in the slightest at her non-explanation and Buffy grinned before taking a deep breath in and concentrating very hard.
Willow had written to her about casting wiccan magic. First you had to determine exactly what the outcome of the spell was supposed to be. You had to have nothing in your mind but that outcome. Then you had to sense and collect the magical energy floating around the area. Buffy frowned. That was hard. She could sort of feel it tickling at the very edges of her consciousness, but it was nothing like the pervasive mist of power Willow insisted she saw everywhere. Which only went to prove that Willow was far more talented than Buffy at the whole wiccan witch thing.
With a sudden snap Buffy felt all the powers and things fall into place and began the invocation. “Goddess Hecate I conjure thee,” she said, the volume of her voice rising with each word. A gentle wind had sprung up in the room and Snape was looking startled and slightly concerned while Angel was looking almost resigned through the worry on his face. The others just watched with interest. “Before thee let the unclean thing crawl!” A nimbus of dark energy surrounded Buffy for a moment before hurtling out and striking Dumbledore. For a moment it swirled around him, and then he vanished leaving nothing but his robes behind. They fell to the floor in a heap and Ron let out a squeak of startlement.
Snape stared at her, “What did you do to the headmaster!” he roared in fury.
“This,” replied Angel. He stepped forward and picked up the rat that used to be Albus Dumbledore. “Did you have to use that spell? I hate rats. I hate the way they skitter around, I hate their beady little eyes and I hate the way they carry plague and you step on them when you’re trying to cross the street and then they look squashed and disgusting.”
Even Snape seemed put off by that description. “Way more info than we needed Angel,” Buffy informed him.
Dumbledore squeaked.
“You can turn him back right?” Hermione inquired with some worry.
“Yes. I picked this spell because I’ve seen it worked before.” Buffy shrugged and picked up the herbs and leaves and collected them into a little bunch. She separated out the aconite and shredded it. Then she tossed the other plants in the cauldron, filled it with water and lit a fire under it. In very little time it was simmering and Snape was looking on, interested in spite of himself. Buffy picked up her aconite and held it as she began the reversing incantation. “Goddess of creatures great and small, I conjure thee to withdraw.” She tossed the aconite into the cauldron watching the sparks fly out of it. “Hecate, I license thee to depart!”
In that instant another swirl of light shot out and surrounded the squeaking rodent, whose little legs were paddling frantically in the air. He glowed for a moment and then suddenly changed back into his usual form of a more than 150-year-old man. The sudden change in weight and weight distribution threw Angel off balance and he fell, with Dumbledore landing on top of him.
A naked Dumbledore landing on top of him.
Ron moaned. “I’m going to need an obliviator after this,” he whimpered, covering his eyes. Hermione and Harry whipped around to face the wall while Ginny and Snape stared in a sort of fascinated horror. It was at that less than auspicious moment that McGonagall burst into the office planning to ask what punishments and points were going to be meted out and taken from the students. At the sight of a naked Albus Dumbledore sitting atop a discombobulated young man and several students and Severus Snape standing in various places her lips thinned and she did something that surprised everyone but the headmaster. “Albus! What have you done now?” she demanded.
“Why Minerva, I haven’t the faintest notion of what mean,” the headmaster replied. Everyone but McGonagall stared at him, blinked, then shook their heads. With Albus Dumbledore, discretion was usually the better part of valour. Or something to that effect anyhow. However, her glare seemed to have some limited effect on him as he looked down at himself with irritating cheer and declared, “Oh! Do you mean my current state of dress?”
Angel swore he could hear the woman’s teeth grinding as she seemed to forcibly control the urge to do violence to the person of her headmaster. “Yes. I am speaking of your state of complete undress,” she spoke through clenched teeth. “And I would like to know why you are sitting atop Miss Summers’ . . . friend . . . in that state.”
“Ah. This is due to a small experiment we had Miss Summers run. It appears to have occurred at my expense.” Snape appeared to develop a stunning migraine in response to that statement, while Ron, Hermione and Ginny looked both horrified at the image of Dumbledore’s current situation and amused at his nonchalance. Harry was simply amused however, and McGonagall looked thoroughly irritated.
“And what experiment might that be?” She demanded frostily. Buffy, who was, despite all her earlier bravado, completely taken aback by Dumbledore’s response to being a rat, being naked and the upending of certain of his assumptions about the functioning of the world, hesitantly replied.
“I was . . . .um . . . trying to make a . . . point . . .” She trailed off at the look on the transfiguration professor’s face. “Sorry?” she added sheepishly.
Angel finally spoke up from the floor. “Mr. Dumbledore? Would you mind . . .?”
“Oh yes! Of course!” The headmaster leapt to his feet in a sprightly manner and gave everyone a discomfiting eyeful before they managed to turn away. “All right then. I am fully enrobed once more.” he informed them cheerily. When they all turned back, Angel was on his feet with the look of a man desperately trying to forget horrors recently seen and Dumbledore had his usual genial face on.
Several seconds were spent with an awkward silence filling the office before finally being broken by Hermione. “Well, I suppose that that . . . erm . . . proves Buffy’s point?” she inquired hesitantly.
“It would appear that Miss Summers has proven a myth to be true,” Snape said with an approving sort of contemplativeness. “It would appear that these . . . muggle . . . magical techniques could well be useful.”
Angel glared at Buffy. “Never again. You know damn well that was dark magic. Calling on Hecate is not something you do lightly.”
“Well, the only other spell I’d ever seen performed was when Amy’s Mom did that spell about the dark place having her enemy’s soul. I didn’t think that would go down all that well.” Buffy informed him a little sheepishly. Angel rolled his eyes, controlling the urge to shake some sense into her.
“And when did you see this one done?” he inquired.
She flushed, looking a little sheepish. “When Amy was all jealous because of that spell Xander made her cast.”
Everyone was looking at her now. Angel was glaring. “And it didn’t occur to you that this was dark magic what with it being used to attack you? Or the fact that Hecate is the dark goddess of witchcraft?”
That set Snape off. “You do realise the effects that dark magics can have on you? There is a reason they are known as dark and it is not solely in relation to the outcomes most of those spells are intended to have!”
“Umm . . . no?”
Collectively the others rolled their eyes. Angel sighed. “Just don’t do it again. My heart can’t take that kind of stress.”
“Your heart doesn’t beat,” Ron pointed out. “It’s not like it’ll do anything to you.” Hermione whacked him in the back of the head and the two descended into a quiet argument about colloquial expressions.
Buffy turned to Dumbledore and asked, “Have I proved my point?”
McGonagall broke in. “What point? What is going on? Why was Albus naked?” There was a collective wince.
“I’d been trying to forget that,” Ginny muttered.
Dumbledore turned to the students. “I am quite certain I will be capable of giving explanations from this point,” he informed them. I do believe you have classes to get to?”
With that they were chivvied out of the headmaster’s office. Hermione promptly dragged the others off to class, leaving Angel to his own devices again. Suddenly he looked over and spotted a familiar face. “Sean? That you?”
“Liam? Lord it’s been a while! How did you get here?” the portrait inquired. Angel spent the rest of the afternoon chatting with his old friend who had been taken off to a boarding school when he was eleven. They’d fallen out of touch when Angel had become a vampire so the two caught up on the news.
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Malfoy had not forgotten Buffy’s public humiliation of him in Diagon Alley or the way she had publicly flummoxed him in front of the whole school at the welcoming feast with her leather-clad legs. However, he had bided his time for the past couple months, hoping he would find some way to make her slip up. His plans of using potions class to so humiliate Buffy had been dashed when Professor Snape had clearly been duped into, at the very least, maintaining the appearance of liking the chit.
Now that Summers’ boyfriend was running around the school, a new opportunity had presented itself. Draco had determined the man was a muggle by his reactions to such ordinary things as portraits and the fact that he had stood around chatting with one for literally hours had only confirmed it. Everyone knew you didn’t actually spend any time speaking to portraits. The things were only good for being spies and decorations. Everyone knew that. Everyone but ignorant muggles and muggleborns.
His next step was working out some way of dealing with that muggle. Muggles didn’t belong anywhere near purebloods, and they belonged even less so in places like Hogwarts that were at the centre of the wizarding world. It was only a couple days after Draco had made his determination to get to Summers through her boyfriend that the opportunity presented itself.
The boyfriend was standing at the top of a flight of steps that had just moved. He was looking slightly irritated that his route down to the main floor had been compromised and, like a fool, was ignoring the sunlit stairs a little ways down that would take him to nearly the same place. It was a relatively short fall to the floor below, as such things went, so Draco decided to give him a little help down.
Just as he cast the weak banishing spell that would push the man over the edge, Summers appeared below. It was perfect timing and Draco snickered quietly from his hiding place as Angel lost his balance and fell toward the swathe of sunlit floor directly below, coming nowhere near the shaded areas the staircase he’d wanted to take would have gone.
“Angel!” Buffy shouted as she saw him hurtle down. He easily turned around in midair, landing catlike on his feet. Draco’s eyes widened in a combination of disbelief and annoyance.
Buffy was horrified. Angel was in the middle of a patch of sunlight. The staircase that normally would have led him over the window that was pouring sunlight into the building and into the safety of the shade on its far side was elsewhere. But to both Buffy’s and Angel’s shock, he was completely unharmed. “Angel?”
“I . . . I . . . I don’t . . . how?” he turned to her, helplessly. It was amazing. He wasn’t burning. He wasn’t even itching. He was standing in the sunlight and he was fine.
Buffy shook her head. “I don’t know how, but we’d better try to figure it out,” she said. “I’d hate to imagine that there might be more vampires that are immune to the sun.”
They hurried off to write to Willow and Giles to see if there was any sort of precedent, and to check the Hogwarts library to see what that had to say.
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Having enlisted Hermione’s help with the Hogwarts library and gotten an unrestricted pass to the Restricted Section of the library from Professor Snape, Buffy was now anxiously waiting for Willow’s response to her question. She had taken to staring balefully at her laptop in the vain hope that it would make Willow and Giles reply faster. Snape was being as helpful as he could in inquiring around about those who might know something about the situation, but with no idea of where Angel had been for those months he was missing, it was whistling in the dark.
Which turned out to be much what Giles said when Buffy finally had a return email in hand.
>>>>>>
Dear Buffy,
Jenny is typing into the infernal machine on my behalf. (He actually said that! Can you believe it? JC-G) I have yet to discover any precedent to a situation such as you described barring a misunderstanding of what you wrote in your incessant mangling of the English language. (I had no idea what I was in for when I agreed to play secretary for him JC-G). There are tales of an amulet which provided protection from the sunlight as well as a state of near-invincibility for a vampire. It was called the Gem of Amara. However, as you have not mentioned any kind of object in relation to Angel’s development I do not believe this item can be considered the cause.
I will continue to search. If any further incidents occur revealing more symptoms of this change do write. It would be worthwhile even if only from a research standpoint.
Sincerely,
Rupert Giles
PS I haven’t seen Rupert this enthusiastic about something since we had to research the cure for that love spell. It would be adorable if it weren’t cutting into our personal time.
Jenny
>>>>>
Buffy stared at the email for a moment and then shivered a little. “Ew,” she said.
“What?” Ron asked from his place in front of the common room fire. Ginny, Harry and Hermione had also all perked up.
Buffy winced. “You don’t wanna know.”
Frowning, Hermione said, “You’re our friend and something’s upset you. Why wouldn’t we want to know?”
“Ever imagined your parents or teachers having . . . um . . . well . . .” She trailed off trying to find a delicate way to say it.
Angel piped up with the shamelessness of centuries of debauchery and the massive social changes society had undergone since the Victorian period. “Making love?” He said from where he had been reading over her shoulder. “Or do you want the more delicate ‘being intimate’?”
“Ew,” chorused the teens a moment later.
Angel opened his mouth to say something and promptly shut it when Buffy hit him. “What was that for?” he said clutching his arm.
“You’re not going to say anything unless it’s not related to Giles and Jenny doing . . . it,” Buffy told him sternly. “And don’t be a baby. You can take it.”
He snorted. “First, I was going to ask if Giles had said anything useful at all, and second, when your girlfriend is the Slayer a punch like that hurts, vampire or not.”
“Oh, yes. Did Mr. Giles have anything helpful to add?” Hermione inquired eagerly.
Buffy’s nose wrinkled for a moment as she scanned the letter again. “He mentions a ‘Gem of Amara’, but he also said that it was an amulet. He also said that he didn’t think it was related, but that it was the only thing he’d come across so far that was at all like what happened.”
Those words were enough for Hermione to get up to check through the Hogwarts library stacks. Unfortunately she hadn’t found anything a week later either. “Amara derives from Latin and Greek. The Latin means ‘bitter’ and the Greek means ‘unfading’,” she informed them. “I’ve checked and checked, but I simply can’t find anything referring to Amara as the name of a person, place or thing, nor have I found anything that relates to the translations.”
“Well that was bloody useless,” Ron grumbled.
“Ron! Language!” Hermione said in irritation. At the same time Ginny hit him.
He flinched away and looked at Harry and Angel in confusion. “What’d I do?”
“If you can’t guess Ron, nothing I say will help,” Harry informed him. Angel just shook his head and turned back to the book he was reading on wizardly vampires. Ron continued to look confused as the girls walked off muttering amongst themselves about “emotional depth of a teaspoon.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Life settled into a routine for everyone. Angel moved out of the Room of Requirement and into an apartment in the dungeons. Buffy and Harry’s bunch continued taking classes. Everyone continued to think it was weird that Buffy and Snape got along that well. Still, no further evidence surfaced as to what had happened with Angel and how it was that he had become immune to sunlight. They had attempted the occasional test to see what kind of tolerance he had for it and had even discovered that he was no longer subject to burns when he was touched by holy objects or water as well as his continued immunity to sunlight.
Ron, Hermione, Harry and Ginny had also talked Buffy and Angel into teaching them some martial arts. Buffy had eventually given up on Ron and Hermione after Ron had attempted to do a spin kick and fallen on his butt for the fourteenth time. Given that he had yet to master any of the basics at all, it was more than a little exasperating to see him flinging his arms and legs around in a desperate attempt to imitate the motions of a professional sparring match between Buffy and Angel.
Hermione was less exasperating than Ron in that she paid attention to the directions and followed them to the letter. However, she lacked confidence in her physical abilities to the point that it severely affected her ability to perform even the most basic of movements. So, Buffy worked with Harry, who was quite gifted, and Ginny, who had all of Ron’s confidence in her physical capabilities, combined with Hermione’s sensible approach to learning. The two learned fighting techniques faster and so Buffy didn’t need the infinite patience that Angel displayed. So, Angel taught Ron and Hermione slowly but surely while Harry and Ginny took great pleasure in beating each other up and then cuddling and kissing each other better.
On having had Buffy and Angel’s relationship explained to her, McGonagall had taken the opportunity for some amusement for herself. She had arranged to speak to Angel alone and had promptly shown him the items Buffy had transfigured in her placement test. He had left with images of himself dressed in nothing but black leather trousers or completely in the buff, floating in his head, and the great relief of knowing that he couldn’t blush and so would not be caught in the halls looking as hideously embarrassed as he was.
All in all, it was a relaxing month for those concerned and Buffy had almost lost any sense of urgency about Angel and what might have caused his sudden immunity to sunlight. What brought that worry back to the fore was caused by a discussion between Angel and Harry about the current war against Voldemort and his Death Eaters.
Buffy hadn’t paid a great deal of attention to it because the war was primarily a Western European thing and there weren’t any countries in the Americas that had become involved in any way beyond the most peripheral sense. In point of fact, many of the Eastern and Central European countries had also expressed wishes not to be involved and many countries were actively distancing themselves from the rapidly developing situation in Britain. So when Angel expressed an interest in the mess Buffy could only refer him to the newspapers. Which Harry and Hermione had promptly informed him were utter trash and followed this up by telling him about everything they knew. Which was rather a lot what with Harry being at the centre of the whole war effort.
Harry and Angel were talking about battles as they walked through the halls on the way to dinner and gradually moved on to the topic of the Unforgiveable curses. Harry was describing the cruciatus curse from firsthand experience when Angel suddenly staggered, slamming into the wall. The breaths that he continued to have as both camouflage and out of habit sped up and he began to shudder.
“Angel?” Harry asked as he slowly approached the man. “Are you all right?” He didn’t reply and Harry moved closer, seeing the dark brown eyes widen and flicker back and forth as though seeing things invisible to Harry.
Suddenly, Angel’s legs seemed to give out and he collapsed to the floor.
******************************
An hour later Buffy was pacing back and forth in the hospital wing while Hermione, Ron and Ginny all looked on in understanding and Madam Pomfrey worked with Snape to try to figure out what had caused Angel’s sudden collapse. Harry was only slightly less impatient than Buffy. “Why won’t she say anything to us?” Harry asked for the fourth time.
Rolling her eyes, Hermione sighed and responded for the fourth time, “Because she doesn’t have anything to tell us yet Harry.”
“Now you know how we feel,” Ron groused under his breath.
“What?” Harry asked.
It was Ginny’s turn to roll her eyes. “Honestly, with the amount of time you spend unconscious and on the verge of death in here we’re pretty much used to sitting here and waiting for you to either wake up or die.” She continued a moment later at Harry’s incredulous look. “It also means we’re used to no one telling us anything for hours while we wonder if you’ve bled to death.”
Buffy winced. “A little less talk about dying, please.” She said.
“Sorry,” said Ginny.
Finally Madam Pomfrey came out from behind the curtains concealing herself and Professor Snape. “I have absolutely no notion of what’s wrong with him as I have no notion of what his state should be normally,” the woman said. “However, he is conscious and lucid and I do not believe that he is in immediate danger.”
“So I can see him?” Buffy asked eagerly.
The nurse sighed. “Yes Miss Summers. You can go in to see him.”
Buffy promptly bounced past the nurse and up to Angel’s bedside. “How are you? What happened?” She asked him, taking his hand and settling on the mattress next to him.
He sighed and his hand tightened on hers briefly, searching for comfort, before he began. “Harry and I were talking about the . . . what did you call them, ‘unforgiven’ curses?”
“Unforgivables,” Harry picked up the narrative. “I was telling Angel what the cruciatus is like when he just . . .” Harry trailed off, uncertain how to describe Angel’s actions.
A wince crossed Angel’s face and he began to explain. “I think I remembered some of what happened to me. It was like I was reliving something that seems a lot like what Harry described.” He shuddered. “I could remember being somewhere . . . it seemed underground. There were people there and they were torturing me . . .” His eyes glazed over a little. “It was so unsubtle,” he continued with a ghost of a smile crossing his lips. “I did better in my heyday.”
Ron's eyes were wide. "You caused more pain than the cruciatus?" he squeaked.
Something that bore a resemblance to a chuckle emerged from Buffy's mouth. "It's not that he caused more physical pain Ron," she told him. She shook her head a little. "When you're torturing someone there are more important parts to the torture, especially when you can tell that the person won't fold because of some physical pain. The most important part of torture is the mental part. The way you make someone feel worse because of what you say or do. Humiliating them and stuff."
By the end of the speech Snape, Ron, Hermione and Ginny were staring in shock at Buffy while Angel looked resigned and Harry looked . . . for lack of a better term, intrigued. "You've had a great of experience in being tortured Miss Summers?" Snape inquired.
"She's tortured a few vampires in her day," Angel replied for her. "Although when you had the chance to humiliate as torture I don't recall. Must have happened after I left."
"Oh that," Buffy said. "That was Xander. He threatened someone he knew in kindergarten with telling some story about the time he wet his pants during free time. The vamp totally caved after that." Angel raised an eyebrow at her. "Okay, okay, maybe I broke a few bones too."
While Hermione, Ron and Snape went back to looking properly appalled, Ginny's sense of humour reasserted itself and Harry asked the question again. "Have you been tortured Buffy?"
"No. I've been beaten, threatened, attacked and seriously hurt, but I can't say I've ever been tortured," she answered.
Angel, however, saw what Harry was trying to find out without asking. The questions that were in Harry's eyes were obvious to the vampire. "The most important thing about torture is to prevent them from breaking you. It's all the more important in some ways when the torturer is actively looking for information. Different things work for different people. Sometimes you can find a weakness in the torturer's technique and exploit it by playing up how much one thing affects you and playing down another.
"The difficulty I found when I was being held by those . . . Death Eaters you call them?" The others nodded. "They enjoy causing pain so much it overwhelms any attempts to get information." Angel sighed in exasperation. "If it hadn't been for the fact that I would have suffered for it as the guinea pig, I would have given them tips. Driving your victim insane before you've even gotten the full amount of torture possible from them, nevermind information, is just such a waste."
Hermione twitched a little, but the others recognised the gallows humour for what it was -- an attempt to make light of the situation before the emotions had a chance to overwhelm. Ron asked the first thing that came to mind. "So are you starting to remember more?" Hermione hit him. "Ow!"
It did the trick. "Yes," Angel said. "It's still something of a blur but I remember now. I had gotten diverted to Yorkshire on the way back home and I was out to stretch my legs when several men in black robes with white masks called me 'muggle' a few times, insulted me and then hit me with something when my back was turned that knocked me out. When I woke up I was in someone's dungeon. They talked about casting curses and spells for a while until some other man came in."
"Other man?" Hermione prompted when Angel seemed to have lost track of what he was saying.
"Hmm?" He glanced up. "Oh. Sorry. Yeah. He played up being a villain for a while. All that stilted megalomaniacal talk," he smiled a little at Buffy who grinned back.
"Join me Luke," she said, and then put her hands over her mouth to recreate the sound of muffled, rattling breaths. "Join the Dark Side."
Hermione giggled and added, "I am your father."
Ron and Ginny looked baffled and Harry looked resigned. "That stupid film."
"You don't like Star Wars?" Buffy asked. "You're a guy."
"Dudley used to watch it all the time-" he started to reply.
Hermione cut in, "Which just means you've never actually seen the film. Don't mock."
Ginny and Ron suddenly stopped looking confused and mouthed, "Muggle thing," at each other.
"Is this one of those things Giles and I never get?" Angel asked.
Buffy rolled her eyes. "If Giles wouldn't get this he's been living under a rock for longer than I gave him credit for."
"So just me then."
"Yeah."
"Can I finish my story?" Angel inquired.
Ginny flopped down on the bed next to him and said, "Oh please Daddy, finish the story please. I want to know how the princess escaped from the dragon." She finished with widened eyes and a remarkably guileless appearance. Ron rolled his eyes but sat down as well. Buffy shoved Ginny over and laid claim to her boyfriend so Ginny shoved Harry into a chair and sat on his lap while Hermione took claim of the last chair.
When they were all settled again Angel took up the thread of his narrative. "As I was saying, he was talking like the villain of a Saturday serial matinee when he lifted up his hood and his face . . ." Angel shook his head a little as if to jar the image from his mind. "It was just this horrible scaled thing. You could see that he was once human and had changed himself somehow."
Harry looked very grim as he asked, "Did he have red eyes?"
"Yes," replied Angel. "How did you . . . Of course. I forgot, you've seen him." Harry just nodded in response. After a moment Angel continued. "They told him that I had taken the torture better than anyone they'd ever seen so they were . . . I don't know, seeing what my limit was. He postured, took off his hood and then told them to go on as they were." Buffy took his hand and Angel grasped it gratefully. "Everything after that is a blur, but I remember a green light coming at me some time later."
Hermione twitched upright and got a concentrated look on her face. "Hermione?" Harry asked.
"The killing curse . . ." She said musingly.
The others exchanged looks, but Snape, from where he stood supervising the visit spoke up. "You think that may have some bearing on the . . . changes Mr. Shaughnessy has experienced?" he asked. He had pointedly refused to call the vampire anything as ridiculous as 'Angel'.
Frowning, she said, "I can't be certain of course, but it seems plausible. What if somehow the killing curse managed to damage or even kill the demonic part of Angel? If it were somehow driven off or away it could effectively alter his entire spiritual and magical structure." She leapt to her feet. "I have to get to the library," she told them. "I have to see how the curse works and then we can consult with Mr. Giles on whether it could have had such an effect on Angel."
Everyone stared after her. Buffy said with amazement, "Wow. She's good."
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