Chapter 1

“Coming through!”

Xander Harris stepped to the side of the hall to let the two girls carry the heavy table past him. He knew that table was made from solid oak—he’d selected it himself—but the girls were carrying it as effortlessly as they would have if it had been made from balsa wood. “Careful with that!” he called after them. He knew that they could smash it into kindling as easily as they could a balsa wood table too, and heaven help anything that they ran into.

The girls just laughed, and one of them waved as she flipped the table over onto its side and manoeuvred it, one handed, through the door into what was to be a conference room, with less than an inch of clearance to spare on either side.

Xander shook his head, and continued down the hall to the top of the stairs. He looked down with pride. The wide stairway swept down into a circular atrium with a parquet floor. He pulled a cloth from his pocket, and rubbed some fingerprints off the rich wood of the railing. The atrium below him was buzzing with activity. Dawn stood in the centre of it, directing traffic: sending Slayers this way and that, delivering their burdens to their appointed rooms.

He had made this.

Okay, he hadn’t personally made all that much of it, but he had supervised every step of the process, from the original architect’s drawings, through the excavation for the basement (and sub-basements) to the shingling of the roof. He had been here for the first ceremonial ground breaking, and for the last dab of paint, and for most of the steps in between. He had even managed to do some of the carpentry himself. Not as much as he would have liked—there was just too much of it—but enough.

He had to dodge another pair of Slayers carrying a desk up the stairs. These two weren’t quite so cheerful. Xander overheard one of them grumbling about how they got stuck with all the heavy stuff. Andrew was following them, carrying a single cardboard box that looked like it was giving him more of a problem than the desk was giving the Slayers.

It had taken them nearly three years to get here, following the destruction of Sunnydale. Most of the first year had been spent running around the world, searching out all the new Slayers. The second was spent getting the Watchers re-established as an effective support organization for them. It was during that time that they decided that they needed to establish a new headquarters, and after spending some time unsuccessfully searching for something that could be adapted for their use, they had decided that the only way to get the sort of facility that they really wanted was to have it custom built from the ground up. Renovating an existing structure to suit their needs would have cost even more.

Even starting from scratch had been a challenge. So many of their requirements conflicted: an ultra-modern facility, that had an old-world grace to it; a place that would be a comfortable home for the people who would live here, and an efficient working environment for the people who would work here; telephone, Internet, and satellite communications systems giving full connectivity with the rest of the world, while at the same time providing them with the best security against outside eavesdroppers or other electronic intrusion; the same on the mystical side: a harmonious environment for performing magic, but fully warded against magical intrusion.

That last item had hit a bit of a snag. Willow had planned to erect the final ward—one which would nullify any magical glamours, seemings, or illusions—a week earlier, until Dawn had asked what effect that might have on her, and the Key. Willow’d had to go back to her magical drawing board, to make sure that her spell wouldn’t have any undue (or undo) effect on Dawn. The casting of that spell was now set for midnight tonight.

Harry Potter stopped in at the little Muggle general store in Ottery St. Catchpole to collect a couple of things that Ginny had told him to get for dinner, and for the litre of Häagen Dazs ice-cream that she hadn’t asked for, but that he knew was her favourite. It was so much more convenient for him to shop in Muggle stores where no one knew him as “The Boy Who Destroyed You-Know-Who.” Even with him gone for good this time, without any remaining Horcruxes to bring him back, most wizards were still afraid to say Voldemort’s name.

Home was close enough that he didn’t need to put a freezing spell on the ice-cream. When Ginny had first suggested that they look for a place near her family, Harry had been a little leery, but when you got right down to it, one mile or a hundred miles didn’t make that much difference to in-laws who could Apparate. (Not that Harry had any objections to his in-laws. He had been a virtual adopted Weasley long before he married Ginny, and he adored the lot of them. Even Percy was tolerable, these days. They could get to be a little overwhelming at times, though.)

A couple of people waved friendly greetings as he walked through the village towards the cottage that he and Ginny lived in. Harry cheerfully returned the waves. To these people he was just Mr. Potter, the nice young man with a new bride and a child on the way, who lived in an out of the way cottage on the outskirts of the village, and Harry didn’t have to worry about any ulterior motives. Ottery St. Catchpole had no shortage of witches and wizards, of course—in addition to the expanding Weasley clan, there were the Lovegoods, and the Diggorys, and the Fawcetts—and sometimes he’d encounter one or two on his walk home, but they were all in-laws, old friends, or at least acquaintances, and not the sort who would pretend to be nice, or pester him, just because he was famous. They all respected his desire to get on with his life, without any more complications.

There were, of course, always complications. Harry had realized his schoolboy ambition and become an Auror, but things hadn’t worked out the way he’d hoped. He was too famous. He couldn’t just do the job, no matter how much he wanted to. Any time he showed up among wizards, any hope of being treated like a professional pretty much went out the floo. While other Aurors who had graduated with him got to go out in the field, hunting down the few Death Eaters that were still at large, Harry found himself being little more than a glorified office boy. It had only taken a few months of that for him to request a transfer over into Muggle Affairs. His Auror training came in useful there, he had lots of experience dealing with troublesome Muggles (Who’d have thought that any good would have come from his life with the Dursleys?) and he could deal with Muggles without having to worry about anyone recognizing him. The director of the expanded Muggle Affairs department was also his father in-law, but Arthur Weasley was a couple of links removed in his chain of command, so that didn’t cause him too many embarrassments.

He opened the gate to pass through the high hedge that hid his home from casual observers, and walked up the path to the single storey cottage. It wasn’t a large house, but it was just right for him, Ginny, and their soon to be arriving daughter or son. He imagined that The Burrow had looked very much like this, once upon a time, before all the additions that had been made to accommodate the seven Weasley children. He had hopes that this house would grow in a similar fashion (though, maybe not quite so much.)

“Gin! I’m home!” he called as he opened the front door. Ginny came to greet him with a kiss, that Harry enthusiastically returned, and he rubbed her swollen belly. “How’s junior today?”

“Alive and kicking,” said Ginny. She took the grocery bag from him. “You get everything?”

“Yep, and a little something extra.”

Ginny looked in the bag. “Ooh! Mocha Almond Fudge! You are the best husband ever!”

Harry grinned at her. “I like to try. So why did I have to get all that?”

“I asked Ron and Hermione to come over for dinner.”

“Great! I haven’t seen Ron all week!” Harry followed Ginny toward the kitchen. “How long till they get here?”

Ginny transferred the ice-cream from the bag to the freezer, and handed the bag back to him. “Long enough for you to get the salad done. I already asked Dobby to start the roast.”

Harry had been unable to rid himself of the house-elf. (Though “rid” wasn’t really the right word for it.) Dobby had just moved in with him and Ginny, and refused to move out. It seemed that Harry had acquired an entourage of house-elves over the years. Kreacher was still the only one that he actually owned (much to Hermione’s continuing disgust) but Dobby always seemed to show up wherever he went, and where Dobby went, Winky seemed sure to follow.

Dobby wasn’t an unwelcome occupant in their home. He was an excellent cook, and took care of most of the housework too. Harry knew that he’d become even more indispensable as the birth of their child approached, and after.

Winky had accepted employment with the Weasleys. Molly had objected at first, but not too strenuously. Even though none of her children lived at home any longer, they were all frequent visitors, along with their spouses, children, friends, and what-not. Last Christmas at The Burrow had been a madhouse. Bill and Fleur and their two children, Charley and his girlfriend, Fred and George and their girlfriends, Percy, Ron and Hermione, and Harry and Ginny. Along with drop ins from Remus and Tonks, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Minerva McGonagall, and other surviving members of the Order of the Phoenix. There was more than enough work to keep a couple of house-elves happy (for Dobby had come along too.)

Dawn leaned back against Xander, in a love seat in one of the lounges of their new Headquarters. Empty pizza boxes were scattered around the room, and all the other sofas and chairs were occupied by Slayers and their friends. There was a buzz of happy conversations in the air. Andrew was crawling around on the floor behind a cabinet full of electronics, working to get the fifty inch high-def TV hooked up. Giles was trying to look dignified, while helping him run wires. So far he had managed to have Andrew do all the crawling.

Dawn had the last slice of pizza in her hand. It had taken some careful manoeuvring to keep it for herself, (part of which had been to include a large anchovy and pineapple pizza in the order: none of the Slayers cared much for that combination, but they all became much less selective when they got hungry.)

“You going to eat all of that yourself?” asked Xander.

Dawn took a bite out of the slice. “I can share.” She held the slice up for him to take a bite of his own from.

“Umm…delicious.” Xander licked his lips.

Xander having the same taste in pizza as her was just one of the things that Dawn loved about him. She had loved Xander for as long as she had known him…okay the first four years of schoolgirl crush were invented by the monks, but after that, the feeling hadn’t gone away. It had transmuted into friendship over the next few years in Sunnydale.

After Sunnydale had disappeared, they had gone their separate ways for a time: Xander to Africa to search that continent for new Slayers, and Dawn to Rome to finish her highschool education while Buffy searched Europe for Slayers. During that time Dawn had missed Xander more than any of her other friends. She had looked forward to his emails and phone calls even more than she had the ones from Willow or Giles.

Dawn had been accepted into Cambridge after her year in Rome, and Xander had come back from Africa to supervise the construction of the new Headquarters. The location that had been selected was only a few miles from the university, overlooking the River Cam near the village of Waterbeach, so it had made sense for them to share a flat.

For the first year that’s all they’d done. Dawn had dated a few guys from her classmates in Cambridge, but they had always measured up short (though not necessarily in the physical department.) Her first serious boyfriend had been a guy she’d met at school in Rome. Her relationship with Antonio had been passionate, and exciting, and doomed. Buffy had tried to warn her, but she hadn’t listened. Tony had thought that he was ready to take on whatever the world might have to throw his way, but his first real glimpse of the things that inhabited the night, that were part of Dawn’s day to day existence, had sent him running.

Dawn had rebounded, after she started at Cambridge, with a boy from one of the old Watcher families. He’d already known about the things that went bump in the night, but it quickly became clear to Dawn that he was mostly interested in her because she was Buffy’s sister, and not for herself. A few more guys had come and gone. Some for one or two dates, a couple that had lasted for a few months, but none of them for any more than that. Some had remained friends, but there were none she had developed any deep feelings for.

Xander had been there for her after each failed relationship. He’d provided an ear she could spew her venom into. He had provided a shoulder she could cry on.

It wasn’t just one way. Xander’d had his share or relationship woes after Sunnydale. Anya’s death had hit him hard. Harder than he let most of his friends know. He had tried to shrug it off, start over with a new girl, but it hadn’t worked. Every new relationship he’d tried had come to naught.

After a year sharing the flat, and sharing each other’s heartache, they had both realized that they were more than just friends to each other. Even then they had moved slowly, each of them more than a little afraid that changing their relationship from friendship, to something more, might end badly. And if that happened, who would they have to console each other?

Xander had also been more than a little afraid of Buffy. How would she react if she thought that he was taking advantage of her little sister? Those fears hadn’t been entirely unfounded. Buffy still had a tendency to revert to treating Dawn like she was fourteen. It had not gone well when she first learned that he and Dawn were starting to get closer together. Buffy thought that he was too old for her little sister. (Something that Dawn felt was good for a laugh, considering Buffy’s track record. Heck, even Riley had been six years older than her. She had pointed out to Buffy that she and Xander were the same ages that Buffy and Riley had been when they’d started their relationship. “And look how well that turned out!” Buffy had shot back at her.) Buffy had come around eventually, as had their other friends, though Willow had threatened them both with bludgeoning by shovel if they screwed this up.

Screwing it up was something that seemed less and less likely as time progressed, and now, if Buffy objected at all, it was to their habit of making public displays of affection more than anything else, and Dawn thought that a lot of the reason for that was that Buffy wasn’t getting any.

So now they sat snuggled together in the new Headquarters of the International Council of Slayers and Watchers that Xander had built, taking alternating bites from the last slice of anchovy and pineapple pizza, and being somewhat oblivious to the other people around them.

When the pizza was gone, and they’d licked the last bits of sauce from each other’s lips, the only reaction from Buffy was an outburst of “Oh, get a room!”

Dawn jumped up off Xander’s lap, and pulled him to his feet. “Great idea!” She grinned at him. “We’ve got a bed to christen.”

“Don’t forget that you have to be in the atrium by midnight!” Willow called over the cat-calls and whistles from the Slayers.

“We won’t!” Dawn shot back over her shoulder as she dragged Xander out the door.

“So then Ernie is left holding the bag of loot, while Mundungus disappeared using a Portkey,” said Ron.

Harry laughed. “So how did you catch him?”

“While Ernie was distracting Dung, I managed to switch his Portkey. It dumped him straight into a holding cell, so not only did we recover all the swag he’d nicked, but we caught him fair and square.” Ron settled back in his chair beside the fire in Harry and Ginny’s sitting room, and took a sip from his glass of firewhisky.

“I almost wish he’d gotten away with it,” said Harry. “I’d just as soon see Dung making a profit from selling off stuff he looted from a Death Eater’s house as have the Ministry auction it off.”

“Yeah, I think the judge pretty much agrees with you. He only gave him three months. With ‘good behaviour’ he’ll be back in business by July. I told my boss that we should just hire him. Dung’s better at finding Death Eater stashes than anyone the Ministry has on the payroll.”

“I don’t think that he reported everything he learned to the Order, back during the War,” said Hermione. “He made up his own private list of places to go back to, once things were over.”

“We should just pay him a commission for everything he turns over to us,” said Ron.

“Dung won’t want to work for the Ministry,” said Harry. “That’d take all the fun out of it. It would be too much like actually having a job.”

“There is that,” said Ron.

“How are you going to cover things up for the Muggles?” asked Ginny. “I mean, really, a high speed broom chase over downtown London, in broad daylight?”

“I’ve already taken care of it,” said Hermione. “I put some fuzzy pictures of them on half a dozen UFO web sites, and in The Sun. Most Muggles are now thoroughly convinced that they’re a hoax, and no one takes the rest of them seriously. They stayed high enough that most of the people who saw anything, thought that they were just large birds.”

Ron yawned. “Oh, sorry, but us hard working Hit Wizards have to get up early in the mornings.” He knocked back the remains of his drink, and sighed. “Good stuff. Thanks for having us, but I think it’s time to be on our way.” He and Hermione exchanged a look that said that they weren’t really thinking about going to bed…at least not to sleep, anyway.

“Yes!” said Hermione. “We should be going. I’ll see you in the office in the morning, Harry. Goodnight, Ginny. Thanks for dinner. Tell Dobby it was delicious.”

Harry and Ginny saw Ron and Hermione out the door, and waved goodbye before the couple Disapparated away to their own home. Harry wrapped his arms around Ginny after they had gone. “I think it’s time for us to go to bed too. Come on, and I’ll give you a foot rub.”

“Just my feet?” asked Ginny.

“That’s where I’m planning to start,” said Harry, “not where I plan to finish.” He had his wand in his hand and murmured a quick feather-light charm before he scooped her up, and carried her off to their bedroom.

Xander and Dawn arrived in the crowded atrium with a whole thirty seconds to spare, and not looking too mussed. “So, we miss anything?” he asked breathlessly.

Willow looked up from the centre of the pentagram she was sitting in, that was a permanent part of the inlay pattern of the floor. “Nope, you’re just in time.” The only light in the room was coming from the candles that surrounded her, and from the nearly full moon shining through the overhead skylight.

Most of the Slayers, and other people, were standing around the periphery of the atrium, leaving the centre open. Buffy, Giles, and Kennedy were standing at three apexes of the pentagram’s star. Willow pointed to the two vacant ones. “I need you and Dawn to stand there.”

They quickly took their positions. Willow lit an incense stick from the candle in front of her. “Blind Cadria, lift the veil of illusion from those who enter this place…”

The spell went on for quite a while, in at least three different languages that Xander couldn’t understand, as Willow worked her magic. It was a fairly complicated matter to create a space in which only a few rather specific sorts of illusions were possible. He’d been around Willow and magic long enough to understand a bit of the Latin, and to recognize another of the languages as Greek, and a couple of random words from some of the other languages that she used, but he had given up on ever understanding how she did just about any of the things that she did. When it came to magic, he just stood where she told him to stand, and repeated the words that she told him to say. Fortunately this spell was nearly all Willow, with the people standing around the edge of the pentagram mostly there for moral support.

Willow picked up the large candle in front of her. “As I extinguish this flame, let illusions fade. So mote it be!” She blew out the candle.

Xander felt a bit dizzy. The room seemed shift around him. His vision blurred. He felt a stab of pain in the socket of his artificial eye. “Ow!” He leaned over, holding his hand to his eye. He heard the sound of weapons being drawn.

“Who are you?” demanded Dawn. Xander didn’t think that he could recall ever hearing her sound so angry.