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Part 1
Harry was pretty happy. After experiencing the memories of Xander Harris, this being caused by his soul passing through the dimensional rifts which were formed by the blood of his daughter, Dawn, also known as the Key, on his way to heaven, Harry had come to some realizations in life. For example he now knew that the help offered by beautiful women, in this case Hermione Granger and Luna Lovegood, was beyond useful. Hermione was too by the book to do more than find the laws Harry needed twisting, but Luna, Luna was something else with her ability to find loopholes. Luna even thought it was fun how some weird animal influenced people. Harry didn’t ask for details. He did however ask the newly freed Sirus Black where they were going to spend the summer.
That isn’t to say he was completely happy though. Harry hadn’t been able to do more than get Um-bitch dismissed from Hogwarts, she was still toadying up to Fudge, though that wasn’t doing her well since Fudge wasn’t wanting to be affiliated with her since she had unintentionally incriminated herself in wrongful imprisonment and forced the ministry into a position where they had to acknowledge that Voldemort might possibly be back.
Harry was also learning a great deal of interesting things in DADA. Until a new teacher could be hired it was being taught in shifts by the other teachers, they were using a time turner for when it overlapped with their own classes. Each teacher had a different technique, and they were competent. Even Snape was an acceptable teacher, when he wasn’t trying to reveal to everyone that their normal teacher was a werewolf, though he still thought they were all dunderheads. The way Professor Sprout was showing them to defend themselves was really unique. She had seeds from a short lived plant that would grow almost immediately from hitting the ground, it would then attack the feet of nearby attackers and essentially force them to stay in one place, so although they could still use their wands the attacked would have time to escape. This wasn’t anything he’d ever heard of, though he suspected that the Weasley Twins had at some point heard of these seeds since it reminded Harry of several of their pranks.
Harry was quickly adding ideas to his ‘Ways to Kill Voldemort’ list. Using Sprout’s seeds and then injecting Voldemort with some sort of flesh eating bacteria sounded like a neat way to kill him. Portkeying him above a dozen working chainsaws was another gory idea, however Harry wasn’t sure how to remove the safety features from a portkey to allow him to do that. He was still partial to cutting off the Dark Lord’s head with a battle axe. He’d asked around, the goblins could get him a really good one, guaranteed not to rust and to always have a sharp edge, for a very nice price. They had a lot of respect for someone who could plan things out in such detail, although Harry didn’t know how the goblins knew this since he hadn’t shown the list to anyone.
Even Harry knew that life was going pretty well for him. Sirius was free, the only teacher on staff that disliked him was Snape, which he could handle, and he was flying without any spectators or bludgers. Things weren’t perfect, things rarely were if you were dealing with the government in any way, but his overall life was definitely going up. Literally at the moment, Harry slowly kicked off the ground and rose in ever higher circling patterns. Harry had been so busy that he hadn’t had time to fly outside of quidditch practice. They hadn’t even had a game to play yet. Harry spared a moment to think of starting some other games, most schools played more than one sport after all, it might also be fun if he could arrange games between other schools of magic. ‘Nothing can ruin this moment,’ Harry thought to himself.
Harry gasped in some air as he felt an odd sensation take over him before he could start into his dive. Harry lost his concentration as his vision got dizzy, unintentionally dropping several feet on his broom, thankfully he was many more than several feet in the air. As Harry’s vision cleared he looked around at the familiar sites. The familiar graveyard, the familiar specks directly below him, and the unfamiliar demonic biker bang coming right at them. He was in Sunnydale.
Part 2
Willow bounced with nervous excitement as she waited for Buffy to finish training with Giles. It was sometimes hard for Willow to corner Buffy to talk where Giles wouldn’t overhear. What had happened with Glory had reinvigorated all of them. The demonic underbelly was more terrified of Buffy than ever since she had gone on the war path.
Tara reached a calming hand over to Willow’s shoulder. Willow jumped slightly at the unexpected touch before looking at Tara with a grin. They’d been working with Anya on a spell to bring Xander back from hell. Tonight was perfect, they just needed Buffy to act as the fourth. Willow had sneakily arranged for the Buffy-bot to take Buffy’s patrol.
Normally the robot version of Buffy worked the night shift at the Doublemeat Palace. This suited them all just fine. Though some weird demon had been greatly surprised when it had tried to eat the bot and had choked to death. Willow had not enjoyed cleaning off the demon junk. On the other hand the Buffy-bot was being credited with a boost in employee morale since the turnover rate had gone down so much since her hiring. She’d already received two raises and was in the running for assistant manager. Buffy was all for it. She and Dawn appreciated the money she was making for them.
Anya quickly finished closing the shop for the night as she heard the familiar sounds of Giles and Buffy putting away the practice weapons. It was only moments after Buffy came up front that she was pulled away with the others, some mumbled words about girl talk before patrol effectively prevented Giles from asking what was going on. Giles began the final lock down on the shop as the girls were already out of sight.
Buffy smiled at them as she quickly realized where they were heading. “You figured it out?” she asked excitedly. She hadn’t been involved much with the prepping for what she realized would happen tonight. Buffy had chosen to take her emotions out on the demonic population as any good slayer would. Though she had come to some realizations while patrolling with Spike. Not all demons were evil, although most of the ones on a hell mouth were. Which meant nothing really since she couldn’t leave Sunnydale undefended, but was good to know.
Willow nodded and started babbling at Buffy about moon cycles and planetary alignments. Buffy pretended to understand, she got the basic reasoning that it had to be tonight or they’d have to research another ritual to bring Xander back. They quickly arrived at the grave of one ‘Xander Harris, Beloved Friend, A True Hero.’ Willow explained what each girl had to do, sitting in a circle around the grave, each one faced a different direction, North, South, East and West. They each had a small line to say before Willow would beseech Hades, the god of the underworld, to return the soul of one who was not meant to have been taken yet.
As the ceremony finished, Willow felt the power leave her and spiral around inside the circle they had formed. Buffy rushed to her feet as she caught sight of a bunch of demonic bikers heading there way. She was able to hear snipets of their conversation about how the slayer was busy on the other side of town. They meant the Buffy-bot of course. Buffy had no choice but to leave the circle. She ran towards the demons, grabbing her patrolling sword from where it was left not far from the grave and ran towards the demons. Tara and Willow each grabbed the other’s hands and Willow’s voice rose to cast magic at the demons. Anya was left staring at the grave, Xander hadn’t returned, she knew magic well enough to know that the ceremony had ended and he hadn’t returned. Anya frowned grimly turning her attention to the demons nearby, someone had to suffer. None of them noticed as a young man appeared in the air several feet above them floating on a broom.
Part 3
Harry flew down to a proper aiming range and let fly with the curses as soon as he pulled his wand out of his new wand holster. A couple of 'reducto's later and he was surrounded by several upset women. Between the 5 of them they'd made short work of the bikers.
"Who are you?" Buffy demanded taking a stance in front of Tara and Willow. Which was not that successful since she was smaller than either of them. "What are you?"
"I'm Harry, Harry Potter," he replied simply, drinking in the sight of several of the people who had been most important to Xander. They might not have been his memories and emotions but they were a part of him now. He smiled as he turned to see Anya cautiously approaching.
"You're what? A junior watcher? I already told the council to stay away unless we call for backup." Buffy glared.
"You needed help. I'm not a watcher, I'm a wizard. Besides, didn't you summon me? I was at school until a few minutes ago then I was here, above you." Harry jumped off his broom as he came to a landing before them.
"You? Why would we summon you? We were summoning Xander," Anya said crossing her arms over her chest before letting out a small huff of annoyance.
"Xander?" Harry frowned as he thought things out. Now if it had been Harry before Xander, or even just Xander neither of them would have come to the right conclusion very fast. But Harry after Xander… Now THAT is someone who is really good at figuring things out. "Ah. Xander… His soul went thru me and maybe a couple of other dimensions before getting to heaven. So it would have summoned me before him. … Probably." He would always be the second person to admit he wasn't perfect, Snape would be first.
"Oh…" Buffy murmured exchanging looks with the others.
Tara inched around Buffy, letting go of Willow's hand. She looked closely at Harry while he calmly looked back at her. "Hm… Their auras are almost identical, I believe him."
"He's in heaven?" Willow whispered hoarsely. "But. But…"
"Hell cannot contain a pure human soul. As long as his body remained here then it would have been safe to say he went to his afterlife. It did remain didn't it?" Harry gestured toward the gravestone.
"Yeah. It did."
"It is so incredible seeing you all."
Buffy frowned as she slowly put her weapons away. "You know who we are?"
"Yeah. I told you, his soul went thru me. You know how some people say your life will flash before your eyes before you think you're going to die? Well I got his flashes."
"Oh."
Harry smiled, "It's so awesome to see you all. I so want to see Dawn and Giles too before you send me back."
Willow flinched back and look at Tara who was also looking at her. Willow shook her head softly. Harry slumped his shoulders as he noticed the silent exchange.
"You DO know how to send me back, right? … Right?"
"Um…"