Chapter Text
They were on the Hogwarts Express.
She didn't really believe it, and she didn't really want to believe it, but she poked her head out of the compartment, and yes, there were the students, from ages eleven to seventeen, dressed in the same black robes that she was, hailing each other down, shouting greetings, pleasantries and sometimes expletives, and oh look–there was the trolley lady with the chocolates and sweets that she vaguely remembered when she took Dawnie to see the Sorcerer's Stone.
Buffy slid her head back into the compartment and looked at the bleached blonde head across from her, wearing the same look of bewilderment and confusion on its face.
"Crap," said Buffy.
"Bloody hell," said Spike.
"We're going to Hogwarts!" They cried in unison.
Buffy groaned, flopped down onto the seat, and threw her head in her hands.
"I told you she was a demon," Spike said with all the petulance of a wronged child.
"How the hell was I supposed to know that JK Rowling was a demon?!"
"Oh gee, I don't know," Spike said, making a feigned look of consternation. "How about the part when I said 'er, Slayer, I think that's a demon'. It's not the bloody first time one has pretended to be someone famous."
"Oh no," Buffy said, half rising back onto her feet in indignation. "That was definitely her–It was! That's why I was trying to approach her! So I could get an autograph for Dawnie!"
Spike rolled his eyes then, looking straight into Buffy's eyes, uttered one single word, "Elvis."
"That doesn't count!" Buffy whined, "he's from like fifty years ago, he's supposed to be dead and–", she lifted a finger as if to prove her point, "–he's not even impersonating himself. He's impersonating an impersonation of himself. A-ha! See the difference?"
"The difference," said Spike with a hint of impatience, "is that the soddin' bloody Slayer should know when there's an evil nasty in front of her or not. You're supposed to be the bloody protector of the world and everything, God knows the holier-than-thou stake up your bloody ass is a testament to that. If I knew it was that easy to get the jump on you, I would have just stuck with the Billy Idol look and killed you myself."
"First of all, you are still doing the Billy Idol look. The bouncer at the Bronze said so, and he thinks you're tacky," Spike rolled his eyes and shoved the back of his index and middle finger up in the air at her.
"Second of all," Buffy continued, "it's stupid and wouldn't have worked anyway. Third of all, you couldn't kill me even without whatever holy stake up my ass or whatever."
Spike raised a scarred eyebrow and determined not to feel as stupid as he was making her out to be, Buffy continued, "and fourth of all–fourth of all? Fourthly–"
"Just say last of all."
"–and finally, if you knew she was a demon, then what were you doing following her?" Buffy folded her arms, tapped her foot, and raised her chin. Spike said nothing. Rather, he balked at the question instead, opened his mouth halfway, then quickly shut it and looked away.
"Oh my God," Buffy said when he continued to remain silent.
"No, now listen here, Slayer–"
"You were after your own autograph."
"I was scoping out the competition."
"You had your own book."
"It was part of the disguise."
"You knew she was a demon, and you still tried to get your own autograph," Buffy said in disbelief. "From JK Rowling."
"They're bloody good books, alright?" Spike said, far too haughtily for someone who insisted that they were still a 'Big Bad'. "And I would have gotten it if your tiny self-righteous ass hadn't tried to jump ahead, which is a huge no-no, by the way. Goes against the fan etiquette rulebook." He added, ironically with a self-righteous raise of his own chin. Buffy screwed up her face.
"Screw the rulebook," said Buffy. "What were you even going to say? 'Oh hi love, fancy a cup of tea? We can trade tales of evil, and oh yeah, can you sign my children's book even though I'm two hundred years old? God save the Queen, cheerio."
Spike twiddled his fingers. "...something to that effect, yeah."
"You're unbelievable."
Spike scoffed, "Like you can talk."
Buffy frowned and did a double take. "Meaning?" She said, placing her hands on her hips.
"'I was just getting one for the lil 'bit'," said Spike in a high-pitched voice and accompanying air quotes. Buffy felt her cheeks redden.
"I was!"
"Yeah, and I'm a vampire with a soul."
"And—and I was getting one for Riley, too."
"Nice try, slayer, but I think we both know Captain Cardboard can't read."
"He can read, and you're–"
"Sorry to interrupt, but is everything alright here?"
Buffy froze. How long had it been since she'd been snuck up upon? And yet here she was so caught up in a war of words with Spike that she hadn't even realised the compartment door had slipped open. She could feel Giles' look of disapproval.
There at the door stood a girl with the most remarkable green eyes and deep red hair that strangely enough, didn't remind her of Willow but the kinky vampire version of her. Next to her stood a taller mousy-haired boy, raggedy looking and a little worse for wear. His apologetic, mild-mannered expression was a contrast to the girl's self-assured demeanour, but there was something in it that reminded her of someone a little more stoic, but just as quiet. Oz.
"He looks nothing like David Thewlis," said Buffy before she could stop herself. Spike ducked his face behind his hand, making something of a sound between a snort and cough.
"Sorry?" said the boy.
The two newcomers exchanged bewildered looks before looking back at Buffy. The girl seemed to be looking at them thoroughly and not completely without suspicion. It was then that Buffy noticed just how close she and Spike were, prompting her to immediately shove the latter away.
"Oi!" He yelped as he fell back onto the seat. She turned back to the two at the door and tried to put on her sweetest smile.
"Everything's fine," she said, laughing and waving a dismissive hand. "Peachy, even... mate."
"American..." hummed the girl. Spike shot Buffy a look that quite clearly said 'shut the bloody hell up, you donkey', and it took all of Buffy's strength of willpower not to poke her tongue back out at him.
"I think these two must be the transfer students Sturgis was talking about earlier," said the boy who Buffy was fairly certain was Lupin. Sensing an opening, Buffy leapt at it.
"Yes, that's it! That's us," she said, "Students. From America. It's good to be here. In the land of tea and football. I mean—that's muggle stuff—football I mean, not the tea. Do wizards drink tea? British wizards, I mean—but it's in the name, so of course you do."
Lupin, the girl, and, to put more salt in an already awkward wound, Spike raised an eyebrow at her.
"Right..." said the girl and, bless her heart, she really seemed to be making an effort to find Buffy's wave length. "Nothing like a cup of Earl Grey in the morning?" she offered.
"I prefer Chamomile, myself," said Lupin with a supportive grin, which helped Buffy in retaining her own smile she'd been very nearly close to losing. The silence that followed, however, made it again a losing battle.
"I'm Lily," said the girl finally, and she held out a hand, "Lily Evans. And this is Remus Lupin. We're the Fifth Year Gryffindor prefects."
"Oh!" Buffy said, and she took the girl's hand almost a little too desperately, "Buffy Summers and, er, that—", she gave an uncertain look at Spike who seemed to be in the midst of realising something, "—is William. William the—"
"Winters," Spike said.
"What?" said Buffy.
"What?" said Spike.
"William the Winters?" Lily asked. Lupin looked bemusedly between them.
"Just William Winters will do, pet," answered Spike.
"Summers and Winters," Lily said, smiling. "That's cute."
Buffy was in hell. That was the only explanation. She'd finally lost one too many lives and was being punished for God knows whatever reason, and that punishment meant being stuck in a faux fairy tale dimension with the most obnoxious, insufferable pig in the world. Give her Hellmouths, give her demons, give her anything but this tragic existence. And all for a stupid autograph.
"No," Buffy said, shaking her head vigorously, "no. No. No, no, no. It is absolutely not cute. Why are you saying it's 'Winters'?" she hissed at Spike.
"Would you prefer Finn instead?" he said with a smirk. She was going to kill him. She was going to finally kill him, and she was going to do it with Harry Potter's teenaged mother and teenaged professor as her witness. She should have staked his rotten heart years ago.
"William Winters," said Buffy, gesturing to Spike with a flourish of her hands. The two prefects exchanged another look of bewilderment.
"Nice to meet you, Summers," said a confused Lupin, "and Winters," he added to Spike. Buffy tried not to cringe.
"I suppose we better pass the message along then, Lily?" Lupin said.
"Message?" Buffy perked up, "There's a message?"
"Oh, yes, of course!" Lily said, straightening up and taking on a businesslike expression, "Sturgis–Sturgis Podmore that is, he's this year's Head boy–told everyone at the Prefect meeting that you two would be here and that you should be informed that there will be a faculty member waiting at Hogsmeade station for you. They'll have the rest of your stuff."
"Normally, new students take the boats across the lake to Hogwarts, but er, you both are a bit bigger than what we are accustomed to, shall we say," said Lupin with a wry smile.
"Right, which would leave the carriages by default, but I'm guessing they must have something else planned for you, special circumstances and all. Sorry, we've never had transfer students while we've been here, so there's not a lot for us to go on."
"Or to warn you about."
Lily batted a friendly swat at Lupin, then to Buffy said, "There's nothing to warn you about. That's just his bad influence speaking."
"Ah," Buffy said with a knowing smile, "You talking about the Ma–argh!" She was interrupted by a sharp kick from Spike, whose hand had pre-emptively shot to his head in anticipation of the pain about to explode there. Or the pain that should have exploded there. It didn't come, and he stared at it, confused. Buffy looked at it, horror-struck.
"Erm," Lily said, looking between them then at Remus, who had a raised eyebrow. There seemed to be a lot of that going around.
"Malfoys!" Spike said quickly. "She's talking about the Malfoys. Bunch of poncey posh pure-blooded pricks that lot. No offense."
"Um, none taken?" Remus said, "although I have to say that I'm not well acquainted with them. There's none at Hogwarts at the moment, and the last one graduated two years ago."
"Right," said Spike. "Good riddance to that then."
"Not a fan?" Lily asked. Both she and Lupin were now peering at him with great curiosity. Spike shrugged.
"Have you met them?"
They nodded, although it was clear they suspected there was more to it than that.
"Right," said Lily, "well, we better get back to patrolling the carriages. I could come back later if you'd like, Buffy? Help you settle in?"
"I'd love that," Buffy said, then noticed that Spike's foot had turned dangerously towards her, "but you know, we're really tired–what with the travelling and all–so I think we're just going to try get some rest."
"Of course," Lily said, smiling kindly at her, "I'll see you later then at the school."
Once Lily and Lupin had said their goodbyes and left the compartment, Buffy rounded on Spike, hands on hips.
"Your chip doesn't work," she said accusatorily. Spike flashed a wicked grin at her.
"What do you reckon? Should we pick up where we left off, then?"
"I'm sorry, you'll have to clarify which specific asskicking you're referring to, but I'm fine either way."
In one motion, Spike pushed himself off his seat and closed the distance between them. Buffy's hand instinctively reached for her pocket for the stake that wasn't there. Only... there was something there. It was thinner and longer than a stake, but there was no mistaking that feel of wood Buffy had come to know over her years as a Slayer.
She pulled it out and frowned at it. Spike was looking at it, too.
A wand.
"Bloody hell," Spike said.
Buffy couldn't help herself. She squealed.
***
It turned out that Buffy wasn't the only one with a wand. To her great dismay, Spike had one, too. To her even greater dismay, it was longer than hers which shouldn't have been a problem and ordinarily wouldn't have been, except she was with the most obnoxious, insufferable pig in the world, and said obnoxious, insufferable pig felt it was a great opportunity to prove that he indeed was the most obnoxious, insufferable pig in the world. And so it was that Buffy had to endure the most excruciating three minutes and eighty-six seconds (she made it a point not to convert the last minute) of her life, which was entirely composed of the peroxide pig twirling and flourishing his wand in her face (NOT a euphemism).
"Y'know, I'm really starting to reconsider the 'man' part in manchild with you. It turns out, you're just a child," Buffy said after three minutes and ninety-five seconds. Spike had his wand held out parallel to hers and was looking at it in triumphant admiration (again, NOT a euphemism).
"Dunno Slayer, is a child's wand as long as this one?" Spike said. Buffy made a face.
"That's disgusting. And considering where we are–incredibly inappropriate."
Spike gave her an offended look, "You say that like I should be anything but."
Which brought her back to the important matter at hand here.
"You're right," said Buffy, who twirled the wand in her hand into an ice-pick grip, an action that didn't go unnoticed by Spike. "So the chip isn't working?"
"Relax, slayer," He said, eyeing her wand with a wary glance. It wasn't a stake but she'd improvised with worse before, and Spike knew just as well as anybody. "I'm not going to go all Jack Torrance on you."
"That doesn't even make sense. And how do I know that?"
"Because," Spike said, stepping towards the window, a hint of exasperation in his voice. He held out his hand to the window, turning it over and over, flexing his fingers and basking it in the sunlight. Buffy felt her jaw drop involuntarily. "Looks like I'm not quite the Big Bad you'd like to think I am."
Buffy could only gape at the sight. Then–
"You're not burning up!" Buffy said, dropping her wand. "Why aren't you burning up!?"
"Well, Slayer, I'd say the obvious answer is that I'm–Oi!"
Buffy had snatched at his hand and positioned it closer to the window, glaring at it accusatorily, daring it to combust. It did nothing. In fact, on closer inspection, it wasn't even that shade of pale marble that she'd come to associate with vampires. It didn't even look like it was melanin-deprived. Buffy stared up at Spike.
"How?" Was all she could muster. He gave something of a shrug, but beneath the nonchalant action there was something there in his face–a wrinkle in his forehead, a twitch in his brow, a shifting in his eyes–that told her that he too found it unsettling to some degree. And then–
"Looks like... I'm some kind of human without a soul."
Buffy's spine went rigid and she narrowed her eyes at him. She could see exactly where he was going and was just about to mouth her pre-emptive protest when Spike lit up into a bright grin.
"I'm like the anti-Angelus!"