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Chapter 5.

Buffy couldn't believe what she'd just heard. Sirius was dead? "Harry I'm so sorry," she said quietly. Sirius had been so cool and he'd suffered so much while he was stuck in Azkaban. He'd been a good man. He certainly hadn't deserved to die.

"So what's going on?"

Three heads whipped around to see a tall brunette girl walk into the room. Before the doors could swing shut behind her Buffy caught sight of Xander and Willow standing there with sheepish looks on their faces.

"No, wait. I don't care." Cordelia continued. "Where's Giles? I need a book."

"Uh, hi guys," Buffy said awkwardly as Xander and Willow took the seats either side of her. "Giles isn't here. He said he had a somewhere to be."

"Oh well in't that just typical! The one time I actually want to speak to him Giles decides to get a life. What is he off getting his glasses waxed or something?"

"Hi, I'm Ron Weasley."

Buffy stifled her urge to groan. Could Ron be any more obvious? He was half sitting half standing and his mouth was hanging open. Definite signs of attraction.

"And I am so not interested. Buffy, when Giles gets back let him know that I am very upset with him and that he'd better make it up to me." With a flick of her hair Cordelia turned on her heel and swept out of the library.

"Wow." Ron's mouth was still hanging open.

"Hey, Ron." Buffy said with a grin. "Believe me she is not nicer when you get to know her. She's like a female Malfoy."

Harry snorted.

"Whose Malfoy?" Willow asked innocently.

'Oops.' "Uh...."

"Are you going to introduce us?" Harry asked quickly, obviously sensing that she needed help.

"Sure. Xan, Will, these two are Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, we used to go to school together. Guys, these are my friends Willow Rosenberg and Xander Harris. And the girl Ron was drooling over is Cordelia Chase. Oh, and I'm Buffy." This last part she sid rather pointedly looking at Harry and Ron, praying they'd get it.

"Of course you're Buffy, Buff. Who else would you be?" Xander laughed.

"So you guys went to school together. At Hemery?" Willow asked.

"Er-yes. Ron... Buffy and I were really close friends. Did everything together." Harry told them.

"You're British!" Willow exclaimed.

"Yeah."

"Mini-Giles!" Xander chirped. "Cool!"

"They're both British," Buffy said, thinking it best to get this out of the way now. "Moved over here about two years ago."

"Oh that's so cool. What's England like? Do you drink tea a lot like Giles? Or do you like coffee? Do they have coffee in England? Giles hates it," Willow babbled.

"Have you been drinking coffee?" Xander asked her. "'Cos you're acting a little hyper."

"Nope. I'm coffee free. Hate coffee. Ick. Big 'no' to coffee. I'm just excited 'cos I'm meeting Buffy's friends."

Buffy saw the look that passed between the two British boys. They were completly caught off guard by Willow-speak.

"Yeah, me too." Xander said, "Because we all liked Ford so much."

'Ford? Oh no, they're gonna judge Harry and Ron by Ford? I barely knew him three months how was I supposed to know he was a psycho? This is bad. Subject change needed.' "So what happened to Umbridge?" she blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

Ron laughed cynically. "She got sacked. Turned out she was using-what was it Harry? Oh yeah. Unorthodox methods to punish students."

"She got off easy, compared to the others. She deserved worse," Harry muttered angrily.

"She was kinda nasty," Buffy agreed. "Gotta love that curse though."

"Excuse me, but what?"

"Oh, sorry Xander. In Ho- Hemery we had what became known as the uh- chemistry teacher curse." Buffy explained, "every year we had a different teacher. The last one, Umbridge was really the epitome of not nice. At least she didn't try to kill anyone though. She didn't did she?"

"Not exactly. Not like Moody," Ron answered her.

"And before that it was Lupin," Harry interjected. "He was the best of all of them, but he had this illness. Parents didn't like him teaching because of it."

Buffy was surprised that both boys had grasped the fact that they were talking to muggles and needed to watch what they were saying. She didn't know how Ron hadn't slipped up yet. He didn't have much experience with muggles.

"Do you remember Lockhart in second year?" Ron said with a laugh. "Her-Buffy had a huge crush on him."

"Urgh! Do not remind me of that! Just the thought makes me feel sick to the stomach."

"Note to self, mention this Lockhart dude as often as possible," Xander said grinning.

"That turned out to be quite a scandal," Harry told the pair from Sunnydale. "He'd written all these books about the things he had done, but really he was taking credit for other people's work. Of course, now he's in the hospital with amnesia. We saw him there last christmas."

"What were you doing in the hospital?" Buffy asked alarmed. She knew the sort of trouble Harry could get into.

"Visiting. And the year before that it was Quirrel." Harry obviously didn't want to talk about that. "He..."

"He was schizophrenic," Buffy jumped in. "Split personality. Thought he was an evil dark wizard."

The boys all laughed, but Willow's eyes had narrowed as though she was figuring something out.

"Five teachers. You said one a year, so five years?"

"Yeah," Ron said.

"B-but Buffy said you'd only moved to LA two years ago."

Buffy's eyes widened. 'Not good. Why does Willow have to be so smart?'

"Hello," a voice called from te doorway.

"Giles!" Buffy jumped to her feet. "You're back! Good." She was desperately trying to beg for help with only her eyes.

"Yes I am. Buffy are you alright?"

"Uh huh! Why wouldn't I be?"

"Is something wrong with your... Never mind. Willow, Xander, could you please give me a hand in my office?"

"Sure Giles," Willow stood, still looking suspiciously between Buffy, Harry and Ron.

"Yeah G-man. What d'ya need?"

"Xander I've asked you time and again not to call me that."

Buffy figured that this was probably a good time to make an escape. "Well you guys have fun. I'll just take these two and show them around. See ya."

She motioned to the boys to follow and al three hurriedly left.

"Something's not right there. What are they hiding?" Willow wondered out loud.

"Dunno, but I'm thinking background check," Xander told her.

"You'll do no such thing," Giles admonished. "If Buffy does not wish to tell you then you will respect that and not pry. Now I need your assistance with some research..."

As Giles explained what they were looking for Xander and Willow exchanged a look. Whatever the big secret was, Giles was obviously in on it.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"So they're your new friends? They seem nice. Possibly Willow is insane," Harry said conversationally as the trio strolled through the park.

"Yup. They're my buds," Buffy smiled fondly. "Couldn't be without them."

"But you can be without us?" Ron sounded hurt.

"No! I didn't mean it like that. I missed you guys so much, but I had to leave. Didn't want to, had to."

"Why? If you'd spoken to Dumbledore he would have been able to help. The Order could have protected your parents."

"Harry you don't get it," Buffy said seriously. "It wasn't just about protection. It was about school. When they heard the things we were getting up to mom and dad just got scared. They thought that one day I just wouldn't come back. It didn't help that I was spending almost every holiday with you guys as well. They rarely saw me and then they hear these tales about Dementors and werewolves and, well, Voldemort."

Ron gasped. "You said the name!" he exclaimed pointing at her.

"It seemed kinda silly being scared of a name, especially from this far away."

"Who told your parents?" Harry asked trying to get back on topic.

"Merrick. I don't think he realised that they didn't know. They were so mad and hurt that I hadn't trusted them enough to tell them myself. They were sending me daily owls telling me to come home." Buffy sighed pensively. "Then Merrick came to talk to me that halloween in the Three Broomsticks. He got me so mad. Said I was selfish, putting magic above my parents lives. When I calmed down I realised he was right. I packed that night and left." Buffy was proud of the story. She'd been thinking about it all day when she should have been paying attention to her classes and figured the best way forward was to keep the story as close to the truth as possible. So far she'd not lied directly, only leaving out refernces to slaying, destiny and prophecies.

"Will you come home with us?" Ron asked abruptly.

Buffy stared at him. "I can't Ron. I want to, but I'm needed here."

"Needed?" Harry's head whipped round. "What do you mean by needed?"

'Me and my big mouth.' "Mom! Dad left us so if I left to then she'd be all alone. I couldn't so that to her. And I have school and my friends."

"But it's all a lie," Harry insisted. "Buffy Summers is a lie. You are Hermione Granger! You belong at Hogwarts with us, not here pretending to be some dim cheerleader. It's just not you."

""Buffy Summers is me. Every bit as much as Hermione Granger."

"No she's not! Hermione Granger was top of every class, she was smart, no not smart, brilliant and she was always there for us. Buffy Summers is failing every class, spends all her time getting in trouble for no good reason and the only similarity I can see is that they both like to spend a lot of time in the library."

"How dare you judge me?" Buffy demanded when Harry took a breath. "You have no idea what I've been doing since I left you. I had to give up magic. My dad walked out on us because he finally decided that he couldn't deal with a daughter like me, I got expelled from school and had to move to this godforsaken town."

"Well what about me?" Harry yelled back. "One of my best friend just leaves one day and all we get is a note, I had to suffer visions from Voldemort and half the school thinking I'm delusional and Umbridge. The Sirius died. He was the closest thing I've ever had to a parent and now he's dead."

Part of Buffy was keen to tell Harry exactly what she had suffered in their time apart, but the bigger, more compassionate part was too busy feeling sorry for her friend. She stepped towards him. "Harry I'm sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you," in another step she was right up close and reached out to him. "I'm sorry," she said again and hugged him. She looked at Ron over Harry's shoulder. "Wanna tell me how lousy your year has been?"

"It wasn't so bad," Ron shrugged. "Apart from you not being there. And dad was attacked by You-Know-Who's snake, but he's fine now. And Sirius. I got to play Quidditch."

"Your dad? Is that why you were at the hospital at christmas?" Buffy asked letting go of Harry.

"Yeah," he said. "So I wanted to ask you something."

"Subject change. That's cool. Shoot."

"That's it exactly. What's with the accent? Shoot what? Some of the things you say sound like Gobbledegook. Can't you drop it while it's just the three of us?"

"Actually, no. I can't."

"It's a spell?"

"Yeah, but not your ususal kind. Merrick was pretty insistent that we blend in so as to not draw attention to ourselves, but he didn't want us dependant on spells in case they ever wore off at a bad time. He found this nifty little charm that slowly wears off after time. As it's power fades your own brain kinda makes up for it. Eventually the spell is completely worn off, but its effects keep on going. Like the Energiser Bunny."

"The what bunny?" Ron frowned. "Is that like eklekric?"

Buffy just laughed. "I've missed you Ron."

"What about the other changes?" Harry asked getting back into the conversation. "How did you get your hair so... not bushy? And how are you not top of every class?"

"Well the hair was easy. Muggle products and hair dye. I needed to look different and my hair was what stood out the most about me. Changing my attitude was a little harder, but eventually I realised that I didn't care what people thought and it got easier. Then dad left and I had all this pent up rage, which helped. Buffy does not blindly follow authority figures like Hermione did and she ain't half so meek and mild."

"We noticed that," Harry said conversationally. "So are your school marks part of the disguise too?"

"Not really. I would've liked to have at least kept up with classes. A lot of the problem is time management. I have a lot of stuff going on and I'm still trying to learn magical theory. Compared to that I just don't place the same importance on my muggle studies. And I was way, way, way behind before I even started. Until we moved to the States I hadn't done things like math for four years. It got a lot harder in that time. It's been almost impossible to catch up. Of course that implies that I have caught up, which I haven't. Oh and history, which is by far my worst subject, is even worse. I had six years worth of Europpean history lessons, then four years of magical history and suddenly I'm supposed to do American history! In what alternate universe am I ever going to be able to keep up?" Buffy looked up to see Harry and Ron staring at her. "Ok. Rant over," she said sheepishly.

"Don't worry. We even missed your rants," Harry told her.

"I'll bet."

"Did you really get expelled from your old school?" Ron asked.

Buffy winced. "Uh, kinda."

"But you're Hermione! You don't break rules."

"It was a total misunderstanding."

"How about all that other trouble you've been in. We saw your files remember? Detentions, fights, skiving off... you name it." Ron seemed almost amused. "Does that mean we can skive off when we're back at Hogwarts and you won't lecture us?"

"It was, uh, ok. What do you know about this town?" She figured she should stick to the truth as much as possible. Just leaving a few major details out.

Ron pulled a face. "Were we supposed to research it?"

"No, silly. It's just. This town has a reputation for weird occurrences. Most people shrug them off, say they were mistaken, it was a trick of the light, gangs on PCP. Anything but the truth."

"Which is?" Harry asked slowly as if unsure he would like the answer.

"Hellmouth. Under the town. It attracts the darker creatures like vampires." It wasn't dangerous to tell them this as Hellmouths were usually a fifth year topic.

"There's one here? That's incredible," Harry said with interest. "But I don't understand what this has to do with..."

"The muggles can't defend themselves from what they think doesn't exist. Some of my friends and I, we're kinda like a vigilante group I suppose. Unfortunately it's given us a reputation as troublemakers, but we get by. We've saved some lives."

"You saved my life," Ron said gratefully.

Harry was thinking. "That's why you won't leave? You feel you need to stay here and protect the muggles."

"Sounds like something Harry would do," Ron muttered.

"Surely your friends can manage without you." Harry's startlingly green eyes locked with her hazel ones. "We need you too."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"So what d'ya got?" Xander asked dropping into a chair next to Willow.

"Maybe something," the redhead replied not looking up from the computer screen. "I checked Hemery's records and neither Ron Weasley or Harry Potter were ever registered there."

"So we know they're lying. That's good except that we already knew that. Anything else?"

"Mmm. I'm gonna check Buffy's records. If they were really that close they may have been in clubs together or something." Not five seconds later Willow gasped.

"What? What is it?"

"Buffy Summers was only registered at Hemery for three months. From November 10th 1996 to February 18th 1997. That was when she was expelled. She came here almost right after."

"So what are you saying? Buffy went to some other school first? Where? Was she expelled from there too?"

"I dunno, but let's not jump to conclusions. There could be a perfectly logical explanation," Willow rationalised. "I'll check the other schools in LA, maybe she went to one of those."