Categories > Books > Harry Potter > The Slayer, The Avatar And The Guardian Of Light
Chapter 90 - Tara's Mission
Dimension: 563 - Earth
Date: 4th October 2001 AD
Country: Britain - England
Location: Dartmoor
Time: Morning
Tara was angry.
She was really angry and that was unusual for a start.
Tara Maclay, the sweet girl who any man would be happy to take home to their elderly parents and have complete
faith that she would be accepted as a future wife had undergone a major change.
It had started when they performed the Right of Osiris to resurrect Adam and Buffy.
Buffy (it turned out later) had been resurrected as planned, but Adam.
When the ritual was performed a ghostly image of Adam had raised out of the ground leaving the earth undisturbed.
It had walked up to Tara bowed and had been absorbed into her.
She had felt this almighty surge of magic.
She had never felt that powerful before.
The others were concerned about what had happened but she just told them that somehow she just knew that the Right
had failed and that Adam must have been too powerful for even Willow to pull back, as such they just raised his
magic which moved to the nearest safe host or something similar which at that moment happened to be her, leaving
the rest of him dead.
They later discovered that the Right had been a partial success when they found Buffy wondering around the streets
but they never saw any sign of Adam, his grave remained untouched.
After that things proceeded as usual for a few weeks the only real difference being Tara's increased confidence and
power which allowed her to assist the Scoobies to a greater extent than she had before, putting her on the same
level as Willow if not beyond it in some areas.
Her new powers seemed immense, it was very hard for her to control them, recently she had been reading up on more
powerful spells and almost all had worked first time.
During the weeks that followed she kept hoping that Adam would arrive one day, open the door and just tell them it
took him a bit longer to come back, she would have given anything to see him again, apart from the fact that she
considered him a close friend, she kept thinking that her powers were not hers to control, they were still
partially wild and strained to break out at times, it was especially hard if she became emotional.
The next major threat came when Warren shot Tara and Buffy.
Willow turned dark and tried to destroy the world.
But the person Tara felt really sorry for was Dawn.
When she had woken up she saw Dawn crouched in the corner of the room sobbing, she very nearly jumped out of her
skin when Tara (after lying dead for over six hours) opened her eyes and stood up, her scream had been heard blocks
away.
It had taken her hours to calm Dawn down and quite frankly who could blame her.
By the time Tara managed to catch up with Willow she was in Xander's arms sobbing on a hill top.
After that Willow went to England with Giles to learn control of her abilities.
While they were away Tara returned to studying Adam's book (which Willow had left behind) in an attempt to find out
why she had survived a bullet to the heart.
She discovered that the book actually answered questions if you asked them in a way that it could answer.
It had told her that her increased powers had regenerated her, Adam's powers had kept her alive; it had just taken
time as the magic was not naturally hers.
After Willow returned nothing unusual (or rather more unusual than normal) really happened to the Scoobies.
Until four days ago....
________________________________________________________________________
For the last three nights she had been having dreams about Adam.
Every time exactly the same.
She was wearing a simple white night dress walking through Adam's house.
Adam kept calling.
Calling out to her.
"Tara."
"Tara I need you."
"Tara....I need your help."
The voices always came as whispers from just around the next corner, but she could never catch up with the voice.
The voices always led her to the prayer room with the Ankh sign on the wall.
Adam stands at the far end of the room looking as he always does making Tara wonder if the voice was really his.
"Help me Tara."
"How can I help you?" she asks.
"Fly to my, fly across the pond, rescue me."
"How....Where are you?"
"Use what is mine."
"What do you mean?"
"Look it up."
His body starts to decay, skin crumbling, falling off.
"Use what is mine."
"How....what?"
His right arm disintegrates.
"Look it up....unicorn."
The fingers on his other hand crumble.
"What?"
He crumbles to dust, the word:
"Unicorn."
Drifting through the air.
She wakes up in a cold sweat.
This is the cycle that repeated itself for the last three days.
The Scoobies had discussed it and assumed nothing of it until Adam's book (which Willow had on her) had started to
glow after Xander asked something along the lines of.
"Well, how on Earth are we supposed to find him?"
They opened the book and it flicked through the pages until it finally came to a stop on a page with a strange
flowing script on it, like that on the cover.
The biggest shock came when they discovered that Tara could read it where the others couldn't, though they did not
know why or how. She was also able to translate the title on the cover which although it still spelt out:
Pron Tirno Daram
She somehow knew meant:
The Guardians Journal
The fresh writing on the page read:
Across the pond.
A map drew itself on the page.
A map of what Giles told them was a portion of southern England, an area of the map was highlighted.
Tara had informed them that they were going, or if they weren't she was.
Luckily everyone agreed to go, even Dawn and Spike, the former had been very uncomfortably around Tara for a while
after her return to the land of the living.
That was yesterday; today two witches, The Key, a Slayer, a Vampire, a Vengeance Demon, a builder, a cat and a wolf
were in England after getting a very rapid flight courtesy of Angel and Wolfram & Hart.
And they were currently inside a castle having just blown the door with explosive (courtesy of Angel); they were
damp soggy, they were jetlagged and it sound like a battle had just taken place on the roof.
The only resistance they had faced was just before entering.
These weird guys in black cloaks and white masks armed with pathetic little stakes.
Dawn commented that they must have seen Phantom on the Opera too many times.
They had left the animals to deal with them and headed inside.
Buffy was particularly pissed all though she would never admit it, but she didn't like not being in charge. It was
like an itch, she had to keep resisting the urge to take charge, every time Tara moved them in another direction
she felt the itch intensify.
And this was most defiantly Tara's mission.
She was in charge. She was leading Buffy, Willow, Xander, Giles, Dawn and Anya to get Adam.
They were close, Tara could sense it.
They passed a wall and she stopped.
"What is it Baby?" Willow asked.
"He's behind this wall." Tara explained.
"Well, how are we going to get thro...." Xander began but was cut short by Tara blasting the wall with a sphere of
magic (another new skill) at the same time as Buffy slammed her troll hammer into it.
It crumbled under the combined impact.
Tara and Buffy stepped into the gap.
________________________________________________________________________
"Buffy?" asked Ron.
Tara looked into the room to see a man holding a bloody knife over a very badly injured Adam.
To say Tara was annoyed would be an understatement.
But as dangerous as Tara was she was not the problem.
The redhead poking her head through the gap was.
A red head who was rapidly going gothic.
Willow had tried to cure herself of the magic's but given what the Scoobies do, they had come to realise that it
would be impossible for her to give up Magic completely, especially with a Wiccan girlfriend.
Willow screamed, a shockwave emanating from her sending those in the hall into the wall behind them and throwing
Tara and Buffy into the room to fall into the blood soaked floor.
Remus, Ron and Hermione moved in front of Adam defensively.
Unfortunately as Ron was still holding the bloodied knife and he did not look like a protector, but more like a
torturer.
Willow screamed again.
"DIE!!"
"Willow NO!!" Tara cried but it was too late.
The ball of black magic cursed towards Ron.
Hermione stepped in the way staff raised.
"Diduco!"
A ball of white light flew from the staff and collided with the black sphere coming in the opposite direction.
The collision created an almighty explosion sending everyone to the floor.
________________________________________________________________________
Adam, realising that things were going to get really ugly if he didn't do something fast, with Ron's aid struggled
to his feet, he started to fall only to be caught by Fred and George who had stayed on his arms encase he fell
again.
The twins supporting him was unbearably painful, every millimetre of his skin was damaged in some way, but he
wouldn't say anything, they were trying to help.
Everyone had began to get to their feet most had their weapons aimed at the opposing group.
"Stop....all of you." he gasped weakly.
Some members of the groups lowered their weapons trusting Adam's judgment, others did not.
________________________________________________________________________
Tara breathed a huge sigh of relief, he was ok, Adam was ok.
She climbed to her feet and ran to Adam and hugged him.
Fred and George backed up a bit trying giving them some space but still near enough to Adam encase he started to
collapse, Hermione and Ginny had also moved to his side, not knowing the woman holding one of their favourite
teachers they did not trust her.
"Oh Adam. We thought y....you were dead." she was clinging to him for dear life.
Adam was trying hard not to cry out in pain, his nerve receptors were on fire, even the lightest contact was agony,
it was also extremely painful without contact but there was nothing they could do about that, he was clenching his
teeth so hard he was sure they would shatter.
Tara pulled back and looked at him.
"Oh Adam, I'm so sorry....I should have understood after the first dream....I'm sorry."
"Tara....I'm ok." he said ‘looking' at her through his blind eye.
Everyone else had got to their feet, most had accepted that they were all on the same side (or at least not on
opposing sides) though some (namely Spike, Xander, Snape, Draco and Mad Eye) still had their weapons in hand and
were glaring daggers at the opposing party.
Adam felt terrible for putting her through so much worry, anyone in their right mind (who wasn't Adam....or
possibly Harry) would just be thankful that the ordeal was over, but not him, he just wasn't like that.
Ginny made a small coughing sound behind him.
Tara gently let go of Adam, totally oblivious to the blood from his wounds and the floor now covering her clothes.
Adam turned to Ginny, she looked nervous
"I....I don't really know how to say this....but from what I've heard you've been protecting me....You....You saved
my life....and what I really want to say is....thank you."
Adam sent her a smile as she ran into his arms engulfing him in another hug now that Tara had let him go.
Adam wished one of them would realise that he was in serious pain.
________________________________________________________________________
Ginny saw his kind eyes smiling down at her, how could she ever repay him for what he had done.
Ginny continued to stare into his warming face, then it changed, suddenly full of awareness, his eye flicked up
full of fear, he spun her around so that they switched positions.
She yelped at the sudden movement, just before she saw a flash of light and his face went rigid.
He started to topple forward before Fred and George caught him and lowered him to the ground.
She looked at him, his back was smoking.
She spun around to see James standing in the door way, his staff in his hand.
"You can't kill me that easily." Adam said weakly, so weakly that his voice was barely more than a whisper.
"Unfortunately." his brother replied from his position behind The Order.
Now the two groups may not necessarily agree that they are all on the same side, but they all knew or at the very
least had been told that they were not on James's.
Within seconds every wand, staff, axe, sword, crossbow and hand (if you were Willow or Tara) was levelled in his
direction.
James chuckled.
"A bit defensive aren't we?" he said mockingly, he looked to his brother, who was still smoking on the ground,
Fred, George at his sides and Hermione and Tara kneeling in front of him.
"Looks like you've got yourself some help there brother....I especially like these two." he said gesturing to
Hermione and Tara "They look like they may die for you."
"My Guardian Angels." Adam replied even weaker than before, humour evident in his voice, he could not last much
longer.
"Well they won't be your angels for very long."
James moved his staff to attack, but he was a fraction of a second too slow.
He received five simultaneous hits to the chest, and as the five casters were five of the most powerful witches and
wizards in the world he was most certainly going to feel it.
The curses flew from Hermione, Ginny, McGonagall, Tara and Willow (who although still dark had managed to get some
control back to the extent that her eyes were back to normal and only her hair was still black).
James flew through three walls; Hermione's earlier attack was made to look like shots fired from a pea shooter
compared to this full power barrage.
"That one's going to hurt when he wakes up." Comment Anya.
McGonagall withdrew a book from his robes and moved to Adam's side.
"Everyone take hold." she said looking to both groups, most of the Sunnydale crew didn't move.
"Adam?" she asked.
"Do it." Adam ordered weakly, they would lose him any second.
McGonagall placed her own hand and Adam's on the book as the Sunnydale crew did the same.
Pointing her wand at it she called out:
"Portus."
And they vanished.
As James slowly got to his feet he surveyed the damage to the building.
He smiled.
"You haven't won yet brother....you may think you hold all the cards, but I still have an Ace up your sleeve."
AUTHORS NOTE: Sorry it took so long everyone, I had Easter, a week's holiday and being ill all through the above to overcome.
Dimension: 563 - Earth
Date: 4th October 2001 AD
Country: Britain - England
Location: Dartmoor
Time: Morning
Tara was angry.
She was really angry and that was unusual for a start.
Tara Maclay, the sweet girl who any man would be happy to take home to their elderly parents and have complete
faith that she would be accepted as a future wife had undergone a major change.
It had started when they performed the Right of Osiris to resurrect Adam and Buffy.
Buffy (it turned out later) had been resurrected as planned, but Adam.
When the ritual was performed a ghostly image of Adam had raised out of the ground leaving the earth undisturbed.
It had walked up to Tara bowed and had been absorbed into her.
She had felt this almighty surge of magic.
She had never felt that powerful before.
The others were concerned about what had happened but she just told them that somehow she just knew that the Right
had failed and that Adam must have been too powerful for even Willow to pull back, as such they just raised his
magic which moved to the nearest safe host or something similar which at that moment happened to be her, leaving
the rest of him dead.
They later discovered that the Right had been a partial success when they found Buffy wondering around the streets
but they never saw any sign of Adam, his grave remained untouched.
After that things proceeded as usual for a few weeks the only real difference being Tara's increased confidence and
power which allowed her to assist the Scoobies to a greater extent than she had before, putting her on the same
level as Willow if not beyond it in some areas.
Her new powers seemed immense, it was very hard for her to control them, recently she had been reading up on more
powerful spells and almost all had worked first time.
During the weeks that followed she kept hoping that Adam would arrive one day, open the door and just tell them it
took him a bit longer to come back, she would have given anything to see him again, apart from the fact that she
considered him a close friend, she kept thinking that her powers were not hers to control, they were still
partially wild and strained to break out at times, it was especially hard if she became emotional.
The next major threat came when Warren shot Tara and Buffy.
Willow turned dark and tried to destroy the world.
But the person Tara felt really sorry for was Dawn.
When she had woken up she saw Dawn crouched in the corner of the room sobbing, she very nearly jumped out of her
skin when Tara (after lying dead for over six hours) opened her eyes and stood up, her scream had been heard blocks
away.
It had taken her hours to calm Dawn down and quite frankly who could blame her.
By the time Tara managed to catch up with Willow she was in Xander's arms sobbing on a hill top.
After that Willow went to England with Giles to learn control of her abilities.
While they were away Tara returned to studying Adam's book (which Willow had left behind) in an attempt to find out
why she had survived a bullet to the heart.
She discovered that the book actually answered questions if you asked them in a way that it could answer.
It had told her that her increased powers had regenerated her, Adam's powers had kept her alive; it had just taken
time as the magic was not naturally hers.
After Willow returned nothing unusual (or rather more unusual than normal) really happened to the Scoobies.
Until four days ago....
________________________________________________________________________
For the last three nights she had been having dreams about Adam.
Every time exactly the same.
She was wearing a simple white night dress walking through Adam's house.
Adam kept calling.
Calling out to her.
"Tara."
"Tara I need you."
"Tara....I need your help."
The voices always came as whispers from just around the next corner, but she could never catch up with the voice.
The voices always led her to the prayer room with the Ankh sign on the wall.
Adam stands at the far end of the room looking as he always does making Tara wonder if the voice was really his.
"Help me Tara."
"How can I help you?" she asks.
"Fly to my, fly across the pond, rescue me."
"How....Where are you?"
"Use what is mine."
"What do you mean?"
"Look it up."
His body starts to decay, skin crumbling, falling off.
"Use what is mine."
"How....what?"
His right arm disintegrates.
"Look it up....unicorn."
The fingers on his other hand crumble.
"What?"
He crumbles to dust, the word:
"Unicorn."
Drifting through the air.
She wakes up in a cold sweat.
This is the cycle that repeated itself for the last three days.
The Scoobies had discussed it and assumed nothing of it until Adam's book (which Willow had on her) had started to
glow after Xander asked something along the lines of.
"Well, how on Earth are we supposed to find him?"
They opened the book and it flicked through the pages until it finally came to a stop on a page with a strange
flowing script on it, like that on the cover.
The biggest shock came when they discovered that Tara could read it where the others couldn't, though they did not
know why or how. She was also able to translate the title on the cover which although it still spelt out:
Pron Tirno Daram
She somehow knew meant:
The Guardians Journal
The fresh writing on the page read:
Across the pond.
A map drew itself on the page.
A map of what Giles told them was a portion of southern England, an area of the map was highlighted.
Tara had informed them that they were going, or if they weren't she was.
Luckily everyone agreed to go, even Dawn and Spike, the former had been very uncomfortably around Tara for a while
after her return to the land of the living.
That was yesterday; today two witches, The Key, a Slayer, a Vampire, a Vengeance Demon, a builder, a cat and a wolf
were in England after getting a very rapid flight courtesy of Angel and Wolfram & Hart.
And they were currently inside a castle having just blown the door with explosive (courtesy of Angel); they were
damp soggy, they were jetlagged and it sound like a battle had just taken place on the roof.
The only resistance they had faced was just before entering.
These weird guys in black cloaks and white masks armed with pathetic little stakes.
Dawn commented that they must have seen Phantom on the Opera too many times.
They had left the animals to deal with them and headed inside.
Buffy was particularly pissed all though she would never admit it, but she didn't like not being in charge. It was
like an itch, she had to keep resisting the urge to take charge, every time Tara moved them in another direction
she felt the itch intensify.
And this was most defiantly Tara's mission.
She was in charge. She was leading Buffy, Willow, Xander, Giles, Dawn and Anya to get Adam.
They were close, Tara could sense it.
They passed a wall and she stopped.
"What is it Baby?" Willow asked.
"He's behind this wall." Tara explained.
"Well, how are we going to get thro...." Xander began but was cut short by Tara blasting the wall with a sphere of
magic (another new skill) at the same time as Buffy slammed her troll hammer into it.
It crumbled under the combined impact.
Tara and Buffy stepped into the gap.
________________________________________________________________________
"Buffy?" asked Ron.
Tara looked into the room to see a man holding a bloody knife over a very badly injured Adam.
To say Tara was annoyed would be an understatement.
But as dangerous as Tara was she was not the problem.
The redhead poking her head through the gap was.
A red head who was rapidly going gothic.
Willow had tried to cure herself of the magic's but given what the Scoobies do, they had come to realise that it
would be impossible for her to give up Magic completely, especially with a Wiccan girlfriend.
Willow screamed, a shockwave emanating from her sending those in the hall into the wall behind them and throwing
Tara and Buffy into the room to fall into the blood soaked floor.
Remus, Ron and Hermione moved in front of Adam defensively.
Unfortunately as Ron was still holding the bloodied knife and he did not look like a protector, but more like a
torturer.
Willow screamed again.
"DIE!!"
"Willow NO!!" Tara cried but it was too late.
The ball of black magic cursed towards Ron.
Hermione stepped in the way staff raised.
"Diduco!"
A ball of white light flew from the staff and collided with the black sphere coming in the opposite direction.
The collision created an almighty explosion sending everyone to the floor.
________________________________________________________________________
Adam, realising that things were going to get really ugly if he didn't do something fast, with Ron's aid struggled
to his feet, he started to fall only to be caught by Fred and George who had stayed on his arms encase he fell
again.
The twins supporting him was unbearably painful, every millimetre of his skin was damaged in some way, but he
wouldn't say anything, they were trying to help.
Everyone had began to get to their feet most had their weapons aimed at the opposing group.
"Stop....all of you." he gasped weakly.
Some members of the groups lowered their weapons trusting Adam's judgment, others did not.
________________________________________________________________________
Tara breathed a huge sigh of relief, he was ok, Adam was ok.
She climbed to her feet and ran to Adam and hugged him.
Fred and George backed up a bit trying giving them some space but still near enough to Adam encase he started to
collapse, Hermione and Ginny had also moved to his side, not knowing the woman holding one of their favourite
teachers they did not trust her.
"Oh Adam. We thought y....you were dead." she was clinging to him for dear life.
Adam was trying hard not to cry out in pain, his nerve receptors were on fire, even the lightest contact was agony,
it was also extremely painful without contact but there was nothing they could do about that, he was clenching his
teeth so hard he was sure they would shatter.
Tara pulled back and looked at him.
"Oh Adam, I'm so sorry....I should have understood after the first dream....I'm sorry."
"Tara....I'm ok." he said ‘looking' at her through his blind eye.
Everyone else had got to their feet, most had accepted that they were all on the same side (or at least not on
opposing sides) though some (namely Spike, Xander, Snape, Draco and Mad Eye) still had their weapons in hand and
were glaring daggers at the opposing party.
Adam felt terrible for putting her through so much worry, anyone in their right mind (who wasn't Adam....or
possibly Harry) would just be thankful that the ordeal was over, but not him, he just wasn't like that.
Ginny made a small coughing sound behind him.
Tara gently let go of Adam, totally oblivious to the blood from his wounds and the floor now covering her clothes.
Adam turned to Ginny, she looked nervous
"I....I don't really know how to say this....but from what I've heard you've been protecting me....You....You saved
my life....and what I really want to say is....thank you."
Adam sent her a smile as she ran into his arms engulfing him in another hug now that Tara had let him go.
Adam wished one of them would realise that he was in serious pain.
________________________________________________________________________
Ginny saw his kind eyes smiling down at her, how could she ever repay him for what he had done.
Ginny continued to stare into his warming face, then it changed, suddenly full of awareness, his eye flicked up
full of fear, he spun her around so that they switched positions.
She yelped at the sudden movement, just before she saw a flash of light and his face went rigid.
He started to topple forward before Fred and George caught him and lowered him to the ground.
She looked at him, his back was smoking.
She spun around to see James standing in the door way, his staff in his hand.
"You can't kill me that easily." Adam said weakly, so weakly that his voice was barely more than a whisper.
"Unfortunately." his brother replied from his position behind The Order.
Now the two groups may not necessarily agree that they are all on the same side, but they all knew or at the very
least had been told that they were not on James's.
Within seconds every wand, staff, axe, sword, crossbow and hand (if you were Willow or Tara) was levelled in his
direction.
James chuckled.
"A bit defensive aren't we?" he said mockingly, he looked to his brother, who was still smoking on the ground,
Fred, George at his sides and Hermione and Tara kneeling in front of him.
"Looks like you've got yourself some help there brother....I especially like these two." he said gesturing to
Hermione and Tara "They look like they may die for you."
"My Guardian Angels." Adam replied even weaker than before, humour evident in his voice, he could not last much
longer.
"Well they won't be your angels for very long."
James moved his staff to attack, but he was a fraction of a second too slow.
He received five simultaneous hits to the chest, and as the five casters were five of the most powerful witches and
wizards in the world he was most certainly going to feel it.
The curses flew from Hermione, Ginny, McGonagall, Tara and Willow (who although still dark had managed to get some
control back to the extent that her eyes were back to normal and only her hair was still black).
James flew through three walls; Hermione's earlier attack was made to look like shots fired from a pea shooter
compared to this full power barrage.
"That one's going to hurt when he wakes up." Comment Anya.
McGonagall withdrew a book from his robes and moved to Adam's side.
"Everyone take hold." she said looking to both groups, most of the Sunnydale crew didn't move.
"Adam?" she asked.
"Do it." Adam ordered weakly, they would lose him any second.
McGonagall placed her own hand and Adam's on the book as the Sunnydale crew did the same.
Pointing her wand at it she called out:
"Portus."
And they vanished.
As James slowly got to his feet he surveyed the damage to the building.
He smiled.
"You haven't won yet brother....you may think you hold all the cards, but I still have an Ace up your sleeve."
AUTHORS NOTE: Sorry it took so long everyone, I had Easter, a week's holiday and being ill all through the above to overcome.
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