Birthdays And Sortings

Birthdays and Sortings

Their rooms in the Leaky Cauldron were quite simplistic really, four beds, a wardrobe, a set of drawers and an adjoining bathroom. An, of course the talking mirror which had the three Californians absorbed for about an hour, they couldn’t get over the fact that it actually complimented them! And insulted them, that was a little off-putting, but hey it’s not everyday you see a talking mirror! Unless you’re a witch or wizard of course. The gang had been into muggle London earlier, the Marauders and Lily had not been impressed, they had come back to the Leaky Cauldron after four hours of shopping with twelve bags for each of the Trinity witches, plus the girls had managed to manipulate a promise of going back the next day out of them. It was now getting on for six o’clock and everyone was downstairs for dinner: Paige and Dawn had managed to extract themselves from the group to chat upstairs without Phoebe’s presence.

“So what are we going to do about tomorrow?” Paige asked with a yawn as she lay back on her bed.

“Well, whatever we do, she’s going to see it coming.” Dawn replied in a half-defeated tone

“Well, we can always not try to keep it a secret.” Dawn snorted

“Yeah, like that’d work. I can just see it now – ‘Hey Pheebs, guess what? Yeah, this is what we’re going to do today…Oh my goddess, I’m so surprised!!’” Paige sighed

“I didn’t mean that, I meant just don’t keep it a secret. It doesn’t have to be a surprise.” Dawn looked at her cousin with interest,

“What d’ya mean?” She asked

“We just let her know what we’re going to do. It’ll be fun even if it isn’t a surprise.” Dawn took on a contemplative look

“Maybe…” She began, before shaking her head “Well, whatever we do, we’re gonna need to be well weaponified. I mean, between the three of us we have like, what? Three swords, two daggers and a couple o stakes? It won’t be enough.” Paige sat up and fixed her cousin with a look

“We’re witches.” She said slowly “We can whip up whatever weapon we need.” She shrugged lightly

“You do remember that we gave up our hered and wiccan magic to Dumbledore, right? And that we actually have no idea what in the hell to do with these wands? Apart from not staking vampires, the guys made that quite clear earlier.” Dawn said cautiously, raising a slightly confused eyebrow. Paige sighed in exasperation

“So we make an unbinding potion. It’s not like he’ll ever know!” Dawn stood up and walked almost threateningly towards her younger cousin

“Did you listen to a WORD that was said earlier?” Paige raised her eyebrows

“Sure, you said a bunch of stuff to make the dude happy and we drank the damned potions.” Dawn looked at Paige in horror

“I did not say it just to make him HAPPY!!!” She screeched “It was the truth!! Willow nearly destroyed the ENTIRE world. I will NOT let that happen to us!” Dawn yelled, glad of the standard silencing spells that are put on the rooms, “I swear, if I even SUSPECT that you are doing even the tiniest bit of magic without a wand, you will never, ever see the light of day AGAIN!!! Do you understand the severity of what Willow actually DID? She FLAYED A MAN ALIVE! She tried to turn me back into energy! She tried to kill all of her friends! And then she tried to END THE ENTIRE FRIGGEN WORLD TO STOP BLOODY, DAMNED SUFFERING! As if trying to end the world doesn’t bring on a whole load of suffering in itself! And I will NOT let you become that Paige Matthews. Over my dead body!” Dawn finished with a murderous look towards her friend. Paige looked at Dawn with scepticism,

“And you think that I would do something like try and end the world? Thanks for the vote of confidence Cuz!” She exclaimed, hurt.

“Right, because you’d expect Willow to!” Dawn scoffed “It doesn’t matter if you’re the nicest, most innocent person in the world. If you don’t have the right control and respect for the magic then it will corrupt you. And don’t even think about trying to say that we have respect for the magic. We’ve being abusing it, and the privilege of having it. If you ask me, we got out just in time. Goddess knows what we’d have done if it wasn’t taken off us.” There was an uncomfortable silence, which Dawn took as acceptance of the situation so went back to her seat.



“I guess we should get back to planning tomorrow, before Leafy comes up.” Paige began in a small voice. Dawn gave a small smile and took the proverbial olive branch,

“Yeah, it’s not everyday a Halliwell turns seventeen! I sense partyage!” she announced. Paige grinned in relief

“I was thinking we should take her to the salon.” She began “We let her know, so isn’t a surprise thing, but goddess knows we need to get our hair and nails done if we’re about to be holed up in a castle until Christmas. It’s not like we have the time for a surprise party, the sorting’s tomorrow evening after all.” Paige finished with another grin,

“Well, lets hope we get the demon-related business outta the way before we get our nails done. We all know it’s going to happen – it wouldn’t be a Scooby birthday if we didn’t have a demonic emergency stroke attack.” Dawn announced. Paige laughed

“Definitely not. How’s about we do some sneaky weapon shopping then, before tomorrow dawns with a weaponless demon attack?” she asked, pulling on a pair of killer boots “I reckon we go to that Nocturnal Alley place.” Dawn rolled her eyes and slipped on her new leather trench,

“It’s ‘Knockturn Alley’, goddess you’re as bad as Buffy! But I agree, I think it’s far more likely to have a weapons store than Diagon Alley is.” She said, slipping her sword behind her back and her dagger into an ankle sheath covered by her boots. She then slipped on one of their stake sheaths, which propelled a stake out of them with a flick of the wrist. Wesley had definitely been onto something when he designed these – naturally they had needed some tweaking – but they were great for the non-slayers of the community to attempt to penetrate the thick skin of a demon. Looking to her cousin, Dawn was glad to note that she was dressed similarly. Black leather coat, much shorter in her case though, with tight pants and killer boots. Her weapons were also obviously as concealed as Dawn’s, with no clue as to where they were hidden at all. They each then slipped their wands into the wand holsters that James had insisted they buy – they might not yet be able to use the wands yet, but they might deter someone slightly if they knew that they were armed. Plus they were quite a cute fashion accessory; or they would be when they’d figured out how to alter them anyways.



XXX



They got out of their room and down the first set of stairs easily enough: they didn’t meet a single person. But when they reached the top of the second set of stairs they could clearly hear Sirius recounting an old prank to Phoebe, they could even hear Lily’s tutting as he did so! Silently, the two girls pressed themselves as close to the wall as possible, they were going to have to be incredibly quick if they were to avoid being spotted – the last thing they wanted was for one of the Hogwarts gang, or Phoebe for that matter, to stop them with questions. Nor did they really want to gain their company. But if they wanted to avoid being recognised then Phoebe could not see them. She would know it was them within a split second. Paige wished that they’d been able to go out of the window, but it was too high up and led into muggle London anyway so they’d only have to come back into the Leaky Cauldron. But with the speed that they planned to sweep out she didn’t think anyone would get a good look at them. The two girls descended down the stairs and Paige pulled up the hood of her sweat jacket before peeking around the edge of the doorway leading into the main pub. All clear. They quickly stepped into the pub and strode quickly to the exit into Diagon Alley. There was a man stood there already. He was tall and thin with a mocking sneer and long, platinum blonde hair. He looked down at them with a distasteful quirk of the nose,

“More mudbloods.” He spat at them “People like you should be culled at birth.” He hissed. Dawn looked at him disdainfully

“Excuse you! I think you’ll…” Dawn began before being interrupted by her livid cousin

“What in the hell makes you believe that firstly, we are mudbloods – how the hell do you know whether we’re arrogant purebloods or not. And secondly that people who haven’t inherited their magic are any less than scum like you.” Paige hissed as she stalked towards the arrogant man “I think you’ll find that there is no difference between the magical ability of a mudblood over the magical ability of a pureblood.” She grabbed his hand with a smirk at the disgusted look on his face at the thought of a muggleborn touching him “Paige Matthews. And you are?” He freed his hand from her grip and wiped it on his robes in revulsion

“Abraxus Malfoy. If I were you I’d keep out of my way in the future mudblood” He spat with a sneer. Paige smirked and pulled Dawn forwards before tapping the bricks on the wall to open the passage to Diagon Alley.

“And by the way,” She called as she pulled the slightly shell-shocked Dawn into Diagon Alley “We’re purebloods.”



“What the hell were you thinking!” Dawn hissed in her cousins ear as they hurried towards Knockturn Alley “You could have let slip who we really are! Not to mention you used that word!” Paige sighed with boredom

“Oh relax! Purlease, we’ve been here what? A day? And your already adopting their cuss words as something horrific. Next you’ll be going all ‘Thank merlin!’ all the time. It’s just a dumb word. Get over it. Besides I don’t think that that imbecile has enough of a brain to figure out who we are even if I said it slowly and clearly.” The two girls turned into Knockturn Alley and had to stop their conversation in case anyone overheard – after all, Knockturn Alley is quite the dodgy place.

*Paige Matthews what in the hell is going on with you?* Dawn hissed down their mental connection. Paige glared at her

“Be careful, idiot. You don’t know who can overhear you in a place like this.” She muttered back out loud

*Don’t be an idiot. I’m talking to you mentally!* Dawn fired back

*Exactly. Just save it.* Paige said shortly. Dawn gave her a funny look but quietened all the same.



“Here.” Paige announced, stopping before a shady looking shop with a faded sign proclaiming

‘Fine Weaponry. Kill. Live.’ Dawn shared a wry look with her cousin

“Classy.” She whispered with a hint of humour. Paige smiled back slightly and opened the grimy door with a wrinkle of her nose.

“Ew.” She muttered, looking at her now dirtied hand in disgust. Hearing a gasp, Paige looked up to see Dawn admiring swords, scabbards, daggers, knives, crossbows. Every weapon you could imagine in the greatest quality. “Well. The sign didn’t lie. These are some fine weapons.” She sighed in awe, moving to finger an ornate dagger that seemed to almost glow. A dirt encrusted hand snapped out to grab her arm, just inches from the beautiful blade. Paige gasped in shock and snapped her head around to see an old, balding man with a mouth full of rotting teeth stood next to her with his hand around her wrist. He was a scrawny man of about her height, wearing a crumpled, dirty shirt and grey slacks that were brown with grime. He smiled slightly, a gold tooth winking from amongst the surrounding blackened teeth

“Don’t touch. Some of these weapons don’t play well with people.” He advised. Paige frowned slightly and he released her hand

“Um…too late.” Came a voice from the other side of the shop, both heads whipped around. Dawn was floating three feet off the floor, a glowing, engraved, purple crossbow in her grasp. Paige sighed in exasperation.

“Can’t take you anywhere, can I?” She moaned. Dawn gave her a sheepish grin

“Oops?” Paige closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, Dawn giggled “You look like Giles! We must have been in England for too long, do you feel the urge to clean a pair of glasses too?” She laughed. The grimy looking man whipped out his wand and Dawn flinched.

“Finite Incantatem” He intoned, causing Dawn to fall unceremoniously to the floor. “That’s just a simple anti-theft charm.” He informed them “It’s hard to steal something when you’re floating in the air.” He explained. “Many of these weapons have other charms on them, mostly to help sway a battle to your advantage – although some are malicious charms designed to activate when a certain person attempts to touch it – but all of my weapons have a flotation charm on them, simply to make sure that none of them go ‘missing’. Now, I assume the two of you came in here for something?” Dawn smiled and stood up.

“Yes. We lost all of our weapony stuff, so we just wanted to kinda ‘restock’.” The man quirked up the corners of his lips into what some might call a smile. It was hard to tell.

“Well, you’ve come to the right place. What in particular are you looking for?” He asked, straightening himself at the prospect of selling some items. Dawn eyed him nervously and moved towards her cousin, she did not trust this man. Not at all. Paige gave her a funny look and addressed him friendlily,

“Um: daggers; knives; crossbows; swords; a longbow; arrows – obviously; scabbards – unobtrusive ones, as far as possible; err, holy water, if you have any that is; and do you sell tranq guns?” Paige counted the weapons off on her fingers. The shop keepers ‘smile’ grew with each item on the list. He gave her a toothy grin when she had finished that made Dawn shudder in disgust

“That we do.” He informed her, leading her to a shelf display of ornate, carved daggers. “I believe these were first on your list?”



After an hour, the two girls had most of the things that they needed and Dawn was growing wary of how long they’d been gone. They didn’t need anyone noticing that they were missing. She was also getting worried about how they’d get all of their weapons back to the pub without anyone seeing them. Well, just getting them back would be a challenge. Paige didn’t seem to have any such worries, she was far too busy oohing and aahing over everything that ‘Joe’ showed her. Dawn really did not like the slimy, horrible man, but clearly Paige had taken to him. So far they had a huge pile of shiny, sharp objects to lug back. Dawn cleared her throat,

“Paige, we’d best be getting back.” She announced. Paige didn’t seem to hear her. “Paige.” She repeated. Again, Paige didn’t show any sign of having heard. Dawn rolled her eyes and walked forwards to tap Paige on the shoulder. Irritated, the other girl turned to face her.

“Yeah, I get it. We’ve got to go. Just let me get us some arrows. We haven’t got many of those yet.” Dawn turned to eye the already full cloth bag of arrows. But she knew the argument was pointless, quicker to just let Paige have her way and then leave.



The two did make it out within the next ten minutes, Joe had put a word-deactivating disillusion spell on a trolley that he had conjured so they could take all of their purchases back to the pub without it being too obvious. How they were to get it into the pub and up the stairs without being noticed was another matter that worried Dawn. If only they still had powers: Paige would have been able to orb them up to their room no trouble. As they reached the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron, the two flattened themselves against the wall and peered in. Fortunately Lily, Phoebe and the Marauders were still sat inside and didn’t appear to have realised that Paige and Dawn had snuck out of the pub. Exchanging a few mental words, the two girls realised that they only had one way that they could get in. They had to be seen. Dawn grabbed the end of the trolley and Paige grabbed the handle as they determinedly stepped into the pub and strode purposefully towards the stairs. Carefully, they lifted the trolley, aware that Tom, the bartender, was watching them suspiciously. The Hogwarts gang were yet to notice them, fortunately. As they lifted the trolley to take the stairs, Tom bustled towards them

“Ere!” He called “Wa’s tha’ you got ther’?” He asked. Paige closed her eyes in a mock exasperated expression and Dawn put down her end, leaning forwards to whisper into his ear. His expression softened as she spoke and she was aware of Phoebe’s curious gaze. Tom nodded acceptingly

“A’right.” He merely said as he made his way back to the bar.

*What are you doing?* Phoebe’s loud voice came through their heads. The two girls smiled at her knowingly

*’S a secret* Dawn replied, lifting the trolley back up and carrying it up the stairs to their bedroom.



XXX



The next morning, Phoebe was woken suddenly to a war cry and two figures charging towards her with long swords waving. She screamed and bolted upright. At this, the two figures dropped theirs swords to the floor as they collapsed in helpless laughter. Phoebe’s gaze narrowed

“What are you morons doing?” She asked incredulously. The two leapt to their feet

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!” They chorused as Paige stepped forwards to pull Phoebe to her feet and Dawn hurried to the closet with the swords which she dumped unceremoniously in the trolley and pulled it out, murmuring ‘Collywobbles’ to make it appear. Phoebe’s eyes widened dramatically as she saw the trolley piled high with different shiny and lethal weapons.

“Awesome!” she exclaimed

“Oh. My. God.” Came a voice from the door. Dawn threw herself in front of the trolley, trying in vain to hide their new weaponry

“Um, hi Lily! This, uh, isn’t what you think!”

“Oh? So it’s not a trolley full of swords?”

“Um, actually,” Phoebe butted in “There are crossbows and stuff too.” Dawn turned and glared at her cousin

“Helpful. Real helpful.” She remarked sarcastically. Lily merely gaped,

“You can’t have those! And not in here! What were you thinking! Ohmygodyou’regoingtotakethembacktoschoolandDumbledore’llfindthemandhe’llblamemebecauseI’mtheprefectandtheresponsible
oneandhe’lltakeawaymyprefectbadgeandI’llhavenochanceofbeingheadgirlandit’llgoonmyrecordthatI’mnotresponsibleand..." Lily started to babble, clearly terrified of the consequences. Dawn, understanding of the condition of the babble, crossed the room and put her hand over Lily’s mouth

“Just. Breathe.” She told her. “It’s nothing to worry about. You won’t get into trouble for it. No one will know. Ever.” She soothed, taking her hand off Lily’s mouth. Hyperventilating, Lily dropped onto a bed, fortunately just behind her.

“WOW!” Came four excited voices from the doorway. The four girls groaned. The marauders had discovered their stash. Phoebe eyed the four boys amusedly, they looked as though they’d never seen weapons like these in their lives. She chuckled at that thought, they probably hadn’t! Sometimes she forgot that not everyone knew Demons quite so intimately as they did.



The marauders wasted no time in rushing to the trolley and grabbing a sword each, starting up a play sword fight. Paige rolled her eyes and hid a half giggle as she moved to shut the door, she couldn’t risk someone seeing them whilst she was unable to perform any memory spells. She turned at the door and observed the room before her, it was an odd sight. Dawn was sat on a bed with Lily, soothing the hyperventilating girl, who was worse now that another four had discovered the secret. Sirius had just poked his sword between James’ arm and chest, so James was now performing a dramatic death. Remus and Peter were having a much more delicate sword fight, with Remus clearly going easy on the smaller boy, but not so easy as to damage either of their ‘manly pride’. And Phoebe had grabbed a crossbow and had it trained on Sirius (safety on, Dawn had learnt that lesson for them with Miss Kitty Fantastico) and was perched on the edge of the shopping trolley chuckling.

“I win.” The eldest trinity witch taunted, “You’re all dead, I rule!” She called loudly, Sirius groaned dramatically and fell to the floor, miming his death. As Phoebe then pointed her crossbow at Remus and Peter they, in turn, followed suit in their mimicry of dying. Paige smirked as the crossbow was moved in her direction and ducked into a ball, rolling to Phoebe’s feet and grabbing the crossbow. Sadly, this action caused Phoebe to wobble slightly from her precarious position on the trolley and she fell, the trolley tipping with her. She hit the floor with a thud and the weapons began to fall on her.

“Protego!” Lily’s voice yelled out, causing a slight shimmer to appear over Phoebe, who was attempting to shield her head with an arm. The weapons bounced off the shimmer in the air, falling harmlessly to the ground. Exasperated, and now clearly cured from her hyperventilation, Lily marched over to Phoebe and pulled her to her feet and gave her a slight push in Dawn’s direction. Turning to the weapons, Lily waved her wand once more and the trolley righted itself, the weapons neatly floating back in, organised by the kind of weapon they were. “Now, sit. All of you.” She commanded. Everyone did, moving close to the bed that Dawn was sat on and plonking themselves neatly of the floor or bed. They all recognised that tone, Lily was fuming, and not to be messed with. “What. The. Heck. Were. You. Thinking.” Even in a rage, Lily could still not bring herself to cuss even slightly, Paige observed snorting in amusement. Lily’s glare turned to her, “So you think that it’s funny that your sister could very nearly have died do you? You think it’s funny that the actions of all of you put your lives in danger? You think it’s funny that that little game could have result in any number of fatal injuries? Do you?” She seethed “You-know-who is out there right now. Trying to kill all of us. And you are making that job so much easier! What the heck were you thinking bringing all these deadly weapons here? What would you have done if death eaters had come? They could have used all those weapons against you? Did you think about that? Did you?” Lily screeched, getting louder by the second. Paige sighed deeply, clearly bored of this, and got to her feet.



“Sit.” Paige commanded. Lily looked at her in anger “Sit.” Paige ground out more forcefully. Lily looked in her eyes and sat. There was something in Paige’s eyes that told her that Paige was someone you obeyed. Someone that you did not want to get on the wrong side of. Someone dangerous.

“No one is using these weapons against us. No one.” Paige rolled her eyes and faced a silently fuming Lily. “ Yes, thing got a little bit out of hand just then. But things do – that’s life. And if you hadn’t used that spell, then we would still have dealt with the situation because it’s what we do. We’re demon hunters. We…”

“PAIGE!” Dawn screeched “Secret identity. Do these words mean nothing!” Paige sighed and pouted.

“But we already told the guys, it’s just Lily we haven’t told yet. Don’t you think it’s mean to keep her in the dark too. And what else was I supposed to say?”

“Why not stick with the antiques weapons collectors!” Dawn exploded “If it works for everyone else, why not for them?!”

“Well at least I didn’t tell them about our powers!” Paige half-shrieked. Phoebe surreptitiously shrunk down the bed and hid under the covers. She knew someone was going to confront her in a second. Damn, she wished she could still use wicca to do a notice-me-not spell.

“What powers?” Piped up Peter “You have powers? What kind of powers?” Dawn turned and glared at him

“Powers of incredible secrecy.” She said dryly “Clearly.” Peter looked intrigued

“What are p…oh. I get it.” Peter said as the realisation of Dawn’s sarcasm hit him. Sirius patted his shoulder in a patronising, consoling way. Dawn rolled her eyes and turned back to Paige, eyes blazing

“Well done, loudmouth!” She shot at her younger cousin. Paige glared back and a gentle wind seemed to pick up in the room.

“Right. Everything’s my fault! Who was it that got us stuck here in the first place! Who was it that went and got herself hit by the friggen demon! Hey? Cause I can tell you that it sure as hell wasn’t me!” Paige’s voice grew louder and louder with each word she said, and simultaneously, the wind picked up. Dawn narrowed her eyes at her cousin and opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off by Paige “No! I’ve had enough of your voice!” She shouted, motioning her hand to Dawn’s mouth. Dawn glared at her and opened her mouth to talk. She couldn’t. She couldn’t speak. Something was wrong! She couldn’t speak! She began to hyperventilate, gasping wildly. Paige continued, seemingly unaware of her cousin’s problem. Either that or uncaring. “And who was it that was the reason we first had to reveal that we were demon hunters? Who was it that got the weapons out from the wardrobe? Who was it that didn’t lock the door like she was supposed to?” The wind was whipping around now, and Phoebe threw the covers off her to see what the hell was going on. The sight in front of her was shocking. Paige was stood, yelling, in the middle of the room. An unexplainable wind was whipping around her and her hair was flashing from it’s dyed red colour to an unnatural black and back again. Dawn was on her knees, mouthing words amidst hyperventilating and clawing at her throat in an attempt to get her voice box to function. Lily and the marauders were just sat staring open-mouthed at the scene unfolding before them. Phoebe leapt into action.



Grimacing, Phoebe grasped a fistful of Paige’s top as she began to float in the air, yanking her back to the floor. She whipped her head around to the witch and four wizards sat motionless behind her and yelled

“Someone stun her for Goddess’ sake!” Lily shook her head to clear the self induced trance and pulled out her wand, fluidly turning it in Paige and Phoebe’s direction. Phoebe ducked and changed her grip to Paige’s ankles.

“Stupify!” Lily yelled. An identical cry came from Peter’s direction. Phoebe smiled as the boy she had assumed was pretty much incompetent had broken free before any of his seemingly more intelligent friends. At least, she smiled until she realised that his wand was the wrong way round. He fell, frozen backwards at the same time as Phoebe felt the ankles she was gripping start to tip backwards and the wind stop instantaneously. She pushed herself upright with an almost slayer-like grace and caught her sister before she could fall completely to the ground. Laying her sister down softly, Phoebe turned to her cousin who was gasping and writhing on the ground. Phoebe stood and marched over to her cousin. She knelt down and slapped her, hard, across the cheek. Dawn stopped moving abruptly and Lily gave a gasp of surprise at Phoebe’s action. Phoebe ignored it and took Dawn by the shoulders firmly.

“Stop. Panicking.” She intoned sternly “We’ll fix it.” Dawn nodded and Phoebe moved away so that Dawn could stand. She then moved back over to her sister and lifted her immobile body over to another bed. The eldest trinity witch then turned to the Hogwarts gang. “We’ll explain later. I promise. But we need to have a chat with Paige first – do you mind leaving us for, shall we say half an hour?” She asked. Lily gave a slight smile and shepherded the marauders out of the room.



The room now empty but for the three Americans, Phoebe sagged slightly and looked over at Dawn. She was rummaging furiously in the drawer full of their purchases, Phoebe wrinkled her nose in confusion

“Lune, what are you doing?” She called. Dawn held up a finger and then turned, grinning triumphantly with a biro and notebook in her hands. Phoebe laughed slightly before realising the task ahead of them. She frowned slightly before running to the door and pulling it open “LILY!” she hollered. Lily’s confused face emerged seconds later. Fortunately, she’d only got as far as the staircase. “Um, could you undo the spell on Paige as soon as I say? I kinda forgot we couldn’t do that.” She grinned sheepishly as Lily rolled her eyes are stepped warily into the bedroom, being careful not to get too close to Paige. Phoebe sat next to her sister and held her in place firmly, but not unkindly. Dawn sat on the other side of Paige, notebook at the ready.

“Ennervate.” Lily murmured. Dawn scrawled on her paper and held up a large ‘Thanks xx’ to Lily; Lily took this as her cue to leave.

“And who’s idea was it to…” Paige’s voice came loudly and clearly as if she’d never been stopped, as far as she was concerned she hadn’t. Phoebe put her hand over Paige’s mouth. Paige glared at her venomously. Phoebe ignored it and looked at her sister with compassion.

“Stop. It doesn’t matter who’s fault anything was. If it happened, it happened and we can’t change that. But what we can do is make it better. That’s what we need to do now. I don’t know if you realised, but you started to do a Darth Willow on us there.” At this Dawn began to scrawl, “Hell, you even made Dawn dumb! You broke the charm binding your powers. But it doesn’t matter. It can all be fixed. But we do clearly need to control our powers. And we need to restore Dawn’s voice. So we need you to calm down.” Paige nodded, clearly much more relaxed, and Phoebe removed her hand from Paige’s mouth. Smirking, Dawn held up the sign that she’d scrawled

‘I doubt Willow’d be too pleased at people doing a Darth Willow!’ Phoebe rolled her eyes and Paige snorted. Dawn scribbled something else ‘Can you put my voice back? Please?’ Paige looked at the floor and muttered something incoherent.

“What?” Phoebe asked, confused. Paige blushed

“I, kind of, don’t know how.” She muttered, more audibly this time. Dawn leapt up, mouthing ‘what!’ and began a crazed kind of frantic dance. Phoebe rolled her eyes and stood, grasping Dawn firmly.

“Try.” She told her sister. Paige blanched and closed her eyes, willing Dawn to be able to speak again. She opened one eye cautiously

“Did it work?” She asked. Phoebe gestured to Dawn’s mouth which was ever-moving silently. Paige sighed and shut her eyes again.



She didn’t bother concentrating on helping Dawn this time. Instead she focused on her memories of Willow’s wicca lessons. She blocked out Phoebe and Dawn, and everything else in and out of the room. She thought of nothing but Willow’s calm voice instructing her to empty her mind. It wasn’t until she had lost all sense of awareness, and the room seemed to have literally dropped away from her that she stopped concentrating on nothing. She opened her eyes to see that she was in an empty black room. There was nothing there, she couldn’t even distinguish between floor and air, everything just, was. She concentrated on Dawn, willing an image of her to the forefront of her mind. She concentrated on remembering the sound of Dawn’s voice, the way she pronounced her words, her accent, the little flecks of British that came through in her voice – clearly the influence of Giles and Spike. She concentrated until she could hear Dawn loudly and clearly in her head, repeating the same thing ‘Oh God, she can’t turn me back, she can’t bring back my voice’. Paige looked up to see a huge weaving of lines resembling a human body floating in front of her. All of the spells that made up Dawn. Everyone has a little magic inside of them, that’s how the soul is made up. But Dawn had many, many more than the average person. The monks weaved her almost completely out of magic, just moving one wrong little line could alter who Dawn was, it could change her personality, her looks, even her DNA. You could even cause her to cease existing by moving the tiniest of lines. Removing a spell this way is one of the riskiest things in the world.

But Paige did not know what spell she used, what kind of magic and the likelihood was that in her Darth state, she had weaved it into Dawn’s very essence so that it would be as difficult to extract as possible. She had wanted it to stick, and stay stuck. Paige concentrated hard again, willing the threads created by her to glow a different colour. She looked up, it hadn’t worked. She tried again, it still didn’t work. Exasperated now, but still determined as ever, Paige tried again, putting all her energy into it. She looked at the threads again, three lines were glowing a bright silvery blue. One was tangled around where the mouth and throat would be if the lines were a solid body. Another, much thicker line, came out of the body altogether and didn’t end, it just disappeared into the depths of the black. This, Paige could identify as the spell she had woven between the three trinity witches. The third and final line was bound around the line linking the three together. It was bound so tightly that the other line was very faint at this point, as though trying to throttle the spell. So, Paige mused, she’d cut off their bond too, that explained why Dawn hadn’t just used that to communicate. Darth Paige was cunning! Focusing hard, Paige managed to will herself to float to the line constricting their bond and she worked hard on trying to untangle it without damaging the other line. Up, round,, swap hands, down, round, swap hands, round a bit more. It was a daunting task and she didn’t fancy having to do the other. Briefly, she wondered what Dawn would think about only being able to communicate with her two cousins, and only mentally. Not practical, sadly. Wouldn’t it be good if she could just will away the spells Darth her had done, she thought idly. She stopped abruptly at this thought and hit her forehead with her hand. She was half-whitelighter damnit! And she didn’t have the dumb binding spell on her. She blushed guiltily at this thought. Dawn and Pheebs had assumed that she’d managed to break through the spell, they didn’t know that she’d just not drunk her potion – she’d pretended to swallow and then dumped it into a plant when no one was looking. Of course, then she’d had to repair the damage she’d caused to the plant, but that wasn’t too hard; if in doubt, conjure a new one later! She pulled back from the mass of lines and threw out her hand,

“Telepathic bond cutty-offy spell!” She called, unsure of how she should phrase it. It worked, fortunately, the thread dissolved in blue and white orbs and reappeared in Paige’s hand, where it wriggled and tried to latch onto something. It was a venomous spell. A few, simple words and it was gone, the magic extracted from the spell and fed back into the earth, and the spell itself disintegrated with nothing to hold it together.

“Speech impeding spell!” She called out, bringing another wriggling, writhing spell into her grip. A few more words and that, too, disintegrated.

“Oh my goddess! It worked!” Was all she heard before she willed herself back into the earthly plane and promptly blacked out.



XXX



Bright. It was bright. That was all Paige thought as she began to reluctantly open her eyes. She would just shut her eyes and go to sleep – but for the loud noise filling the room. Namely Dawn leaping around screaming “I can speak! I can speak!” over and over and over again. She groaned and sat up, groping around for the nearest solid object. A pillow. Go figure. She pinpointed Dawn’s position and threw. There was an “Eeeek!” followed by a thud and Paige risked opening her eyes. Dawn was laid on the floor, her face squashed on the pillow and her bum in the air. The marauders were back and laughing loudly at Dawn’s predicament. Even Lily was smiling. Paige pushed herself us and leaned on her sister

“Sorry sis.” She murmured in Phoebe’s ear “Didn’t mean to spoil your birthday.” Phoebe sighed and looked at Paige

“As if! You just provided some of the best entertainment in the world!” She exclaimed gesturing to Dawn, who was now trying to stand up gracefully. And failing. Clearly it’s very hard to stand up from such a position – for Dawn anyway. “We told them everything. Except the time travel, slayer and Charmed Ones.” Phoebe whispered to Paige, who chuckled softly

“Level 3 then?” she asked. Phoebe nodded

“Oy!” Dawn’s voice interrupted, she was upright at last “Now Halfy’s awake, whaddya say we get gone to the salon? You boys can come with us if you want.” Dawn smirked as all four boys blanched “Or you could just meet us in Floreans at, say 3 o’clock?” She finished and the boys visibly relaxed.

“And you.” Paige pointed at Lily, who froze, still slightly shaken from the earlier events and dreading what she knew was coming “Are coming for a manicure and maybe some highlights.” Lily’s eyes widened. It was worse than she’d thought. A manicure? Highlights? Oh Merlin. Phoebe wrinkled her nose

“You think that means we’ve had our birthday quota of disaster?” She asked. Dawn snorted

“Doubtful. As long as there’s no slime involved. All will be good.” She replied.



XXX



“Jinxer.” Paige said, irritated, to Dawn as a blob of green slime dripped down her nose from her newly coloured hair. Dawn would have laughed, but she had caught the worst of the sliming, she was covered, head to toe, in the stuff. There was not an inch left of her that hadn’t got thick, green goop on it. Phoebe, however, was absolutely pristine. Not a speck of slime had so much as grazed her by. Lily was in a similar boat to Phoebe, only her left foot was covered in slime. The rest of her was perfectly clean. But clearly that wasn’t enough. Her face was white and the girls didn’t quite know whether she was about to yell or throw up. She did neither, dragging Paige and Dawn to a nearby bathroom as Phoebe literally rolled on the floor in hysterics.



XXX



At six o’clock, the gang were assembled back at Hogwarts, the many, many bags had been taken by house elves, despite great protest from the three girls. The three of them were now stood in front of everyone in the great hall, in full uniform (minus house colours) waiting nervously (in Dawn’s case at least) for Dumbledore to finish his speech introducing them. It was over in mere minutes and the girls gazed disturbed at the singing hat as it made a quick song about right and wrong and evils-a-rising. Phoebe rolled her eyes, surely the hat was evil, not whoever it was talking about. I mean, seriously, a talking hat? That’s just creepy.

“Halliwell, Phoebe!” Professor McGonagall called, breaking Phoebe from her internal musings. The hat had barely touched her head before it yelled out

“GRYFFINDOR!” A great applause arose from a sea of red and gold, four familiar voices clearly calling out

“PHOEBE, PHOEBE, PHOEBE!” amongst banging on the table. Phoebe rolled her eyes and made her way over to the riotous marauders.

“Matthews, Paige!” called McGonagall. Paige strode over to the hat and placed it firmly on her head. Nothing happened. No little voice in her head like the boys had promised, no calling out of a house, nothing. She waited for a minute before thinking furiously at the stupid object

“If you don’t put me in a house right this instant, I will personally rip you to pieces, have you recycled and make sure that you are reformed as toilet paper.” She snapped at it. She heard a soft, reluctant sigh in her ear. Almost as though the hat were sorry for what it was about to do, before the hat yelled out

“SLYTHERIN” She didn’t move. She didn’t stand up. She didn’t remove the hat. She just sat. And waited. Hoping against hope that she had misheard. Maybe that was just in her head. Had the hat really just put her in the house that was despised by all Gryffindors? Had it really just condemned her to being hated by all of the marauders? And Lily? And soon, probably Phoebe and Dawn too? No, she’d just hope it was a dream. That she hadn’t really heard it say Slytherin. It was her imagination. It had to be.



Phoebe looked around at the shocked faces of the Marauders, which slowly hardened into hatred. She didn’t understand it. How could her baby sister be classed as one of them? A death eater in training? Bollocks. Her sister was no murderer. Bollocks to the whole system. She thought angrily.



Dawn was just plain worried. She hadn’t been yet, and she didn’t want to be in the same boat as Paige. No way was she going to Slytherin if the hat tried to put her there. She wasn’t really too fussed where she ended up. Obviously she wanted to stay with her cousins, but she wasn’t bothered as long as she didn’t have to live with the creepy looking Slytherins, she’d have to live with her dagger under her pillow all the time. Although, she thought, she did do that anyway. Poor Paige, she thought as she watched Professor McGonagall walk over to Paige, remove the hat and send her over to the Slytherin table.

“Summers, Dawn!” McGonagall called, nonplussed. Dawn stumbled over to the hat, terrified. She sat shakily down on the seat and pulled the hat on her head.

“So, the Slayer’s sister!” Exclaimed the hat. Dawn wrinkled her nose, terror forgotten

“Are you a possessed hat? Or is there just a spell on you to animate ya?” She asked it curiously

“I’m no ordinary possessed item!” exclaimed the hat indignantly. “I was enchanted by the great founders as a way…”

“So your spellified then?” Dawn asked. She heard the hat give an indignant sniff and nearly laughed out loud at it’s lifelike qualities

“GRYFFINDOR!” the hat called out, in a peculiar, indignant tone. Dawn grinned and pulled it off, leaping off the chair. Sadly, she overestimated to power needed to get out of the chair, and flew forwards, banging her nose on the ground, bouncing slightly, and then landing firmly on the ground. Roars of laughter assaulted her hearing and she scowled with embarrassment and rolled onto her back, flipping acrobatically upright and smirking as the laughter stopped suddenly and she marched to her seat.