Chapter Two

Buffy sighed and tapped her foot impatiently as she waited for her watcher to answer the phone. Honestly, what could he possibly be doing at this hour that would take him this long to answer? The phone disconnected. What the heck? Buffy redialed, this time for her watcher’s cell phone. After the fifth ring Giles answered.

“Hello?” Someone answered nearly breathless. Buffy’s eyes narrowed.

“Giles?” She asked wondering if something had gone wrong with Giles and if she’d need to kill something to fix it.

“Er, who?” This was a woman. Not Giles. Buffy’s protective instincts took over.

“Who are you?” Buffy demanded. “What did you do to Giles?”

“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The Not Giles replied confused. “I think you must have the wrong number.”

“Oh yeah, what’s this number? I dialed 555-0734.” Buffy snarled.

“Er, this is 555-0744.” The Not Giles said smugly.

“Oh.” Buffy paused. Then took a breath to speak but paused again. “Sorry.” The Not Giles hung up. “Rude much?” She huffed before dialing the right number. Again the phone took a few rings to be answered.

“H-hello?” Another Not Giles answered except she was also British.

“Giles?”

This Not Giles moved the phone away. “Rupert!” The Not Giles called.
At least this was right number, Buffy thought. Unless there was another Rupert Giles with the same phone number. “He’ll answer in a minute Ms?” The Not Giles asked.

“Buffy.”

“Right, then Ms. Buffy, Rupert will answer in a moment.”

“So who are you?”

“A friend.” The Not Giles said curtly. Definitely the same class of British as Giles, Buffy thought.

“Same kind as Ethan?”

“Who is Ethan?” The Not Giles asked in a curious tone. Before Buffy could answer she heard Giles’ voice, muffled but asking for the phone.

“Buffy?” Giles final answered in an annoyed tone.

“Hey Giles,” Buffy said cheerfully. “We need your help again.”

“With what?” Giles asked exasperated.

“We’ll you know that spell you helped Willow with? Well we accidentally kidnapped a kid with it instead of getting a dragon.” Buffy said cheerfully.

Giles paused. “Could you repeat that?”

“The spell you double-checked needed to be tripled checked because we just ended up kidnapping a kid instead of getting the dragon we needed. Why do we need dragon’s blood exactly?” Buffy huffed. “And who is that not-Giles with you?” She demanded in a tone reminiscent of a teenager demanding to know whom their parent was dating.

“The what-what with me?” Giles asked sounding confused.

“The not-you, the woman.” Buffy said as if that were the bigger issue. There was a pause. Buffy checked her nails.

“You have a child with you?” Giles suddenly yelled, as he seemed to realize what she just said.

“Yeah, I just said that twice. Do you need a hearing aid?” Buffy asked worried. “You are getting old and I knew those concussions couldn’t be good for you.”

“My hearing is fine.” Giles snapped. “I’ll be over there soon. Do try to keep him unharmed.” Giles said sounding worried.

“Say good-bye to that Not-you for me!” Buffy called. “See ya!” Buffy smiled oddly. That wasn’t so hard. She thought, resisting the urge to giggle from the oddness of her life. Today just seemed a bit tougher. Kidnapping was something new. Shaking her head, Buffy headed back toward her friends, they could use here help.

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Draco was not happy. He wanted his mum and dad. He didn’t know how he had gotten here but he wanted to go back, immediately. He glared at the man in front of him, he was still trying to get his name after what had to be an hour of trying.

“Do you want to watch Spongebob?” Xander asked for the twentieth time. It appeared he was running out of things to try and persuade Draco to say anything else. Draco wasn’t going to say a word though. He wasn’t allowed to speak to strangers and muggles. He didn’t know what was so bad about muggles but he knew strangers. These people were strangers. He pouted thinking as he thought about his family.

Draco felt his bottom lip quiver. “No!” Xander shouted. “Don’t cry,” he shushed. The lip quivered a moment longer. “I didn’t know you hated Spongebob that much.” Xander joked as he tried to find a way to comfort him. Draco sniffed, his nose was getting stuffy. He wouldn’t cry, Malfoys didn’t cry. Draco wiped his eyes with his robe. He stopped and stared at the robe for a moment. Why was he wearing it? Had he been playing with his daddy’s old robes again?

Momentarily distracted, Draco was picked up quickly and set upon the ugly sofa again. “Come on, don’t cry. When Giles comes over he’ll see what went wrong and we’ll get you back to your ‘mum’.” Xander comforted. Draco looked at him with wide eyes.

“Promise?” He whispered. Xander looked at bit startled but nodded.

“If anyone can find a way to get you home it’s Giles.” Xander said confidently. “Well get you home okay?” Draco nodded. “Can you tell me your name at least, then?” Draco paused wondering if he should before nodding.

“Draco.” Draco said quietly. “Draco Malfoy.” He said waiting for the response most people gave his father. They gave the Malfoys respect and were somewhat frightened by the name but this man nodded.

“Nice to meet you then Draco. I’m Xander, well Alexander but I prefer Xander.” Xander said with a grin. Draco nodded before he sniffed again and tried to wiped his nose on his robe. “Don’t we have paper for that. I’ll be right back, okay?” Draco nodded wondering why he just didn’t give him a kerchief like his dad would. In that moment, Draco began looking around the room.

It looked so much different that back home for one it was small, very small. Two, there didn’t seem to be a house-elf insight or any other magical appliances. Draco was drawn to the large box with a dark glass. Was this like a mirror? Just very dirty? Draco struggled off the couch, feet nearly tripping over his pooling robe and clothing. The heaved himself and his clothing toward the thing. he gave it an experimental whap with his hand. The thing did nothing. Satisfied it wasn’t going to eat him, Draco crept closer.

He saw himself looking back in the glass and nothing else. Looking down, he saw small buttons. He pushed one. Nothing. He pushed another, nothing. Annoyed that it wasn’t doing anything, Draco ran his small hand over all of them. The screen flared to life. A lion leapt toward him. Draco shrieked.

“Whoa!” Xander called, “What’s the matter?” Draco opened his eyes. The lion was stuck behind the screen. Draco frowned. Xander frowned and walked over. “Did the TV scare you?”

“Is that what it is?” Draco asked still staring at the lions. Xander nodded. “Yes.” Xander frowned and turned off the television. How could this kid not know what a TV is? Even Willow, who didn’t have a TV until her parents thought it appropriate knew what one was.

“Alright Draco, blow.” Xander said as he handed the small boy a piece of toilet paper.
Draco took it into his small hands and blew on his own. He was a big boy! He thought unhappily. Draco offered Xander the paper. Xander took it disgusted, not allowing it to show through though. “Might as well follow me, Draco.” Xander said knowing he’d be disposing of it in the kitchen. “Wills needs to see you, anyway.”

Draco nodded, grabbing his daddy’s robes and dragging them along behind Xander who was walking out of the room again. Xander vanished past the doorway and left Draco trudging behind for a few seconds before the boy made it. Draco saw a redhead sitting on a table with a number of papers around her. She had been there. Draco knew.

Willow looked over and smiled at him. Draco scowled but with eyes puffy and nose red, he looked more like he was pouting than scowling. “Xander,” Willow chastised. “You could have picked him up. He can barely walk!” She said pointing mass of cloth at Draco’s legs. Draco pouted this time, causing Willow to smile.

“Hi there,” Willow said nervously. “I’m Willow.” she said as she bent down to his level. “Can you tell me your name?”

“Draco.” The boy said easily. Willow frowned.

“I thought he spoke English.” Willow commented to Xander quickly.

“He does.” Xander said looking at Willow like she had lost some of her intelligence.

“Draco isn’t English.” Willow huffed, getting up and completely ignoring the child. “It’s Latin.”

“I know that,” Xander said giving Willow dirty look. “I may not have spent as many nights as you pouring over moldy books but I did some of it.”

Willow looked sheepish. “Then why’d he say draco?” Willow asked.

“It’s his name.” Xander said slowly as if it were the most obvious thing.

“Oh.” Willow said. There was a pause. The only noise in the room was from the shuffling toddler as he tried to get nearer to Xander. “Oh.” Willow said again as if something was trying to get through her brain but in the process had caused it to crash and was rebooting. When Draco finally reached Xander, who was scrubbing his hand under the hot water in the sink Willow jumped. “OH!”

Both males turned toward her. “Dragon! His name means dragon!” Xander nodded. “That’s why he’s here!” She squeaked before running back toward the table and to her notes. Draco looked at Xander who looked back once he felt he was being looked at. He gave him a shrug.

“She gets like this.” Xander said. Draco nodded and waited for Xander to finish drying his hands.

“Hey guys,” Buffy said suddenly as she walked into the room. “Giles is coming over soon. What’d I miss?”

“This is Draco.” Xander said pointing to the small child who was groping for something in the robes that Xander assumed was a toy.

Buffy nodded and looked at Draco. He was struggling with the robes. “Draco,” She called softly. Draco ignored. “Draco.” He kept digging in the folds of cloth. “Draco!” She hissed a bit louder. Draco smiled, seeming to have found what he wanted and turned to her. “Do you want to get out of those robes? At least for a little bit so you can move easier?” Draco nodded. “I’m Buffy by the way.” She said.

After a bit of maneuvering and Xander’s help, the robe was taken off. Whatever Draco had in his hand was hidden in the large sleeves of the shirt. “Um,” Buffy said once she realized that the clothing Draco was wearing weren’t child’s clothing but that of a much older person. “I think we did something else.” Buffy said as she pulled the boy from his overgrown shoes. Small legs kicked at the trousers that now draped to the floor as Buffy held him up.

Willow looked up. “What?” She asked, having missed everything going on between the others in favor of trying to find a way to fix this before Giles came over.

“These are big-people clothes, Wills.” Xander said. “I don’t think he was a little guy before he came here.”

“Crud.” Willow said as she fell back into her seat and dropped onto the table. “Giles is going to kill me, isn’t he?”

The doorbell rang.

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Harry sat on the edge of the perimeter as the umpteenth group of aurors went by. “What do you mean this is an investigation!” Harry heard yelled in an all too familiar and cold voice. Harry turned and saw Malfoy Sr, looking angry and bewildered, well as much as he would let himself be in public.

“Mr. Malfoy,” Dumbledore said. “Please calm down. This is a preliminary investigation.” He said as if that would calm the other man down. It made Malfoy seem even colder.

“I do not care if this is a preliminary or the final investigation, what has happened to my son?” He demanded, his eyes scanning the area before falling on to Harry and his two best friends. “Mr. Potter, what are you doing here?” Harry gulped. Something about Malfoy Sr. voice frightened him in a way he hadn’t before.

Harry knew it was an absurd thought but he was 100 percent sure that if he dueled with Malfoy at the moment that he would be in even more danger than he was when he was in the cemetery last year. Another part of his mind, the part that was trying to scramble a response from what had once been his grasp at the English language, thought it wasn’t fair that things got blamed on him when it wasn’t even his fault.

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