What Constitutes Normal

Title: What Constitutes Normal
Author: Jinni (druscilla@cox.net)
Rating: PG13
Pairing: Xander/Hermione Granger
Genre: BtVS/HP Crossover.
Disclaimer: All things BtVS belong to Joss Whedon, et al. All things HP belong to JK Rowling, et al.
Distribution: WLF. Anyone who archives Xander fics and wants this one, please ask first.
Author’s Note: My first attempt at writing anything even remotely not associated with Willow. Well, except for one A/X fic about two years ago, that is.

~*~Part One~*~

Hermione Granger hummed tunelessly, tapping her pen on the pad of paper in her lap. The sun would be setting soon and she would need to start heading back to her hotel.

But she didn’t want to.

Didn’t want to give up the idealistic sunset she had found, at the edge of the park, on a cliff that really should have been blocked off by a railing and caution signs. She didn’t want to leave this peaceful moment, the first she had been able to capture and hold tight to in so long.

She just wanted to sit there and think of nothing but the reds and purples of the sky as the sun gave way to the moon in the cycle of day and night. Even though those same pretty colors meant that the sun was setting, and the dark creatures that she was very well aware of were coming out for the dinner. It was peaceful here, like a charm of tranquility on her soul, and she didn’t want to move.

It was a sense of self-preservation that finally drove her up from the soft patch of grass she had positioned herself on more than an hour before. Brushing the dirt from the seat of her pants, she set off back through the park, towards the street that would, eventually, lead her to her hotel. There she could find another type of peace and quiet, finish up the portion of her research paper she had scheduled for herself to complete today, and then end the night with a relaxing bubble bath.

The research paper was her entire reason for being in Sunnydale, on a Hellmouth. She had chosen Hellmouths as her topic in her Mastery class for Defense Against the Dark Arts. What better place in the world was there to come face to face with the Darkness? Her first night she had made the acquaintance of two vampires, who just as easily made the acquaintance of their maker once she was finished examining them while they were bound in her full body bind.

But vampires were the only creature she had come up close and personal with so far and that was mostly her own fault. It was difficult to work up the nerve to go searching for creatures of the Dark in, well, the dark.

“Oh do stop complaining, Granger. You chose this topic, after all,” she chided herself in a murmur, her eyes darting around the dark park for any indication that she was not alone. In the distance she could see a family packing up from a picnic dinner. They were already at the stage of getting the kids in the car, hopefully they’d make with a little more haste. Slowing her pace, the brunette witch watched them pack away the last of their things in the car, the kids in the back, the adults in the front; and drive off.

She breathed a sigh of relief.

Good. Four less people she would worry about tonight. She didn’t understand how anyone, even those that were oblivious to the supernatural, could live on the Hellmouth. Knowledge of the occult and magic aside, the death rate alone would be enough to scare any sane person away. Let alone the missing persons rate, which was nearly equal to the death rate from the statistics she had gathered at the police station earlier in her stay.

No, the Hellmouth wasn’t the type of place she could see herself raising a family. She wanted somewhere a little more normal, preferably in a wizarding community – perhaps one like Godric’s Hollow, where Harry’s parents had moved after their nuptials. Somewhere as different from the Hellmouth as Hogwarts was from a normal school.

Though in some circles Hogwarts *was* considered a ‘normal’ school, she supposed. Old families like the Weasleys and Malfoys would have no idea what a regular, Muggle school was like. She did, though; she could remember with ease the elementary school she had attended and the friends she had made while there. Those friends were the ones she regretted the most at this point in her life. Not because she had been friends with them to begin with – but because they had all progressively lost touch with each other once she started going to Hogwarts. There was so much about her life she couldn’t share with Muggles, and that had eventually caused the rift between her and those friends of her childhood.

That was fine. She had made new friends. Friends that she *could* share things with. Like Ron and Harry, for instance. They were currently still attending Academy with the sole intention of becoming Aurors, a much safer career move now that Voldemort had been dead and gone for nearly three years. They were true friends, the kind that owled at least once a week and understood her, for the most part. There were others, including Ginny Weasley, that she would always be friends with; but none so close as Harry and Ron.

It was such a shame that she thought of them as brothers; they were going to make some lucky women very happy one of these days. Too bad it would never be her.

She started off again, down the path she had paused on in her anxiety moments before to see the family get off safely. The last rays of the sun had disappeared completely, the purple hues of the sunset now nothing more than the dark blues of the night sky. Already the moon was creeping in the horizon, and the stars were set in the heavens, twinkling like lights during the holidays.

It was then, lost in her thoughts, that she ran head first into a situation that shocked her senseless.

A blonde haired woman, fighting three vampires simultaneously, with two other people – a red haired woman and a dark haired man - watching from the sidelines, sharing a bag of. . .popcorn? She frowned, her forehead wrinkling in confusion. The blonde seemed to be doing a good job of things, though; and that was to be expected if the bored looks on her friends’ faces were any indication. She glanced up the path, sighing when she saw that it went directly through the fight. Nothing to be done except wait and offer assistance if needed.

“Need any help, Buff?” The man inquired, tossing some of the popcorn in his mouth. Hermione snickered, silently thinking that he was quite handsome in that little boy way. The same way Ron was, in fact. Except this man inspired an instant feeling of lust in her whereas Ron most definitely did not.

“Nah. These guys are too new to be any trouble. Stupid baby vamps. Can’t kill the Slayer?” she taunted, pausing in the fight to throw her hands up in exasperation when one of the creatures fell over its own feet. “You are really, really pathetic, you know that?”

Hermione gasped. This was the Slayer? The one girl in all the world destined to fight the forces of darkness and all that? Her mind was whirling a mile a minute as she watched the Slayer in her natural habitat, killing the creatures of the Hellmouth. It was poetry in motion, she had to admit, now that she knew who this woman was. Never in a million years had she dreamed that she would run across her while –

“Oof!” The brunette fell back onto the ground with a thud, her head hitting the sidewalk. She winced, stunned.

“Hey! No fair running into the bystanders! Xan, Wills – come check up on her while I go after him?”

Hermione moaned, struggling to get into a sitting position. Her head felt as though she had run into a brick wall, which wasn’t that far from the truth.

“Hold on. Let us help.” A soft voice at her left elbow murmured. The red head, she surmised, without opening her eyes to see for herself. The pain in her head was excruciating and she didn’t feel that opening her eyes would do anything other than cause herself more pain, anyway.

“Ow,” she muttered, the world swaying with her as they helped her sit up.

“Where does it hurt?” That was the cute man’s voice. He was holding onto her right elbow. How very nice of him. She wanted to open her eyes and mouth and then say something witty to ensnare him with her womanly charms.

Instead she muttered, “Head. Hurts.”

Harry and Ron would die laughing if they saw her now.

“Wills. . .can you do anything?”

What did he mean – ‘do anything’?

“I can try,” the red head murmured. Hermione opened her eyes in time to see the other woman raise her hand just inches from her face. Her emerald eyes met Hermione’s cinnamon brown ones before closing, a look of concentration flitting over the red head’s pale face.

It only took a second for Hermione to understand what the man had meant by ‘do anything’. A warm feeling spread slowly over her head, the pain fading away moment by moment, until it was nothing more than a dull throb. Nothing that a simple healing spell of her own wouldn’t be able to handle.

“You’re a wandless witch,” Hermione murmured, watching the woman’s eyes snap open and widen with surprise.

“Wandless?” The red head questioned, raising her eyebrows in confusion. “You mean there are witches that actually have ‘wands’?”

Hermione laughed softly, the most she felt that her still throbbing head could handle. She reached up her left hand sleeve, drawing her wand out. “Of course there are.”

“Cool.” That was the man again. He was standing now and offering her a hand up. She took it with a grateful smile. “So – you make with the mojo, too, huh? My name is Xander, that’s Willow. Buffy is around here somewhere, she’s the one that ran off after the guy that knocked you down.”

“I’m Hermione.” She smiled, wavering on her feet as a lance of pain shot through her head. “And I think I need to go back to the hotel and lay down.”

“We’ll walk you,” Xander offered, a goofy smile plastered on his face. “Just gotta wait for the Buffster.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, her insides turning to jelly. Was the red haired witch his girlfriend she wondered silently? No – they didn’t stand close together like lovers would. And they talked like sibling to sibling. It was most likely they had a relationship similar to the one she had with Ron and Harry – that of close childhood friends.

Which, hopefully, left Xander free to some simple advances under the guise of doing her research.

Hermione opened her mouth, getting as far as ‘Would you—‘ before the world began to spin out of control, the pain in her head magnifying until she felt as if the earth was one big drum being beat upon by the gods. She moaned, her wand cluttering to the ground, the sweet release of unconsciousness granting her reprieve from the pain.

~*~End Part One~*~