ChallengeFic: Buffy Summers And The Goblet Of Fire (1/?)

[annelise@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Buffy Summers And The Goblet Of Fire, Part One.
Comments/Flames/Etc. to: ladyvyxen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Anne-Lise offers a warm smile. "For Kirayoshi, who asked."

--

Buffy moaned as consciousness sought her out once more and blessed 
her with its burden of pain. She ached all over, and her ears rang 
from the jarring impact her head had suffered when she'd been thrown 
through the wall. She made a concerted effort to open her eyes but 
still she couldn't see. Dried flakes of blood coated her face.
Raw wounds and ugly bruising announced themselves like radar 
signals of distress, and Buffy rolled herself over onto her back. A 
mistake, she realised, as sheets of agony ran their fiery fingers 
across her torso like flails. She allowed herself to detach and drift 
once more.
As well as the dull ache, her head stung, a pain so very different 
that it caused her to reflect on its cause, forced her to recall the 
events that had led to her lying on the cold, concrete floor, beaten 
and broken. Buffy's fingers travelled across her face invoking old 
childhood nightmares of spiders in the night, memories that flitted 
disturbingly across the canvas of her tortured mind.
A scar. A branding; Liquid pain that refused to ebb and fade, a 
reminder of that final battle etched forever onto her forehead as a 
reminder of all she'd lost.
Voldemort. Now the memories come rushing back. How the evil Vampire 
Lord had forced his way unbidden into her home, not even the ancient 
rite of invitation enough to protect against such a supremely 
powerful being. She recalled how her mother, Joyce, had sacrificed 
herself to save her daughter, using an ancient magic long forgotten; 
A magic that even Lord Voldemort hadn't been able to detect until too 
late. Blood magic, ancient and powerful.
The death scream of the Vampire Lord had been terrible to behold. 
Yet even as his cries rent unto the air, Buffy had pulled herself 
painfully over to her dying mother's side as Voldemort unleashed one 
last, desperate bolt of magical fury. A force Joyce intercepted with 
a final act of will, but not before Buffy had been touched by its 
power and flung across the room like a doll, through the thin 
plasterboard wall and out into the garage.
Silence. Pain. Grief and misery. How long she lay there, breathing 
shallowly, fighting death at the cusp of consciousness, she didn't 
know. but somehow, she found the strength to hang on, just for a 
little longer...
And that's how they found her; beaten, bloody, and with an ugly, 
livid lightning-shaped scar burned blood-red on her forehead, forever 
marking her as she who survived... The Chosen One.

*

The sky grew more overcast as Willow slipped between dimensions 
onto platform 9 1/2. She smiled, warmly, as she was met by her best 
friend, Buffy Summers, and Xander Harris, Buffy's Quidditch-addicted 
friend. If it wasn't for Xander's supernatural ability to get into 
mischief, Willow could almost believe he was just another Muggle. 
Like my parents, she thought, glumly.
Cordelia and Anya used her Muggle parentage at every opportunity to 
make Willow's life at Hogwarts a living nightmare. How she dreamed of 
using her Witchy powers to turn the pair into rats. Or worse than 
rats. Maybe an ironing board and iron, or something equally mundane. 
Mugglish.
Willow giggled, and gave Buffy a hug. "Don't you just love the new 
term?" she asked. Buffy rolled her eyes and groaned in unison with 
Xander. 
"Hey," Willow pouted as she looked at Xander. "Last term, you 
fancied Cordelia, so I'm allowed to have my own little perversities."

*

End Part 1.