Harry Potter and The Mouth of Hell

A HP/Buffy the Vampire Slayer Crossover

(What, Another One?)

Summary: The Ministry has fallen, and Harry and his friends are on the run. In a desperate attempt to stop Voldemort and find the remaining Horcruxes, the bedeviled trio is led to track down the help of the Slayer. But Buffy and the Scoobies have their enemies as well, and two radically divergent master villains may lead to a struggle none may survive.

Disclaimer: Harry, Hermione, Ron, and everyone associated with the world of Hogwarts is the property of that shining light J.K. Rowling. Buffy, Willow, Xander, and everyone else that is associated with Sunnydale is the product of that other beacon Joss Whedon and the gang at Mutant Enemy. I'm just a humble scribe who means no harm to either.

Author's Note: This may well have been done before by someone a lot more talented than I am. However, there are some things the willing reader of this fanfic must know.

For starters, I've only seen bits and pieces of the movies, so just about everything that I know about Harry Potter comes from the books. I intend to use almost everything within them as gospel. There are, however, two notable exceptions.

First, everything that we know about the World of Wizarding seems to focus almost entirely on Europe. I'm not sure if America was even mentioned more than a dozen times during the entire saga. We therefore have next to no clear idea as to what magic was like on the other side of the Atlantic. This story will deal with certain elements of it, but may end up taking liberties with canon. For whatever errors I make in regard to this, I take literary license, and believe I should have a little rope.

Second, the calendar of every event in the Harry Potter is being advanced one year from the dates that we saw in Deathly Hallows. Therefore, The Sorcerer's Stone took place in 1992, and so on from there. The Buffy timeline remains unchanged. With the exception of the Prologue, whatever events occur take place during Season 3 of Buffy. I will be making certain allusions to certain episodes from that season the further along that we get into the story. It also means that the relationships of certain characters and their behavior is based entirely on where they were in Buffy's senior year. I'll be adding certain details, but knowledge of what happened in Season 3 will probably help

Full disclosure: the actual crossover will not begin until a few chapters in. However, it still takes place in the Buffy-type universe, and certain facts will be given as understood.

RATING: PG-13. But there's a definite adult overtone, just like in books and the show itself.

Buckle up, kiddies.

PROLOGUE

Third Year, Defense Against the Dark Arts Class

The wizarding community had about as low an opinion of vampires as they did the slugs that got handled in Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures course - they weren't even worth the time to elaborate battling on. In all the books Gilderoy Lockhart wrote, he didn't devote so much as a paragraph to them. (Anyone who'd survived his year at Hogwarts would hardly raise their eyebrows at this) Indeed, the only lesson that Harry Potter had received of anything of value came in December of Remus Lupin's only year of DADA.

When Draco Malfoy had seen the word nosferatu on the board, he had practically cackled. "We're going to waste a class on this?"

Half of Gryffindor shot the young Slytherin a dirty look. It didn't matter that many of those same students held the exact same opinion he did. Malfoy could've have remarked that the Sun was hot, and have everybody who wasn't in Slytherin arguing that it was cold.

Professor Lupin, however, did not automatically deduct points from Slytherin for an obvious case of insolence, though half the faculty probably would've done so with little thought. "He's right, of course," he replied instead. "From the moments a student enters a wizarding school, he has the knowledge in his power to destroy a vampire. Acacia Lumos!"

A small bolt of fire emerged from the tip of his wand. "One merely brushes them with this, and poof! A vampire returns to the dust of the earth from whence he came. Hardly worth the trouble, it would seem."

Lupin paused. "The thing about vampires, though, is they are not complete fools. They realized early on that going up against anyone within our community would lead to complete extinction of their race in a matter of hours. So at some point in the distant past-I'm sure that, if asked politely, Professor Binns could give the exact date- vampires reached a consensus that attacking us would not be in their best interests. "

It would come as a surprise to no one that Hermione was the one to raise the question that occurred to many of the others. "Professor, during the last war, didn't", she hesitated, then plunged ahead "Voldemort try to recruit the vampires to his side?"

Lupin gave a small smile. "Most of the people on his side-" his eyes flicked briefly to the Slytherin section, a move that didn't go unnoticed by anyone in the classroom "have refrained from revealing what exactly the Dark Lord's relationship with the undead was. Some have theorized that the vampires refused to cast their lots in with someone who could crush them with a thought. Others have said that Voldemort would not even consider joining forces with those whose blood was so obviously impure. And that is where the matter would rest - if one believes the Ministry."

Looking back on this event years later, Harry would realize, that this had been the first time that any authority figure at all had even suggested that the Ministry was not the be-all and end-all. But then, as someone that the people in Sunnydale really hated would have put it, you never recognize the big moments when they come.

"And that would be true," Lupin continued, back in a lecture, "if one doesn't consider the enemy at all. For that is what an undead creature is, do not doubt it. The fact that they can be so easily vanquished by one of us, does not make them any less deadly. Certainly not to the millions of Muggles out there who have no natural defense against them. These creatures are cold-blooded killers who could and have, laid waste to entire villages. Wiped out entire families. And would have no moral compunction in turning someone as young as you into one of them."

"So why hasn't the Ministry made a move to wipe them out?' Ron asked. "I mean, muggles may be helpless, but my guess is this entire class could easily take out a cove of vampires without having to sweat."

"Because vampires are not fools," the professor replied. "And the passage of time has worked in their favor. In the past, vampires would bare certain marks to make them recognizable- cloven hoofs, a visible raised forehead and yellow eyes. Some of the older ones still do. But as the blood has mixed with more and more humans, it has become easier for them to hide in plain sight. They can hide their visage until they are about to feed. Passing among us as anyone else in the room. When muggles learned to harness electricity, it opened whole new worlds for them. The average vampire could now live for decades without ever being suspected of being a monster. And those are usually smart enough to avoid us if they can."

Lupin was a hell of a storyteller, but none of this was exactly news. It was his next words that made the lesson count for something. "They are not the ones we have to fear. It's the old ones, the clever ones that may bring about the most danger. And even though wizards choose to ignore them, it doesn't change that they have the potential to bring about destruction far worse than anything a minion of Voldemort could do."

Had Quirell or Lockhart had said this, the class would have likely considered it hyperbole. "Who are these?" Neville had asked.

Lupin looked out at his class. "Probably the fairest way to do this is alphabetical," he said. "Gryffindor, you will research Angelus. Hufflepuff, Darla. Ravenclaw, Drusilla. Slytherin, William the Bloody. Your assignment is to research and provide a report on who they are and what they have done in their long lifetimes. Some of you may think I've given you to little information. Believe me," he focused them with a dark look, "I've given all you need."

Professor Lupin never told Harry, but this particular lesson plan had been the subject of a certain amount of debate of the faculty. Snape, as one might have expected, considered this yet another example of how Defense Against the Dark Arts was being handled by a rank amateur. However, Minerva McConagall was notably bothered as well, claiming that this was particularly disturbing especially to the younger students.

"These are particularly brutal creature, Remus," she argued.

"The world can be a disturbing place, Minerva, as much as we'd like to hide it from them."

"Who for all we know have been out of the picture for decades," she countered. "Do you really want to have students getting nightmares when they here how William the Bloody got his other nickname?"

"This course is to train young minds against the forces of darkness. Are you going to make the argument that these creatures are no longer in the picture-" Remus paused deliberately "which we know is probably false, or that they would not rank as a probable threat, which we also know they can be."

Others might have won out, but the fact that Dumbledore had given Remus a certain amount of leeway carried the day.

Snape, however, had the last word. "It's your responsibility, Remus. Which means you'll be the one handling the nightmares."

While initially there had been some infighting among the houses for the materials for the research, that had dried up as the full nature of what they were researching fully came into view.

Even when disgusted by what she was learning, Hermione was incapable of doing a less than thorough job on anything. Her report on Angelus was particularly obvious.

"Sired around 1750, Angelus, or the one with the angelic face, was known as the Scourge of Europe. No one has ever done a complete record, but it is estimated that he is responsible for laying waste to several villages in Galway, throughout Ireland, Wales, and ultimately England. There are discussions that he often lay waste to religious orders, monasteries, churches, and, in one case, a member of the Holy Sea."

The entire report was discussed to the gradual paling of the assemblage, as much of Angelus' atrocities as they'd been able to locate. Then, the others house gave their reports- Darla's ravages throughout Colonial America, Drusilla's devastation of Prague that had her escaping from an angry mob, William the Bloody's slaughter of a Chinese village in the chaos of the Boxer Rebellion. Even Draco Malfoy's complexion went a shade whiter when he learned how William had earned the nickname "Spike"

It was Ron who finally had the nerve to ask the question that was bothering all of them. "Why did we have to learn about these monsters?"

Professor Lupin looked at them. "I understand there were some arguments between the Houses about materials."

Neville nodded. "A lot of the time these vampires paths crossed. Angelus was believed to be Drusilla's sire, and there was a period near the end of the last century when all four were part of the same gang."

"More than that," the Professor said. "There are rumors that all four vampires were, at one point, members of the Order of Aurelius, one of the oldest and feared demonic groups. It's never been clear how loyal they were, but at one point in their, for lack of a better word, careers, all four led attacks on wizarding communities, and they were very good."

"How do you figure that?" Draco asked.

"A lot of good wizards died. They didn't." Lupin said simply.

"But Professor, about thirty years ago any information, we had on these vampires dried up." Hermione pointed out." Surely they've been stopped

"Never make assumptions, Miss Granger," the professor argued. "With the coming of the new centuries, the traditional vampire was able to adapt. The youngest of these vampires lived for over a century. It's safe to assume they did as well."

"But if these creatures are so fearsome and dangerous, why hasn't the Ministry intervened?" Seamus asked.

The teacher never got a chance to answer the question. A blond-haired student from Ravenclaw beat him to it. "Because it's not their job," Luna Lovegood replied. "The killing of vampires has always been the duty of the Slayer."

Luna was still considered "spacey" by the majority of Hogwarts - even Ravenclaws were not always comfortable. "How do you know about that?" Harry asked.

"My dad's always filing stories in the Quibbler about them," Luna answered. "He likes them. A story with a Slayer thwarting a major demons sells another thousand copies."

The other students looked at the Professor. "Is this true?" Hermione asked.

"I was just getting to that."

So Remus Lupin told them the story of the Slayer, how young teenage girls would be vested with the power to face vampires, demons and the forces of darkness.

Telling the assembled students that there was a young girl standing between them and possible destruction didn't sit will with a surprising number of the student body. This time, it was Hermione who raised the question.

"So this Slayer, she's always a young girl?" she began slowly. When Remus answered, her follow-up was "And no one knows who she might be?". Then came the clincher. "How long do these girls live, on average?"

Lupin had been prepared for the question, but he hadn't been that happy to give the answer. "Very few live past their twenty-first birthday."

It took him several seconds to restore order in the classroom. By the time he did, the questions were flying fast and furious. The ultimate question was: could a witch be a Slayer?

"And it is here that we reach what can only be described as a conflict." A strange expression was beginning to emerge on the professor's face - disgust and resignation seemed to be part of equal measure. "The Vampire Slayer has always been under the purview of an organization known as the Watcher's Council, an organization based in London, almost entirely made up of muggles, whose sole duties is to train, monitor and nurture girls into slayers."

"What kind of relationship do they have with wizards?" someone asked

"Not a good one." Lupin again hesitated, then plunged forward. "The Council has an extremely dark view of magic users in general. For centuries the Council and Ministry have always been in conflict over how to deal with the world of darkness, and on more than one occasion, they've gone to war."

This was nearly as shocking as the revelation of the Slayer in the first place. However, an expression was beginning to appear on Ron's face. "They didn't help at all against You-Know-Who." Attention immediately went to the red-haired student. "My father's mentioned that this was a major problem between with the ministry during the war. "

"Your father's quite right," Lupin replied. "They've always considered these conflicts 'internal problems' as if a war with the Dark Lord wasn't dangerous for everybody. It's hypocrisy, of course, because more than a few members of the Council are amateur practitioners of magic themselves." He almost scoffed. "Frankly, it's rather remarkable they haven't managed to get themselves killed."

"But what about the Slayers?" Hermione still seemed rather fixed on the previous problem. "Have any of them ever been witches or not?"

"I was getting to that," the Professor went on. "When a girl reaches a certain age, there are ways to tell if she has the potential to be a slayer. At any time, there are dozens, possibly even hundreds of girls who could be chosen. And several times- I don't know the exact number, but at least three or four times a century - those Slayers have been witches. It is on those occasion that there have been - struggles- as to who gets to train them."

"What side do they choose?" Hermione demanded.

Lupin seemed a little nonplussed at this. "Who?"

"The girls. Who do they choose?"

Lupin was loathe to answer this, but he did. "As far as I know, the Watcher's Council doesn't put the girls feelings into consideration at all. As soon as they are identified as potentials, they are often taken away from their parents, and trained for the day that comes when they are chosen."

"And the Ministry?" Cho Chang had asked this one.

"When the girl in question is a witch, the Ministry wanted them to attend special classes at a more advanced schools such as Hogwarts. However, no wizarding family has given birth to a Slayer in over half a century. No one is sure whether that has been because they haven't had any, or whether the Council has resorted to more manipulative methods to take possession of them before the Ministry can locate them. It's because of fighting such as this that the Council has refused to interfere in either of the last two struggles against darker forces."

By now, all of the girls in class had gotten incredibly still- even the ones in the Slytherin camp seemed a little uneasy. "Where is the current slayer?" Pavarati asked

"Her name is India Cohen.. I believe she's fighting Polgara demons in the Caucuses." Again, everybody looked at Luna, who just shrugged. "My father tries to have at least one reporter following the Slayer at any time."

"So what you're saying is that if-when something happens to this girl- any girl in this room could potentially become a Slayer, would have to leave Hogwarts and be trained to kill demons- and there's nothing that any of us could do to stop it?"

Professor Lupin had tried to assure everyone in the class that Hogwarts had strict precautions that would prevent this from happening, and that the Ministry would fight tooth and nail to make sure this could be avoided. But Harry was clever, and he noticed that the DADA Professor stopped short of saying she was wrong.

The news about the Slayer was a big deal in Hogwarts for a few days - a bigger deal than the vampire lesson at all. But even among the most able minded of young people, life tends to swallow people up. And with the routine of becoming a fully trained wizards, the majority of the student eventually just moved on with the curriculum.

There was a very notable exception- Hermione. For the next three months (and even after learning that she was taking lessons as a Time Turner, Harry still had no idea when she fit it into her schedule) she spent trying to find all the information she could in the Hogwarts library about the Watchers Council and the girls who became Slayers.

Even more surprising, when she asked for Ron's assistance to do research, he was willing to make time. Considering what had happened to Ginny last year, Harry actually could understand why.

None of the news that they got about what the Watcher's council was like and how the Slayer was treated was encouraging. The average life span for a Slayer was three years. Slayers could be called as young as thirteen. The Watchers had no problem treating any of their Slayers as if they were nothing more than cannon fodder for a war against demons, putting themselves above the counseling. And their training methods were barbaric.

"If a Slayer turns eighteen, they put her through a test called a Crucimanteum," Hermione told them one day. "They basically strip her of her powers using a combination of magic and medicine, and test her abilities to fight against a very powerful vampire. To see how strong is."

Harry knew that Hermione was almost never wrong about these sorts of things, but he still wasn't sure he'd heard right. "They do understand that if she fails the test, the Slayer is dead?" he demanded.

"What do they care?" Hermione sounded more angry than any time since he knew her. "She's just a Slayer. She dies, another one is called, and they can start all over again. Slayers are no more valuable to these people that tissue paper. What's the life of an innocent girl mean to them?"

What Hermione didn't have was a solution to the problem, and lack of direction, combined with the normal build up of schoolwork, and the revelations of what happened at the end of third year, eventually caused her to reluctantly give up her research.

He had suspected she would resume the research when they returned to Hogwarts. Instead, however, she had seized upon house elves being held under conditions that she considered slavery, and that became her cause celebre. Perhaps that was one of the reasons that Ron and Harry had never been able to consider one of her causes.

Once, halfway through fourth year, Harry had asked her point blank if she had forgotten about the Slayers and the Watchers.

"You mean the idea that at any moment, I could awake with the strength of a hundred men, be seized by a group of arrogant Muggles who think they know better than me, and be forced into a fight against darkness that would only end with my death?" Hermione replied, clearly catching Harry off-guard. "It crosses my mind from time to time."

"Then why-"

"Because I bloody well don't have any control over that!" Hermione all but shouted. "Whenever the next Slayer dies, me- or for that matter anyone in my dormitory could become one of them. I wouldn't have a choice in the matter. It is random, and there is no control. Now I can either worry about it every minute of every day, or I can try and get on with my life. Focus on the things that I can change. Darkness is out there, Harry. You know that better than me. All we can do is prepare the best we can, and try to focus on the good in the life."

He didn't raise the subject again. Of course, not long after that, Voldemort would be resurrected, and all of the horrors that followed. The subject of the Slayer was not broached again until three years later. And it was only then that Harry learned that Hermione hadn't been completely honest with him.