^*^

Harry peered into the darkness. There was someone coming toward him. Someone - or something. Harry squinted, trying to cut through the void. The light was foreign to his eyes in this place, yet the figure remained unknown.

Visions assaulted his mind. There was a man, scrawny looking. A woman - Miss Calendar. And a maid. They were talking to someone. Tempting someone. Tormenting their unknown prey.

"Most kill to feed, but you enjoyed it more than any creature that walks or crawls."

"It's the only thing you ever had a talent for."

"I only want to help you."

"Take her. Take what you want. Pour all that frustration and all that guilt into her, and you'll be free."

As the visions stopped, the figure continued to draw closer. A flash of light illuminated the pained face of Professor O'Donerty, and everything stopped.

^*^

Harry opened his eyes slowly. Looking around, he assumed that Professor Trelawney hadn't noticed him fall asleep. He looked over at Ron and found him sniggering quietly behind his hand. The class ended, and Harry and Ron got ready to leave.

"You talk in your sleep you know." Ron told him.

"I do not!" Harry replied.

"Yes you do!" Ron maintained. "Everyone heard you! Even Trelawney!"

"What did I say?" Harry asked, slightly afraid of what might have come out.

"Well, you just mumbled something, but Trelawney says she clearly heard you say ‘the Grim' - says it's an omen. She let you sleep so that you might see more of your ‘imminent death.'"

Harry groaned.

^*^

Dawn looked quizzically at Oz. "What do you mean it's not a dog? It looks like a dog!" Taking a whiff of air, she added, "and it sure smells like a dog."

Spike chuckled a bit. "Wonderful observation, Bit. But wolf-boy's right. He's got a distinctly human smell to him. But who could it be, I wonder. Who could it be?" Spike asked. His tone suggested he knew something, and the gleeful smirk on his face was saying ‘I know something you don't know!'

Dawn sighed in exasperation. "Spike! What AREN'T you telling us?"

Spike's smirk grew wider. "Distinctly human smell. Distinctly human. I smell a Black. Serious."

"Yes, we know it's serious, Spike. And I believe the politically correct term is African American. Or, African-British I guess," Willow trailed off.

Spike chuckled. "No, no, no! Serious Black. This is Serious Black!"

Before everyone's eyes, the dog changed into a scruffy looking male. His smirk mirrored Spike's. His young eyes looked over the four before him, and rested on Oz.

"Nice sense of smell you go there," he said a bit suspiciously. "Not many people can tell the difference between a man and a dog. Or a wolf," he added as an afterthought.

Willow stepped between the two. "Back off," she said in warning. "We'll be the ones asking the questions."

"You're the one everyone's so worried about," Serious said cryptically.

Willow eyed him with a confused expression. "What are you talking about?"

"You would do well to learn to hide your power. You absolutely reek of it. And the trained wizards will know something's off. Not exactly the students, but the professors will know something's not right. On the outside, your magic comes from Gaia, with all the roots, and the earth, everything that's connected. But just a little deeper, there's dark. Deep, deep black that's trying its hardest to make its way to your heart and swallow it whole. And your heart doesn't completely reject it. Part of it welcomes the dark, with a sense of familiarity that only gets there if it's been swallowed before."

Willow looked on in horror as Sirius Black changed back to a dog, but he didn't stop there. His shape changed to a wolf, menacing and ready to attack. The wolf twisted and contorted into a dementor. Willow felt her heart tearing out of her chest as her mind revisited the very worst times in her life. Again, Willow watched Oz leave her. Again, Willow saw Buffy die in Glory's swirling vortex, and felt her cold, lifeless body. Again, Willow felt Tara dying in her arms. Again, Willow felt herself alone as the darkness swallowed her whole.

The images stopped, and before Willow was a figure so dark she barely dared to breathe what she knew was his name.

"Voldemort."

"Very good my dear," came the mocking hiss. "I can see the darkness in you. It calls out to me, as does a lighthouse to passing ships. I will have you, and I will control your darkness. You will be mine, and I will rule!"

Willow fell into darkness as the figure of Voldemort dissolved in a whiff of darkness. And there was no more.

^*^

Oz quickly caught Willow as she fell. No sooner had he said the thick mass of fur wasn't a dog before she fainted. Looking over at Spike, he gently laid his girlfriend on the grass.

"Alright, whoever you are," Oz said menacingly to the dog "you had better not be responsible for that."

"He wasn't," Spike assured Oz. "No, whatever caused Red to faint is the same thing that cleared out the town. And I don't like it. Come on, bring the dog. Lets go Bit. I don't like this town one bit, and I'm not staying here any longer."

"Good idea," Dawn replied, glancing around her. "There's someone else here. I can feel it. And it's evil. Really, really evil."

The group continued out of Hogsmede, Oz carrying Willow, and Spike keeping a hold of the dog. As soon as they had safely passed the borders of the town, the group paused. Oz carefully laid Willow on the ground as she stirred. Slowly opening her eyes, Willow took in the surrounding faces with relief.

"I had, the worst dream of my life, well, besides the ones when the world is swallowed by the Hellmouth, but they don't count," Willow would have continued her babble-fest, if she hadn't spied the dog. In fact, she even felt the dog, who was nuzzling her arm.

Jumping up quickly, she pointed at the dog accusingly. "You're Sirius Black!"

As Spike, Dawn and Oz turned to regard the dog, they gasped. There was no dog, only a man. His hair unkempt, and his face unshaved, Sirius Blak was a rugged figure.

"And you're starving!" Willow finished, seeing the man for what he really was. "Look at you! Have you even eaten in months?!"

Sirius looked surprised at the redheads outburst. "Well... I... no... but... you see..."

"Don't worry, she's always like that," Dawn assured him. "Nobody from Sunndydale is normal."

"You don't think I'm... evil?" Sirius asked, slightly surprised. Even if they didn't know him, after the girl fainted, he would have expected them to be a bit more cautious.

"We're from the Hellmouth," Spike told him. "We know evil when we see it."

Sirius sighed. "Well then, I suppose I can tell you that I'm Harry's godfather. Sirius Black, nice to meet you all."

"Oz"

"Dawn"

"Willow"

"Spike"

"Willow Rosenberg?" Sirius asked, surprised.

"How do you know?" Willow asked, slightly wary of the stranger.

"I've been waiting for you."

Buffy looked up sharply as the door to Extra Credit Muggle Defence burst open. Spike was in the doorway, followed by Willow, Dawn, Oz, and a shaggy black dog.

"We got trouble, luv" were the only words Spike said before Angel dismissed the class.

"Potter - stay - this concerns you."

Harry stopped and came back to the professors. Hermione and Ron followed closely behind, recognizing the dog behind Oz.

"You two can leave," Oz told them. "It doesn't exactly concern you."

"If Harry stays, then so do we," Hermione replied firmly.

Buffy sighed in frustration "Whatever! Guys, watch what you say," she told the others firmly. "What's going on that's so important you needed to pull me out of class for?"

"This dog here has quite an interesting tale. Giles wants to see us all in his office."

"Well then, lets go see Giles."

^*^

"What do you mean it's not the right translation?!!" Buffy screamed in frustration.

"Giles translated it himself!" Dawn cut in.

"So it can't be wrong!" finished Xander.

"Do they all share a brain?" Hermione asked Harry.

"I'm still trying to disprove that theory. So far, i have no evidence."

Ron chuckled quietly, and Angel turned to glare. "Remember, i can still hear you guys. And this is serious. By the way, don't look into their brains, you'll go insane."

Hermione giggled as Angel was attacked by the Scooby gang.

"Children PLEASE!" came the voice of Giles. "This is serious! If I've mistranslated something, it could have dire consequences."

"Alright, Black, say your piece," Willow told him sternly.

Black looked around the room. "Well, I've been all around lately, and I recently stumbled upon a coven that taught wiccan magic - run by a certain Miss Hartness, I believe you've met her before?" Willows eyes widened with recognition as she nodded for serious to continue. "Well, it turns out she's felt Voldemort's presence as well. One of her girls, a very powerful seer, used to work for Voldemort, and the coven was her only escape - Voldemort thinks she's dead. Anyways, she told of a prophecy that she herself made, by looking into the stars the night before Voldemort really started his havoc. She wrote it down, of course, and that's how it's wormed its way into the book you found it in."

"What's the catch?" Anya asked. "Cause it seems pretty straightforward to me."

"Well, Voldemort and his seers developed a sort of code so that noone else would know what they had found. It was VERY close to Latin, used all the same words so as to confuse others, but some of the words are different. You need someone who know's the code to decipher the prophecy properly. Unfortunately, the girl didn't remember much. To ensure security, all Voldemort's seers had a spell placed on them so that they'd forget anything after they wrote it down for him. That and, the book you were using didn't have the full version. The only one in existence is in the book Voldemort stored all his prophecies in. It was at the coven before, but they allowed me to bring it here."

"But then, why didn't they translate it there?"

"Because, there are very powerful spells binding that book. It was made for only one person to open. Before getting rid of it, Voldemort placed a spell on it so that only a prophesied witch could open it. The legends say she's a very dark witch, and Voldemort hoped to gain her allegiance by giving her the book"

"Who?" asked Oz quickly and sharply.

"Well, that's the difficult part. It's a riddle."

"Oh perfect!" exclaimed Anya. "Now we have to figure out a riddle, to open a book, which has another riddle inside!"

"Anya, calm down," Xander put in. "Let's just hear the riddle."

Sirius took a breath as he started to rhyme.

"My name is two words
both that many will seek
but only the brave will
find my true identity.

My first is in castle and cooking and tact
My second in rhythm and rhyme and abstract
My third is a question asked often by youth
My fourth is a pronoun most used by the couth
My fifth is the second of in, and, and on
My sixth is the of first of gabbroic and gone

My seventh is fifth in "remotely used words"
My eighth is the third that is just "for the birds"
My ninth and my tenth are but one and the same
The beginning of end and the end of the game!

My name is a puzzle that you need to know
change the words and my true identity will show!"

"This could take us forever to figure out!" Ron cried.

"Well then," Hermione said quietly, "we had better start working."

^*^

Hours later, no one was any closer to figuring out what the riddle meant. Not used to all night study sessions, Hermione, Ron, and Harry had fallen asleep. Buffy had moved them all from the tables over to the couches in the office. Dawn was falling asleep in Spikes arms, and even Buffy's head kept tilting onto Angel's shoulder. The room was silent as everyone thought about what the riddle could mean.

In an attempt to figure it out her own way, Willow began to write the verses down in a spiral notebook she found in on of the drawers of Giles' desk. After reaching the eighth line, her eyes widened. She quickly scribbled down the rest of the verse to test her theory. It just might work.

"GUYS I'VE GOT IT!" she screamed excitedly.

Harry, Ron and Hermione were jerked back to the waking world by her scream. They were so startled by the sudden wake that they all fell off the couch into a heap on the floor.

"What do you got, Will?" Xander asked drowsily.

"Well, we've been so preoccupied trying to figure out the meanings of these verses, we forgot to check the obvious!"

"Care to elaborate?"

"Well, take the fifth line, for example. "my first is in castle and cooking and tact" stop thinking about what's in a castle, like kings and thrones, and start thinking about what's in castle, like c, a, s, t, l, and e! Now, which of these letters is in all three words?"

"C!" came the response from Dawn

"Exactly! We've been looking too hard! If you follow that pattern for the whole thing, it works for all but the seventh and eighth lines!"

"So if we don't worry about those two, we have..." Harry started.

"C, R, something, something, N, G, T, R, E, E" Hermione finished.

"So, if we follow the way it's written, we have something, tree." Ron deduced.

"But what could the other lines possibly mean?" Anya asked noone in particular.

"Well, what does it mean by "youth?" Angel wondered. "Does it mean teenagers? Or younger? Like, toddlers?"

"Well, either way, what's a question they ask a lot?" Dawn wondered.

"Can I borrow some money?" Buffy offered.

"Buffy, this is no laughing matter!" Giles scolded.

"Well why not?! It should be!"

"Why!" Oz cried in triumph.

"Because it deals with serious dark magics!" Sirius told him sternly.

"No, I mean "why" is the answer, it's a question a lot of little kids ask. Plus, it's a letter!"

"Oz you're amazing!" Willow gushed.

"But now we need the last letter," Harry said.

"No, Harry, what you and me need is some sleep!" Ron whined.

"You and I, Ron!"

"Whatever Hermione."

"HERMIONE!!! YOU'RE A GENIUS!!" Harry cried. "I! Most people say "me" but anyone who's proper will say I! A pronoun that's used by the couth!"

"That's it then," Anya said. "Crying tree."

"But that puts us at another dead end! Where will we find a crying tree?!" Xander moaned.

"No, it said to change the words." Sirius told Xander matter-of-factly.

"Ok then, how do we do that?"

"Well, think of some synonyms for ‘crying,'" Hermione suggested. "Like, sobbing, bawling, blubbering, weeping, sniffling-"

"Wait, what was that last one?" Dawn asked.

"Sniff-"

"No before that," Buffy said, catching on.

"Weeping?"

"EUREKA!!!" Anya cried, figuring it out.

"Weeping? What does that have to do with anything?" Ron asked.

"Think of a tree, and think of weeping." Giles instructed the boy.

Willow caught on and shook her head. "No way! There is no way! I mean, there could be others out there who fit that, right?"

"Willow," Giles sighed. "I afraid none of the others that might fit the bill are half as powerful as-"

"But they could be. I mean, come on, we really don't have any idea how powerful-"

"We'll never know unless we give it a shot," Dawn said.

"Do I have to?" Willow asked meekly.

"Yes. Once that's done, we can work on the rest."

"So then how do we figure out what it means?" Anya asked, trying to change the subject.

"I - I think i can translate it," Willow said tentatively.

"That's what they told me," Sirius revealed. "Said they taught you the code while you were ‘healing.'"

"Yea, they did. Giles, give me the book."

Giles handed Willow the book cautiously. "Willow, right now you're our best hope of figuring this out. I don't want to involve Miss Hartness in this. Her girls are in enough danger from harbouring one of Voldemort's runaways."

"Giles! You know how bad I do when I'm under pressure!" Willow whined.

"Come on Will, you can do it!" Dawn told her encouragingly.

"We have faith in you, Red," Spike put in.

"Alright then." Willow sighed as she opened the book. Peering over the musty pages, her eyes narrowed into a concentrated look. Her eyes darted over the words, taking it all in, and trying to remember everything she had been told about Voldemort's secret code. Some of the words came quickly into her mind, while others she had to search her memory for. After only ten minutes, an English prophecy was laid out before the group.

TBC...