She walked along the edge of the lake, stopping to watch the light play on ripples the squid made as the sun rose behind her over the forbidden forest. The she tilted her face towards the light, allowing the warming rays and the light breeze to caress her cheek. She stood still, taking in the perfect moment, allowing the peace and quiet to wash over her.

A pair of familiar arms wrapped themselves around her waist, and she felt a familiar cold body pressed up against her back. Contentedly she placed her hands over his and leant back against his strong chest, revelling in the closeness, in the smell of him on the air. Without turning she reaches up to caress Angel’s cheek as his head rests on her shoulder.

“How did you find me?” She whispered in a tone that no human could have picked up, not willing to disturb the faultless tranquillity of the dawn.

His reply was almost an inflection in the wind, whispered over the surrounding mountains “If I was blind I would find you”

She pulled his arms tightly around her feeling his cool body warm up from the prolonged contact with hers, closing her eyes to treasure the moment, she whispers “Stay with me”

“Forever” a contented smile settled on her face, and a tension that hadn’t been noticeable in her serene visage was suddenly lifted, leaving her looking years younger, without the weight of the world weighing her down. As Angel continued the inflection in his tone changed “That’s the whole point. I’ll never leave.” Buffy started to turn to look into the face of her lover, but he held her tight and whispered harshly into her ear “Not even if you kill me.”

Buffy jolted upright, surprised to find herself not in her large dormitory in the Ravenclaw tower, but in a strange bed, with the sound of traffic filtering in through an ajar window. As she got her bearings, confused by the fact that she hadn’t had that dream in the week since she had left Hogwarts, she remembered; today she went back.

She looked out the window to find that, as had become normal after waking from that particular dream, the sun was just rising above the horizon. The first few times she had awakened from the lakeside dream, she had rushed down to the site of her dream, hoping that the realistic feelings had really been a part of a vision, and that she would find her lover by the shore of the lake. Over the past month, she had long given up on that particular fantasy, though she still had to fight the urge to scour the lakeside in the dawn hours after waking from her reverie.

Knowing that there would be no use in attempting to return to sleep, she dragged herself out of the warm bed, wiping her eyes that glistened with unshed tears and finished sorting out her belongings ready for the journey ahead.

The barrier elongated and stretched around her as her mind tried to make sense of the images it was sent as she stepped through the solid object, the distortion of her surroundings making Buffy’s stomach churn. Her vision gave a stomach wrenching twist, and the barrier changed to a wrought-iron gate, still slightly twisted in her peripheral vision. The air took on a more musty smell of soot and steam and a wave of hot air past over her. A second later she was through, onto a long platform being waved away from the gate by a guard.

The noise on the platform was overwhelming. Not only was there the hustle and bustle of tearful goodbyes and joyful greetings, but also the clatter of trunks, the hoot of owls and the loud chugging of an engine. The sounds took on a slightly eerie feel, as the origins of many were indistinguishable through the steam that enshrouded both the platform and the train itself. As she walked into the mist, groups of people began to emerge from the haze. Tall wizards and witches clothed in robes of varying colours stood with children of various ages, all either in the plain black robes of the Hogwarts uniform, or in various combinations of wizarding and muggle clothing.

She made her way down the platform, past by a young boy clinging to his mother as she tried to disentangle him from her robes and get him aboard the train, trying to find a carriage that was quieter than the rest of the cluttered train. She spotted an empty compartment, and was walking towards it when a blonde boy with a black and yellow tie approached from the opposite direction, grasping the handle and poking his head in. “Come on, here’s a free one” he shouted back at his friends, who appeared out of the steam carrying large trunks and, seemingly, more broomsticks than people.

Though there was a free seat in the carriage, she didn’t feel ready for the loud chatter on Quidditch, and continued wandering along the platform. As 11 o’clock approached, she felt a shiver force its way down her spine and settle in the pit of her stomach. She looked around in fear, trying to locate the cause of her discomfort. Unable to see any obvious threats through the steam, she took a deep breath and centred herself extending her senses to find the threat.

She had never put much effort into developing this side of her slayer powers. In Sunnydale, she could use her knowledge of where the vampires hung out in and her own intuition to locate her prey, but since moving to Britain she had had to teach herself how to locate her enemies using only her senses to guide her.

Her trips out to the forbidden forest had been unproductive until she had learnt how to not only identify locations of mystical creatures, but to use her delicate senses to tell the difference between the ‘harmless’ inhabitants of the forest and creatures that were her quarry. After many unproductive hunts, she had attempted to reach inside herself in the way that Giles had described countless times in an attempt to impose the importance of this skill on her.

She closed her eyes and forced all her senses outwards, hearing her mentor’s teachings echoing in her head “Reach out with your mind. You have to hone your senses, focus until the energy washes over you” slowly she blocked out the irrelevant messages, the sound of her heart, the feel of the breeze against her skin ,even her sight in order to  take in all of the things that inform her of her surroundings. Stretching out the sense that was only associated with the other part of her, the part that was primal and hungry for the fight, the slay. That was eager to feel the dust of a vampire burst against her face.

She felt something above her cross over her head and opened her eyes in time to see one of the creatures that had pulled the carriage she arrived in soaring above her, flapping it’s vast wings in a seemingly careless manner as it meandered through the treetops. Shaking her head, she once again forced herself outwards, connecting herself to the slayer in order to find the things that do not belong.

Whatever it was that was coming towards her felt different to any of the creatures that she had encountered in the forbidden forest. In many ways it felt like a vampire, but it felt less cold, more human and despite the mist shrouding the platform, the sunlight filtering through the skylights was too much for any vampire to be on the platform and not burst into flames.

She looked where the slayer was telling her the quarry was and saw a large crowd of wizards milling around as the youngsters of school age bid their farewells to those that had come to bid them farewell from the platform. She looked closer; among a group of students that seemed to be predominantly red haired stood a strange mismatch of adults.

The strangest was the man pushing a trolley piled high with trunks. His hair was lank and a dark powdery grey, hanging about a face covered in an assortment of scars, where one cut straight through his eye from a wound that would have destroyed his sight, there was a large electric blue eye which was moving seemingly at random around. As she looked closer, it became obvious that it was fixating on groups of people on the platform, a tall blonde couple in ornate robes and their equally blonde son, a band of sneering students sporting green and silver ties.

The other eye remained almost motionless in his face as he chatted to those around him, but the other roved through the people on the platform. As its ferocious gaze approached her, she looked away to the rest of the group, and saw a thin pale man move into her view. It wasn’t that the rest of the world went out of focus, but somehow he stood out to her seeming more real than any of his surroundings.

Knowing that he was what had alerted her senses, Buffy studied the man closer there was something familiar in his complexion. He looked up at her with tired eyes that conveyed a deep seeded shame, and she realised where she’d seen the exact same look before.

She walked into the library and was about to shout out at her watcher, when she saw the figure slumped over a pile of books at the desk. She turned to leave, training being impossible with another student in the library, when he looked up at her with an exhausted expression filled with remorse. Smiling warily at the werewolf, she moved over to the table and turned one of the books ‘the werewolf bite swelled as the infection spreads through her body. I knew that she was now one of the things we hunt, but could not bring myself to…’ Buffy looked up from the page; Oz’s eyes followed her movements as she moved around to sit opposite him. She skimmed down the page ‘She could not live with the creature she had become; I found her the next morning after she completed the task I was unable to perform.’

She opened her mouth to speak, but realised there was nothing to say. He had just found out that all his plans for the future were no longer applicable, that he was one of the beings she was meant to hunt and destroy. All she could do was try to convey her sympathy for his plight. She knew what it was like to have something forced on you that would change your life for good.

Mad Eyed Moody saw a strange girl staring at the group he was protecting and was about to move between her and the boy he was protecting when he felt a hand on his arm. Remus Lupin was still looking directly at the compassionate eyes of the stranger that somehow knew and seemed to understand his affliction. He smiled wearily at her, then turned away and started to help the twins load the trunks onto the train

Content that the werewolf wasn’t a threat, and knowing that wizards had potions that could help deal with the curse, Buffy turned from the strange party and made her way down the train. She finally found a seat in a compartment directly behind the impressive scarlet engine and settled down to while away the long journey.