Chapter 19: Brotherly Love

"Dear Lord, James is that really you?"

The man that would be his brother, opened his arms out in a wide gesture. "In the flesh," James said cheerily. Looking down at his robe-clad body, James continued, with a rueful shrug, "So to speak."

Ethan was once again trying to pull at him, leading him away to that white light that was painful to look upon. How did he know that James' image wasn't another trick of Voldemort's, a way of taking over him, mind and body?

"It is a trick, but not on my side. Voldemort is trying to possess you completely. The only way to do that is to kill you." He shot Ethan a malicious grin. "No Avada Kedava this time, you retched git."

Ethan's eyes suddenly flamed red and his nose sunk back into his face until it was just a tiny hub, with two slits for breathing. "Immortality, James Potter. Something you and the rest of your weak family could never understand. I will kill your son and I will live forever."

"Sounds like a lofty goal for someone who is caught, trapped in my brother's body," James replied with that same mixture of challenging nonchalance. "Tell me Voldemort, how to plan on living forever after old Rupert here kicks the bucket."

Frowning at his brother, Giles defended himself. "I will not in any form, 'kick the bucket'."

"Is this really the time to act the prude Rup?"James said out of the corner to Giles.

This whole conversation was bordering on the lines of insanity. Against his better judgement, he wanted to trust the talking reenactment of his little brother, but he had to admit this wasn't entirely his mind any more. Voldemort was joined with him, temporarily he hoped, but able to manipulate the world around him as well as Giles himself.

"I am not being prudish, it's called being realistic, you prat," he shot at his brother. His anger was mounting at each moment, being fueled by Voldemort's red glare and James' pompous look. He spun to face both Ethan as Voldemort and he Harry apparition. "You! Get the bloody hell out of my head."

And suddenly it was just him and James. The watcher starred at the empty spot where Ethan and Harry had both been standing. Silence, eerie and almost as unwelcome as the Dark Lord himself followed, chilling Giles.

James burst out into laughter. "Sorry 'bout that. But had to make you mad enough to give us some privacy."

"P..pardon?" Giles asked, confused at the fact that change had remained behind.

"Really, Rup," James said with that cheeky grin. "What were you thinking? That you could solve everything with one single spell?"

"Buying time to keep Harry safe. As long as Voldemort is preoccupied with me, he cannot come after your son," Giles explained in a tone that said James should have already figured this out.

James cocked a dark eyebrow. "And what of his followers?"

"I trust Buffy and Angel to their safety."

His younger brother shook his head in mild amusement and shock. "A vampire with a soul. I'm not quite sure how I feel about it."

Feeling as though he were being vaguely criticized, Giles countered, "It's not as though I haven't tested his loyalty James. He's trying to amend for the damage he wrought as Angelus."

"Do you really believe that?"

"Yes," Giles said, though he plainly had his reservations, especially when it came to his relationship with the Slayer. "It is a tenuous situation, but there are too many other risks on the

Hellmouth to not accept help when it is proffered." He sighed feeling he weight of so many years of separation. "You still don't trust me."

It was then that he realized that this really was James. Not a figment of his imagination and not Voldemort in disguise. His brother made real inside his mind. That made the recriminations all the worse. After all his sacrifices James still could not forget the past. How long would he have to pay for the frivolity of his youth?

"You reckon that I have any reason I should?" James asked, his eyes widening behind his glasses.

"Perhaps because I've changed," Giles returned with a touch of asperity. "Or that I am willing to take your son and your best friend into my household. That I would gladly die to protect Harry."

"All very good reasons," James said with a sage nod.

Giles side, reaching up to grab his glasses with one hand while pulling his handkerchief with the other. "Then why are you here?"

"Powers that Be. Not really sure who they are but they gave me the opportunity to speak with you..."

"And your joyous exuberance for this meeting is overtly obvious..."

"...about Harry and Buffy."

That cut off Giles imminent and continuing sarcasm. "What about them?"

"Destiny. Prophecy. Your girl and my boy were meant to come together. They aren't needed yet, but they will be. The more they know about each other's worlds, the safer wizards and muggles will be." The younger brother gave the older a pointed look. "And they were meant to be watched over by you." The grin returned. "That's what you do isn't it...watch after things?"

"And...ah...you are...all right with this?"

Pondering this, James avoided Giles' gaze for a moment. Suddenly tears glinted in the younger man's eyes, a profound sadness weighting down his usual amiable features. "No one is asking me, Rupert. I haven't had a say in Harry's life since the moment I died. Others have taken that privilege for me. But I understand necessity. After everything my boy has been through, you've managed to put a chink of light through the darkness. And for that I'm willing to forgive you anything."

"I'm afraid my influence on him won't last much longer. There are things in my past, he won't forgive." Again he felt a dreadful sigh building up inside of him. "Like father like son."

"Whoever said I hadn't forgiven you, you prat?" James raged suddenly.

"Yo...you just..."

James laughed, full bellied, a long guffaw. "I asked if you knew of any reasons I should, I never said I didn't."

His brother's laughter was infectious and Giles found the right side of his mouth turning up in a begrudging smile. "Pillock," he snapped, feeling briefly that the years had fallen away and they were both young men, poking fun at one another.

Suddenly the blank and bright world around them trembled, shivers of blackness cracking, like the earth as tectonic plates shifted. James' eyes behind his glasses, spun wildly. "He's coming back. Time is quickly closing in on me. Listen. You were right Rupert. They were both Chosen. The Chosen Ones. Well, they aren't meant to be alone anymore. Lead them, guide them to their path."

"James, I'm not sure what you mean."

"Trust your instincts Watcher."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Instantly the smell of rodent assaulted Angel's vampire-enhanced senses. It was enough to send him reeling to nearly two years ago, when he'd been living in the alleys of New York, feasting on the blood of those rats that he could catch. That was before Whistler had found him, before the eternal demon had given him a path. Had brought him to Buffy.

Of course, he figured that the demon had not counted on him becoming romantically involved with the Vampire Slayer. It was laughable, the most ridiculous thing in his entire existence, which wasn't incredibly on the short side.

The man the scent was attached to had beady eyes, so dark that they were nearly black, his face was round and ruddy underneath the layers of filth. He distinctly had the appearance of a street urchin and the only thing that marked him as being unique was his slightly glittering right hand. With a subtle sniff, he deduced it's origin. It wasn't a hand made of flesh and bone, but of magic. Dark Magic.

He repressed a shiver and looked over at Lupin who was watching the rat with such an avid expression of disgust, Angel nearly didn't recognize the usual placid features. The greying wizard pulled out his wand and a shock of energy sliced through the air. "Ennervate," the werewolf whispered.

Those rodent-like features leapt to life and as Pettigrew's features awakened, Angel let the demon come forth. The bones shifting in his head and mouth, were raw from so many transformation and no longer ached as they once did.

Before the animagus could transform, Angel caught him by the arm and leered over him. His amber eyes glowing with a sickly light. "I wouldn't do that if I were you. I feel in the mood for rats."

Outside he was the vile murderer he'd once been, the man who had taken pleasure in the art of death, the subtle poetry of silence, the beauty of the frozen mask, a timeless perfection. Inside, however, where his tortured soul lay, he was so young, so easily pained, and found that everything he believed in, everything that made the world bright, was condensed in a slim sixteen-year-old girl. One that was predestined to destroy him and his kind.

He hadn't wanted Buffy to be here when he squeezed the truth, hopefully not literally, out of the turncoat wizard. In his opinion, she'd seen too much of his demon side already, but the Slayer had insisted. She was wrapped in an invisibility cloak, another magic of the wizarding world, not trusting him enough to stop the rat form escaping.

"Wh..who are you?" Pettigrew asked on a stutter.

Angel shook his head, in not so feigned disgust. "Don't they teach you anything anymore in that school of yours? You ever heard of the Scourge of Europe? The Vampire with the face of an angel?" He pressed his face towards Pettigrew, scrutinizing the rat with an amber eye. "Well that's me. The great Angelus."

"No," the beady-eyed man squealed. "St..sta..stay away from me. The Dark Lord will hunt you down. He will n..not withhold his wrath."

Angel looked anything but disappointed. "Yeah, kinda hoping that." He ruffled the dirty brown hair. "You see, he's treading on my turf, sending his lackeys. I really don't like that." Spinning around, he turned his back on the wizard, let the crawling rodent come up with all the ways he could displease Angel. All of the sudden, he was twisting on his heal again, a wicked gleam in his usual soulful eyes. "Hey, but I'm a reasonable lad. I don't have to kill you. Though it's been a real long time since I've had some good...warm blood."

"Wh...what do you want?" It seemed that the wizard was not completely witless, even if he was cowardly. iHe'll look for the power, he wants to be protected from danger. He'll switch sides if he think he gain something from you. Something that Voldemort can't give him/i Lupin had told him. Fortunately there was a demon inside of Angel that knew how to coerce a being to see his point of view.

"It's the why that gets me Pete," Angel said, pulling another emotional mood swing. "Can I call you Pete?" He hunkered down next to the trembling man and flung an arm around the rodent's shoulder. "Sure Sunnyhell is kicking, but why would Voldemort send one of his Deatheaters here. To my town. This is information I need to know."

Wormtail sucked in several stuttering breaths in a row, his lower lip and chin trembling with barely repressed fright. "He...He'll kill me."

Pitching his voice low, Angel furrowed his already rumbled brow. "Now what do you think I'm going to do to you?" The malice morphed into a laughter, great, loud maddening. "Come on, Petey you don't want to make me angry."

"He...he wants the boy."

Angel shook his head. "Not good enough. You aren't telling me anything I don't already know. Now don't disappoint me."

"Pppp...Potter has power that would strengthen the Dark Lord i..iif he were to get control of it..." Wormtail explained, his words tripping over one another until they nearly blended.

"He would be near unstoppable," Lupin whispered behind Angel, the terror evident in his voice. "That's why you sent the dementors after Rupert, the last defense Harry truly had against him."

A wicked smile came over the previously trembling features. "I must admit, Ripper was harder to kill then I realized. For a muggle he is not to be underestimated."

"Freeze the sleaze," Buffy hissed and Lupin gestured with his wand. The pinched eyes and pointed nose were suddenly motionless.

A hand appeared out of the air, quickly removing the cloak to reveal the rest of Buffy. Her knuckles were white where she clutched tightly to the thin fabric of the cloak. "He came after Giles on purpose. Why do I get the feeling I don't have all the information. What are you and the rest of the pointy hat and stick brigade not telling us?"

"I knew Dumbledore was worried that Voldemort might be trying to possess Harry, that's why he kept his distance from the boy last year, but now...now it seems that he wants to seduce Harry to his side." Lupin shook his head, running a hand throw his greying hair. "He can't possibly think that Harry would accept."

Buffy seemed as dubious about the situation as Lupin, but Angel knew better. Perhaps out of all of them, he understood the twisted reasoning of the Dark Wizard Voldemort. "Evil breeds arrogance. In some ways it can be as powerful as faith, it strips away all consciousness. There are no inhibitions, nothing to stop you. He'll keep coming after Harry, until one of them is dead."

From where she stood, Buffy shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, keeping a chill she only could feel at bay. "Once we get Giles back, and the big badass wizard returns to his body, what then? Will he come for him?" she asked, gesturing at the statuesque rodent before her. "Or will he send others?"

"He's a flunky, expendable," Angel said.

Lupin nodded. "He'll send another."

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"This wasn't how it was supposed to be," Harry announced at Giles' side, once again his eyes glittered with the ruby hue, evidence of Voldemort's true soul lying behind his nephew's visage.

Feeling emboldened by his brief conversation with James, Giles asked, "Would you like to clarify that?"

"Ah Watcher you are an unexpected thorn in my side," Voldemort hissed through Harry's teeth. "I had half expected you to cringe in my presence. Many Muggles do when I reveal myself to them. Yet, here you are fighting valiantly against me. It seems that it wasn't only your dear dead brother who can give his life uselessly."

Voldemort was trying to bait him, to make him irrational with anger. His training as a Watcher had prepared him for such a tactic. He had to focus on his love for Harry, rather then his indignant anger towards the man - this quasiman - who had killed James and Lily Potter.

Instead he turned the tables.

"I don't see how you can call it useless, by its very definition such a sacrifice holds much power." He cocked his head regarding the red slit eyes and trying to disassociate them with Harry. "But wait a mo'. You already know that. The power of Lily's sacrifice, the magic that she used to protect Harry as you stole the life away from her, invariably nearly destroyed you. It would seem that her method was more practical."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Willow rubbed at her eyes using the pads of her thumb to relax the aching muscles. She had been pouring over Giles' books with Hermione, Ron, Xander, Harry, and Ms. Calendar. Buffy and Angel had gone out patrolling after they had spoken with the creepy guy who was in Lupin's bedroom.

They had already found a way to get Voldemort out of Giles' mind, but it was the difficulty of keeping him out until Giles could recover. A ritual not unlike cleansing a house of poltergeist, or so Sigmonds Compendium had explained. They just had to exercise the wizard from Giles' mind and then figure a way to keep him out.

Abruptly, she shut the useless book beneath her. "If I look at one more of these books my eyes are going to dry up and pop out of my sockets like ping pong balls."

Xander looked out from under the Cheetos bag he'd been adamantly searching. "Thanks for that imagery Wills. You've put me right off my cheesy goodness."

"Sorry, Xan. You've got anything?"

"Zip, zero, nada," he said, turning the bag upside down to show the empty contents.

Willow gave him an indulgent smile. "I meant on the research. Are you even reading those?"

"Yeah, I tried, but there was this thing that the words started to become a big long blur."

"And he was day dreaming about Buffy," Ron snickered, the text in front of him seemingly as unruffled as Xander's pile.

Xander got his cute blush. "Hey. Not like you weren't going googly eyed over...," he drew off as he noticed the baleful glare coming from Ron.

Willow exchanged a humorous glance with Hermione whose eyes were the only part of her face that was visible beyond her only pile of books. They had all been working overtime and Willow didn't blame the boys for wanting a quick break. But Giles was still unconscious with an evil dark wizard running around in his body.

It was time to get with speedy.

"Ah haha," Ms. Calendar chimed. "I got it. I got it."

Harry sat up from the ouch, the book that had been resting on his chest dropping to the floor. "What is it? What did you find?"

"It's a rather difficult protection spell, something way beyond my power. But I think with Hermione and Willow, we'll be able to pull it off," Ms. Calendar crowed happily.

Still Harry looked dubious. "Why just you, Hermione, and Willow? Can't I help?"

"I'm sorry Harry but the most protective spells originate form Goddesses and this one, um, won't listen to the call of a man."

Harry sneered, "More dark magic?"

TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

"You understand little," Voldemort said, his ability to keep up Harry's visage beginning to falter.

Giles clutched at his head as pain whipped at him.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

A scream rented the air and all who were in the house who were not currently petrified ran into Giles' room. Harry stopped short, feeling the scar on his forehead burn as he got nearer to Uncle Rupert. The horrible cries were coming from the Watcher, his back bowed by the pain, the first motion he'd made since the other night.

His trepidation of wandless magic, the magic that had torn Uncle Rupert from his family, that had caused such an addiction that his uncle had taken years to get over. It was destructive and yet it had save his life twice now.

"Harry," he heard Hermione call out to him. "Harry, he's going to die, unless we do something now."

"Start the spell."