Title: Chosen

Author: Glaurificus

Rating: PG-13, but it may or may not go up.

Disclaimer: Don't sue unless you want my textbooks. And I need those!

Summary: Slayers are awakening everywhere, including Hogwart's. Buffy and the Scoobies floo to England, but they aren't the only ones with business in the country...

"So here's where you make a choice.

What if you could have that power?"

"From now on, every girl in the world who might be a Slayer, will be a Slayer; every girl who could have the power, will have the power; who can stand up, will stand up."

- Buffy

            "What do you mean, Slayer-free?" asked Buffy, incredulously. "Giles, this is LA. You know, 3 million people at a Bloomy's sale alone?" She crossed her arms and waited for her former Watcher to explain.

            Giles removed his glasses (the 25th time that hour) and began cleaning them with the hem of his shirt. "I'm sorry, Buffy, but it seems that you were not only 'Miss Sunnydale' in the Slayer pageant" - the Watcher grimaced at his own choice of words - "But you appear to also be Miss Los Angeles." He sighed, and returned his glasses to their perch atop his nose.

            It had been a week since the Scoobies and the gang of potentials has triumphed over the First Evil by unleashing the power of the Slayer's Scythe. After that, they had traveled from Sunnydale (or what was left of it) to Los Angeles, where they began searching for freshly awakened Slayers. So far, they had turned up nothing.

Currently, what remained of the core effort (Buffy, Willow, Giles, Xander, Kennedy, and Andrew) were sitting in a cheap motel room, planning the gang's next step.

            "It's just so hard to believe, what we did." Andrew piped up. "I mean, it's like the time in the first X-Men movie where Magneto was using Rogue to make all those people into mutants, except, you know, we didn't force this on them because we have some grudge against huma - "

            Xander held up a hand in front of Andrew's mouth. "So what does this mean?" he asked, stifling a sly smile at Andrew's attempts to escape his silencer by licking the other man's hand. "I hate to bring up unpleasant singing memories, but where do we go from here?" He and the rest of the gang looked around the room, mildly wondering if the response was going to be in tune.

            Giles sighed again and barely resisted the urge to clean his glasses for the 26th time. "I don't know." he said tiredly. "I guess the best we can do is get some sleep." He motioned to the digital clock behind him. "It's certainly past a few of our bedtimes." he yawned. "Mine included."

            The gang grumbled, but ultimately headed off to their respective rooms. The Rancho Resorto Roadside Inn ("More like 'Roach-side' Dawn had groaned after touring her room) was not a place that anyone had wanted to call home, but after 10 hours of driving a school bus, Principal Wood had insisted that he had the right to call an all-stop for the night. He and Faith were in their shared room ("Cleaning his wounds" Faith had said with a wink) while Dawn and the new-Slayers were pairing off into roommates for the night.

            Buffy, however, was still nowhere near calm enough to sleep. "You know what guys?" she said suddenly. "I'm going to go patrol." The gang looked at her curiously, making Buffy shift nervously. "I just thought I'd go pick up the slack, you know, seeing as no girl around here wanted to get off her butt and take the power."

            Giles was concerned. "Buffy, you know that - "

            "I know, I know." Buffy cut him off. "Just a little post-Apocalyptic humour." She smiled weakly. "I'll be back in 20." And with that, she turned sharply and headed out the door.

            Willow frowned and made a decision. "You know what, patrolling sounds good right about now." she said distractedly as shed headed for the door. Predictably, Kennedy bounded right after her.

            "You're right, honey." she said brightly. "What I need now is to get out there and just - "

            Willow shook her head. "Not what I meant, sweetie." She brushed a loose strand of hair off Kennedy's forehead and kissed it. "It was sort of code for 'Going to have a heart-to-heart with my obviously-not-okay best friend', k?"

            Kennedy opened her mouth to protest, but thought better of it. "Alright." she agreed. "But if you do end up slaying, bring me back a head?" The girls smiled at each other and Willow left.

            "Buffy! Wait!" Willow called out to the original Slayer. "I want to talk to you."

            The figure ahead of her turned around. It was a blonde vampire, in full demon-face. "Oh, I want to talk too." she said, grinning evilly at her next meal.

            But Willow barely even stopped. "Dust." she commanded distractedly and the vamp watched in horror as a patch of dust spread out from her chest and quickly engulfed her.

            Finally, Willow caught up with her best friend. "Buffy!"

The other girl turned around. "What is it?" she asked quickly. "Did we find someone?" She looked anxiously at the witch.

Willow frowned. "You were gone for 30 seconds. Sorry." she said. "Look, I know you're not one to want to get all touchy-feely when you're hurting, but you can talk to me." The redhead placed a gentle hand on the Slayer's shoulder. "You know that, right?"

Buffy sighed. "What's to talk about?" she asked as the two resumed the patrol. "Spike sacrificed himself to save the world. I did the same thing, once." she stared unseeingly at the ground for a moment before returning to the present. "It was noble. It saved all of our lives. Well, those of us - dammit Will!" she exclaimed, stopping and turning to face her friend. "We lost good girls in there" She looked down. "We lost some of our friends."

Willow smiled knowingly at her friend and wrapped her arms around the troubled girl. "Shh." she said soothingly. "It's okay. We all knew what we were getting into. And you heard Andrew: Anya died saving him." The two broke apart and Willow beamed a lop-sided smile down at Buffy. "She's okay. All the girls who died in the Hellmouth - they're okay." She re-enveloped Buffy in her arms. "And Spike, he went out fighting, just like he always wanted." The girls smiled deeply. Spike had been an invaluable part of getting the Scoobies out of the Hellmouth by using an ancient amulet to destroy the First's army of Uber-vamps.

Buffy broke away from her friend and sat on a near-by park bench. Willow followed suit. "I just feel kinda useless, you know?" she looked questioningly at her best friend. "I'm not the only Chosen One anymore. I don't have a group to lead, get kicked out of, and lead again." She smiled wanly. "So what's there for me to do now?"

Willow sighed. "I don't know, Buff. Hey!" she exclaimed. "What if we all learn how to play guitar and form a rock band!" Buffy smiled half-heartedly. "We already have a bus. A little paint and we'd have the bitchingest ride ever!" She and Buffy shared a small laugh but soon turned serious.

"Seriously, I just wonder where I'm supposed to be now." Buffy looked plaintively at her friend. "You, if my purpose could just fall out of the sky and land on my head, I wouldn't mind." she said sarcastically.

Suddenly, a faint hooting was heard. Willow looked up. "Uh, Buff?" she said, her eyes following a particularly ungraceful owl. "I think you've got mail."

Buffy shot a quizzical look at her friend before a rather bedraggled looking owl crashed into her head. It hooted regretfully at her, and promptly passed out in her lap. She looked at her friend. "Is this where you tell me Hogwart's is real?" she joked, poking the bird in the side to no response.

Willow nodded. "Actually, yeah." Buffy's head shot up. "Minerva told me that Dumbledore decided to keep it secret by convincing everyone it's a fairy tale. Apparently  he had a terrible time convincing the witch to do it - she thought it was too risky, but Dumbledore kept at her and finally, after about 60 years of gentle persuasion, she wrote the whole story." She smiled fondly at the memory of the kindly old wizard and his never-ending supply of candy.

Buffy, however, was having a little bit more trouble with the situation. "Why didn't you tell us?" she questioned her friend. "Oh I get it. Some sort of magick secrecy thing, like if you told us, you'd sprout boils on your face that said 'snitch' or something."

Willow laughed. "No no. Nothing like that. Dumbledore's just this way of convincing people to do things. But don't get me wrong! He's the kindest, most powerful white wizard I've ever met. He's like 150 years old! And he has this beard! And - oh Buffy - you should read the books he has in his personal library  and - and I'm in junior year again, aren't I?" she finished sheepishly.

Buffy smiled deeply. "Nah, it's good to hear you get so excited again." She patted her friend on the arm. "Now, can you tell me what the hell an owl is doing in my lap or do I have to guess for myself?"

Willow rolled her eyes. "It looks like a messenger owl. See? Message on his leg." Willow took the owl and unrolled the tiny piece of parchment. "Letter size." she commanded the paper, and Buffy watched, amazed, as the paper grew into a normal sized piece of paper.

"Wow. Check you out with the god-like powers." the Slayer quipped. "So what does it say?"

After a moment of scanning the letter, Willow looked up at Buffy, eyes wide. "I think you got your wish."