The Next Hero by Hth GILES: I was ten years old when my father told me I was destined to be a Watcher. He was one, and his mother before him, and I was to be next. -"Never Kill a Boy On the First Date" The envelope fluttered to the floor, and the letter followed only seconds behind; Albus had done no more than glance over it before setting it free with a flourish to become just so much more paper littering his bedroom floor. "More of the same?" Giles murmured, only half paying attention, so much more interested in the work of untangling little snarls caught in Albus Dumbledore's river of silver hair. "If it isn't one thing, it's the other. 'Of serious concern, given Rupert Giles' strong ties with the Watchers' Council, which is widely known to have shielded many Death Eaters from arrest and prosecution' - 'Of serious concern, given the fact that Rupert Giles seems to feel empowered to act as an unlicenced Auror, routinely taking matters of justice into his own hands' - 'Of serious concern, given the fact that we've never bloody heard of this chap, and isn't he an American or something like that?'" Giles groaned. "Good Lord. Can one man *be* a Death Eater, an amateur Auror, *and* an American?" "They hate you," Dumbledore pronounced, almost gleefully. "They hate you more than they hated the last two Defense teachers put together." *And you hate them,* Giles interpreted silently. *As far as you're concerned at this point, anyone who isn't faculty or enrolled at Hogwarts can go hang.* Helpfully, he tried to hold Dumbledore's hair out of the way as the wizard rolled around to face him - how *did* Albus manage all this on his own? Giles could only imagine, given how much time Buffy had spent on her hair..... "Rupert. Rupert." "What? Oh, I'm sorry. Pardon me?" His hand was noticeably thinner than it had been fifteen years ago, bone veiled in taut, smooth skin, no padding at all. His fingers brushed Giles' cheek with understated affection as he confiscated Giles' glasses. "They hate me, too, you know. Doesn't matter." "I know. They're just panicky." "We all are." "I'm not." Giles turned his little shrug into an excuse to shift his arm and pull Dumbledore closer with it. God...fifteen years. Giles had been an idealist; Albus had been a hero. Look at them now. "The second coming of Voldemort isn't the end of the world. Well, I mean - it *is,* but what of it? The world ends twice a year on the Hellmouth." Dumbledore chuckled, a warm sound that came from the belly with no hint of irony or cynicism. How did he *do* that? "And that-" with a friendly little poke in Giles' shoulder - "is why I hired you." "And not simply because I was unemployed and vaguely pathetic?" Irony, cynicism. Sometimes it felt like the closest Giles could come to emotion at all anymore. "Bollocks. You could have work anywhere you wanted it, Muggle or wizarding." "Albus..." he warned. He made an impatient gesture with his hand in the air, like shooing away an insect. "I know, I know, you don't like the word. You'll simply have to get used to it, my boy. You're back at Hogwarts now." Giles groaned. "*Hogwarts.* I'm still in denial. I hated every moment of my education here." "Make them suffer like you did," Dumbledore advised cheerfully. "But I'm afraid I can't allow you to go about deducting points for use of the word 'Muggle.'" "It's so insulting. As though the ability to cast a spell makes one an entirely different breed of human being." "Shocking talk from the scion of such a fine old wizarding family." "Yes, well, I'm a Watcher. We're notoriously shocking." "In an immensely boring sort of way." On that they had always agreed; the Watchers' Council was, not to put too fine a point on it, a great lot of the dullest wizards in the known world. Even when they'd disagreed, and when disagreement had turned to quarreling and quarreling to arguments and from there to outright opposition, they'd known that the Council was...the Council. Funny how doggedly they'd both believed they were on opposite sides - both of them so fiercely determined to subvert the forces of darkness single-handedly. They'd always been so much alike, really, even though on the surface Albus was all wizarding eccentricity, with his enchanted knick-knacks and his phoenix and his wildly colorful robes, while Rupert shopped at Lord & Taylor's and studied Muggle archaeology at Ox-something, that Muggle university, and liked record players and photographs that kept on looking the way you meant them to look when you snapped the picture. Still so much alike. Except that Albus Dumbledore had championed the Aurors' self-proclaimed right to go anywhere and seize anything they liked, all in the name of running the Death Eaters to ground, while Rupert Giles had stood with the Watchers' Council when they insisted on their right to maintain their traditional autonomy and secrecy. There was more than one battle with the dark going on - but only one that the wizarding world cared about. Only one that involved one of their own, a hallowed Hogwarts alum gone horribly bad. How could demons and vampires compare to that? After all, they'd been about forever, and you never really noticed them, did you? Thanks to the Watchers' Council, but in the end it didn't matter. The Watchers knew too much. They dwelled too much in the shadows, collected too much forbidden lore, were too intimately familiar with the secrets of the demon powers. They were a threat to the whole wizarding world, and it became a matter of discreetly divorcing themselves from the whole mess or being invaded and torn apart by the zealous and pious Aurors. Divorce it was, for the wizards and the Watchers. And a de facto divorce, as well, for the brightest star of wizard kind and his lover, a third-generation Watcher who looked and acted like a Mudblood. How could it have been otherwise? But through it all, neither of them had very much liked the other Watchers. Even at the time, that had seemed amusing. Now it seemed downright laughable - except that the last thing Rupert Giles could do anymore was laugh. Not without running the ragged edge of pure, desperate hysteria. And today had been too pleasant for that. Almost as if Dumbledore had heard him referring mentally to their day in the past tense, he raised his head and nodded in the direction of the clock. "I suppose I really ought to make sure that everything is in order for the students' arrival." "If I plead jet-lag, could I skip the whole silly ritual?" "First of all, let's not let it get out on your first day that you got here by airplane, hm? And beyond that, it isn't as though it's a very *demanding* ritual. The Hat does all the work. You just try to look wise and pure of heart when I introduce you." Giles snorted. His fingers were drawn almost obsessively back to Dumbledore's hair, and he whisked a few silky strands back from his pale throat. "I've no doubt I'll look just as wise and pure of heart as an ex-Slytherin possibly could." "Ah-ah. There are no ex-Slytherins - or Gryffindors or Hufflepuffs or Ravenclaws. Just Slytherins and Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws who've survived past commencement." "And my job is to keep those numbers high, *not* to play this silly game of one-upsmanship. Nobody in their right mind cares two pins for what dormitory I lived in during prep school." "Sometimes I wonder if you're dense, Rupert, or just teasing me." "I do love being a source of wonder in your life." His delighted smile said as clearly as words, *Aha, teasing it is!* Only Albus Dumbledore, after all they'd both seen and done in their lives, could be so simply, easily happy - happy with no qualifications and no reservations. He had such a buoyant, foolish, *enviable* faith in the world's essential goodness. It was an innocence that made Giles simply long to spoil it - but only in the nicest possible way. Albus was almost indecently thin, though of course he always had been; Giles had felt positively masculine by comparison. Still did, he noticed with some mild bemusement as he rolled Albus onto his back, aware of how much broader his shoulders were, how much more he weighed than his new employer. But then, Dumbledore's power had never been physical. Well...more accurately, his physical powers had never been easily glimpsed or widely appreciated. Giles knew better than to dismiss them completely. He was, in fact, a better kisser than anyone else Giles had ever met, a fact of which Giles took advantage not for the first time that day. Albus kissed slowly, but not at all as though he were teasing. He just liked to relax into his kisses, savoring the moment, held suspended in the space between duties. It was as though Albus, who had been followed all his life by the highest expectations imaginable, was decent enough not to impose any expectations at all on his friends, his kisses, his pleasures. He just followed them all along until they came to an end. Bitter, nasty little tang of inevitability to that. Until everything came to its ultimate end.... If Albus had imposed a few more *expectations,* required just a little more, would they have found some way to hash out their political differences? Gryffindor and Slytherin, wizard and Watcher, Auror-allied and Muggle-allied.... What had they ever expected from each other? Just what they'd received. A refuge, someone who listened and accepted any mad thing you said as a part of you, the sweetest kisses Giles had ever known. If they'd expected more, would they have received that, too? Giles ran a hand idly over the delicate wing-curve of Dumbledore's hipbone, sucking on his lower lip. God, it was nice to see him like this, eyes closed, no longer weighing and worrying about everything underneath a thin film of just-another-school-term pleasantries. Abruptly, Giles felt guilty for brushing the Voldemort issue away earlier. Certainly, to him it was just Voldemort, more Voldemort, Voldemort *again,* and they'd cope with it one way or another, as these things always seemed to get coped with. But to Albus, after all he'd gone through, after the way that defeating Voldemort had become his whole life the last time, years of his young adulthood devoured by the long siege on wizard kind.... "I'm not a Watcher anymore," he murmured into Dumbledore's ear, the ever-present hair dripping ticklishly onto his tongue. "No more divided loyalties." "No?" Albus didn't seem to believe him particularly, but his tone was indulgent. "I am, God help me, a Hogwarts professor. And, according to rumor, something of a self-proclaimed Auror." His narrow chest hitched briefly in silent laughter. "What an appalling idea - you, an Auror." "An American Death Eater Auror," Giles reminded him soberly. "No one knows more about Voldemort's weaknesses than you do, and I make an absolutely first-rate right-hand-man where the war against the forces of evil are concerned. This school is the safest place on earth while we're here." *Together.* He almost added it, but then stopped. A little sentimental. A little over-the-top. It should be understood, not explicit. "I hope so." His voice was very, very serious, for a man who was having his collarbone nibbled on. "For Harry's sake." Just for a moment, Giles' throat closed up, hysteria knocking insistently on the inside of his skull. Wanting out. Wanting, just once, to find a voice. Roughly, he pressed his nose and mouth into Dumbledore's shoulder, thinking, *Steady on, Giles. Can't do this now. Not on your first day.* Of course, that was the trouble. It was never exactly the right moment to fall apart, and so Giles just...didn't. Hadn't. Had deferred his own personal hell of emotion indefinitely, would keep deferring it out of habit, out of pride, out of stiff-necked British propriety. Focus on his duties with regard to Harry - the one Albus was sure held the key, the one who was a target and a weapon without ever having asked for it, the one who was, according to all reports, likeable and attractive and bright but not terribly bright and braver than any man twice his age could be expected to be and athletic and principled but not fussily principled and doggedly, resolutely a normal fifteen-year-old child who only wanted - who only wanted - to live his life - God. God. God. Albus Dumbledore's youthful messiah, his Chosen One. Those thin arms felt like gravity itself as they circled around Giles' shoulders, held him close. "Rupert? If I sounded as though I doubted you, I'm sorry. I don't. I'm gladder than I can say to have you back with me for this." "-not - that," he managed roughly. "She was - Harry's age - when I took over for Merrick...." He made a purring little croon of sympathetic understanding, and immediately Giles wanted to say, *No, you don't understand, you can't possibly.* But that was just vanity. There was nothing so special about Giles' grief; it was human through-and-through, and heaven knew Dumbledore had lost people, too. Dumbledore had lost friends shockingly, unexpectedly, through cruelty and torture and betrayal; Giles' disinterest in the affairs of wizards had, he knew, shielded him from the full horror of Voldemort's reign, but he still knew what had transpired. Buffy had been twenty years old, more than a respectable age for a Slayer to attain, a credit to his teaching and care. And now she was dead and gone forever, and the new girl was named Melissa, Melissa the Vampire Slayer, and Phineas Frank, of all people, was her Watcher, and it was all quite ordinary, quite the way of things, and Rupert Giles' pain was private, personal, and very much an ordinary part of the human condition. Nothing much to say about it. No reason to dwell on it. Train the girl, protect the girl, care for the girl, trust the girl, love the girl, bury the girl, move on to the next job and the next hero. And after all, maybe Albus did understand - maybe no one *but* Albus could. He'd seen that look in the wizard's eyes earlier, that sudden light of foolish, giddy, irreversible tenderness. Train the boy, protect the boy, care for the boy, trust the boy, love the boy, fight like hell for him. God help him, Albus was going to see this one through to the end. God help them all. "Bother the introductory dinner," Albus said brightly. "Let's not go." "*You* have to go." "I don't *have* to do anything; I'm the Headmaster." "One of us has to go. Think of the rumors." "Well, you can go if it means that much to you." "Not a bloody chance, old man; I'm not facing two hours of dinner conversation with Severus Snape by myself." "You've had years to work up to it. I'd think you'd be prepared by now." "Albus, I was on the Hellmouth, not *in Hell.* I am absolutely not prepared." Dumbledore kissed him on the nose. "Shower's the thing, then." Giles groaned. "Won't help. Still Snape." "He's not so insufferable as he used to be." "Small comfort. Even if I grant you that, there's still a great deal of room to be insufferable." "I do still love you, you realize." Carefully, perfectly, as only a seasoned political genius could do it, Albus staked out that strange middle ground between romance and friendship, hinting at past passions, promising scrupulous loyalty in the future, leaving all questions and definitions bearing directly on the present lusciously, intriguingly vague. Giles answered him with a kiss against his throat that made him arch gracefully. "Duty calls." "Another term." "Another batch of desperately frightened first-years." "Another Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher." "Another opportunity for doom and destruction." "Thank you, Rupert, what a *very* nice thought to take to dinner with me. And by the way, while we're being unpleasant, please trust me when I say that if you don't take care to keep *this* covered up-" he flicked the mark on Giles' left arm lightly with a fingertip - "I'll hang you by your eyelids. All I need this term is half the wizarding world in my office, demanding that I explain the difference between the Dark Mark and the Mark of Eghyon." Giles shrugged, glancing down at the mark; he was so accustomed to it that he rarely thought about it anymore. "Just tell them that I got it by meddling with demonic forces I couldn't possibly understand or control, but just the one person died, and I do feel terribly badly about it, and really, it has nothing whatsoever to do with Voldemort. Watcher's honour." "I'd rather not tell them anything, thank you very much." "I don't blame you. I've been trying to convince half the wizarding world for years that any number of wretched things have nothing whatsoever to do with Voldemort, and I must say, you don't want the job." "No, I have my hands full convincing them that one or two wretched things still *do,*" Dumbledore said, very slightly bitterly, and Giles didn't care for the sound of Albus' damaged innocence quite as much as he'd thought he would. Softly, he rubbed a lock of Albus' beard between his thumb and forefinger, smiling down into his eyes. Funny how much like old times it was - Giles causing trouble, Dumbledore trying to smooth everyone's tempers. And yet not at all like old times. Giles was too old, too seasoned now to be the rebel he was at Hogwarts, or the fervent young Watcher he'd been afterwards. Dumbledore was hardening a little, beginning not to care what they all thought of him, beginning to worry more about fortifying his stronghold here and less about building doomed coalitions and reading each letter of complaint with care. They were still alike, still different, becoming more and more each other's complement. Getting ready to hold this bloody school between them, the one safe place on earth. The next term, the next threat, the next fight, the next beginning.