fpb | "...if all the heroes lose?"

“What happens to the world, if all the heroes lose?”
(Jack Kirby – Captain America 211)

Prologue – two years before

Dumbledore looked down at her. He had heard so much about her – no, more than heard: he had made her a subject of study. He had collected information from Minerva McGonagall, from Rupert Giles, from Cornelius Fudge and from a few Hogwarts students who had met her in various circumstances; and also, in darker moments, from a certain number of evil creatures who had managed to escape her only to fall into his hands – a clear case of “from the frying pan into the fire”.

In spite of what Minerva McGonagall had said, Buffy Anne Summers had certainly been leaving a mark. Ripples from the constant scene of warfare that was Sunnydale had travelled around the magical world – demons in flight, seeking safety from a terrible little blonde figure; whispers of forbidden affairs with vampires and werewolves; and, in quick succession, two tremendous mystical upheavals – the revelation and fall of the hell-deity Glory, and the madness of a young witch, which had threatened the life and soul of the whole world. (Dumbledore did not like to think of that story, in which he had been more intimately involved than most people could imagine.) Wizards throughout the world had felt the waves from these events, and Dumbledore was not sure that they had not helped shake Voldemort’s power. Whatever he did, the widespread knowledge that such beings as Glory and Willow Rosenberg walked the earth must have chipped his aura of power and invincibility: to know that he was neither the only nor possibly even the worst of the mighty enemies, must have dented his position in the mind of his followers, people who worshipped only force and had therefore been drawn to him by his emanation of unholy might. This the Slayer had done; without even being involved in the struggle against Tom Riddle, her victories – strange victories at times, victories involving once death, once defeat – had struck him in the most vulnerable of his places, the support of his followers. The world was full of things that had fled the Slayer, and, fleeing, had settled elsewhere and done untold damage. Voldemort, of course, had known how to take advantage. But these newcomers were less reliable than the army he had built long ago; less bound to him, less tied to common traditions and experience, and, by their demon nature, less trustworthy. The final clash was coming, and yet much of Voldemort’s time was taken up with controlling his own side and punishing backsliders.

He held the wizard photograph and looked. A snap of exceptional quality: he had made sure of that, sending to Sunnydale one of America’s best wizard photographers. He needed something that not only looked life-like, but captured the essence and spirit of its subject.

A strange little creature, thought Dumbledore. Not exactly a beauty – and that is what had first struck him, given how many of his informants had seen her as “a hottie” or even “buff”. Rather a long nose, rather a weak chin. Exquisite complexion, one had to admit, and if that hair colour was not natural, it was very well chosen. The thin little figure that had so struck Minerva – narrow shoulders and a general deceptive air of fragility. It did not deceive Dumbledore: under the smooth skin, he could see the clear outlines of hard, trained, athlete’s muscles – no unnecessary bulk – efficient and ready, darting and snaking as she moved. A motion lithe, graceful and economical; a warrior’s stance if he had ever seen one, and yet, somehow, indescribably feminine. An endearing grin, vulnerable and cheerfully self-mocking, suggesting a klutziness completely at odds with her deftness and strength. Charm? Oh my goodness, yes. Plenty of charm. She had that devastating quality of seeming to welcome help, and no doubt she knew how to be touchingly grateful for any kind of help; perhaps this was part of that gift for friendship that Minerva and other sources had dwelled on, that had surrounded her with a praetorian guard of friends willing to dedicate their time to her and risk their lives for her sake. That was part of her femininity; Dumbledore had met women like her before. The sense of sweetness and gratitude was real, but he also knew, all too well, that they could do anything they had to – alone, if they had to. If Dumbledore were fifty years younger – and not very happily married – he knew he would have been attracted to her. Why fumble with words? She was attractive; and her attractiveness was not merely a surface matter of well-arranged limbs and face features, but of character and innate qualities.

And those eyes – those extraordinary eyes. Haunted – there was no other way to describe them. They were enormous, hazel, but so heavily shadowed that their colour could not always be told, and sometimes they looked almost blue, sometimes almost black; with a sadness that never went away, even when her smile was at her most sparkling. Part of it was their unusual downward slant, that carried a suggestion of past tears; part the shadows cast by her high forehead, a noble brow that overhung her pupils and seemed always to be hooding them. But it was not just a physical matter. Her expression always carried a suggestion of vulnerability, of wounds held at bay, of having seen things that hurt her beyond healing – the face of a woman who carries griefs with her that would shatter anything less strong. It is not true, thought Dumbledore, that “whatever does not kill me makes me stronger”; there are griefs that do not kill, but go on hurting all one’s life; and this child had suffered many, all too many of them.

Dumbledore had seen similar shadows in the eyes of some of his students. Harry Potter; Neville Longbottom. We load too many burdens on these children’s shoulders, thought the headmaster. Then his mind turned: he knew that he should not be using the word “we”; he always tried to take some of the weight. It was not he who had designed the order of Slayers and the Council of Watchmen, to use the youthful energies of teen-agers in a war most of them never even knew about until they were thrown in it; and God knows, it was not he who had placed all the grief and stress in Harry’s life, or in Neville’s. But when he had taken on Grindelwald, he was already an adult, not quite in the first bloom of youth, seasoned and competent; and that had been a harrowing enough experience, even for him. Harry and Buffy were children; and at their age, they had literally had the weight of the world cast on their shoulders. Dumbledore looked at that photo – that little figure, those touching, narrow shoulders.

The small blonde figure in the enchanted piece of cardboard turned and looked straight at him, giving him a sparkling grin; and he found himself smiling back.