Well, Dumbledore may well want to preserve the neutrality of his students, but will they agree? The big D is obeyed in normal situations, but let Hogwarts be invaded by an army of slayers, and he won't be heard, let alone obeyed. There will be those who will flee (which Willow would take as evidence of guilt), those who would hide (what would be construed as an attempt at ambush) and those who would try to defend Hogwarts( which would be massacred). I can well imagine Endmoor's children may well be Hogwarts students, in which case they would feel morally obligated to fight the slayers, or Willow. They would be slayed, that is, killed. A few weeks later, a dishveled and wild-eyed witch launches herself over Willow, shouting spells and babbling incoherent insults. She is promptly dispatched. Later investigation shows that she was Endmoor's wife. The whole family has been SLAYED....

I'd hoped to review after the 6th chapter. I was a little disappointed that you had Voldemort reveal himself as 'bad guy' by having him called ' Dark Lord' .
The seventh chapter was interesting, explaining well hoe distrustfull all groups are and none of them want to overplay their hands

But I still hope that you keep playing with the moral ambiguous of Voldemords potential alliance as you did in the first few chapters - perhaps Voldemort could convince himself/his followers that as he was fighting for a ' better magical community' in his own eyes, he needs to protect the slayers & co from 'humanty at large' or something like that?

I totally agree with Bsams. Buffy and Willow are being outrageously arrogant and unacceptable. . Who are THEY to attack without even bothering to study the situation or make any attempt to talk to anyone? Who are they to condemn an entire culture without even bothering to talk to a few of its members. They are behaving quite disgustingly. Let she who is without sin indeed! They need to be smacked down.
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Who are they to condemn an entire culture without even bothering to talk to a few of its members?

Anyone who can see what this "culture" truly *IS*.

Sounds you like would be one of those who would support the police and their supporters who in the southern states who would beat and set their dogs upon the blacks who dared to protest for their rights.

I totally agree with Bsams. Buffy and Willow are being outrageously arrogant and unacceptable. . Who are THEY to attack without even bothering to study the situation or make any attempt to talk to anyone? Who are they to condemn an entire culture without even bothering to talk to a few of its members. They are behaving quite disgustingly. Let she who is without sin indeed! They need to be smacked down.

Willow is learning tons, but she's their only real heavy hitter in magical terms. And the wizards if given time will adapt to slayer speed / strength etc. It's going to be very bloody.
Biggest problem here is, nobody is talking to anyone. They're just attacking, and issuing ultimatums. Would it have killed the slayers to try to arrange a conference? When the slayers break into Hogwarts, how are they going to feel finding it full of kids?
Long term, wizarding society is probably in an untenable situation. They're going to have to change, or die. But forcing change quickly is going to lead to some bad results.
I get why Buffy doesn't want to 'compromise with evil'. That's a typical slayer attitude. Somebody's going to have to ask for a meeting and try to talk things out..Dumbledore is the only shot at this. Voldemort is going to make great gains initially. Depends on what his end game is. He must have a plan for dealing with the slayers/council...

It doesn't matter,” Buffy said, cutting off the argument with a commanding voice. “It doesn't matter who's the bad guy and who's the worse guy. We're the heroes. We beat the bad guys. And the worse guys. And we don't much care what order we do it in.”

Amen! Let's see slayers kick wizard butt.

Interesting; "The enemy of my enemy is my enemy". Update soon, I really want to see what happens next! Especially how the Scooby Gang is going to fight a two-front war.

Holy shit, this has got to be one of the greatest post- Sunnydale HP fusions i've read in a long, long time - the few ones that rival this have for the most part been abandoned years ago...

I truly love how you portray the magical and physical strength of Willow and Slayers as compared to wizards of various calibres. I like how you portray the Wizarding reaction to the muggle world and the idea of 'total war' and i absolutely LOVE the way that you've portrayed the massive flaws in the various parties, how there is no black and white, good or evil in this conflict, just varying shades of grey.

I'm not sure about Dumbledore working with Tom, tho he is all about his version of the 'greater good'. Harry on the other hand, for good or ill, still sees the world in a very black and white view. The weasleys are an interesting test of this whole grey, conflicting conflict- they hate 'Dark', Voldimort, and while are not happy with the ministry, they support the idea of it, and i am not sure where their loyalty lies given their hatred of Dark and voldimort vs their loyalty to Dumbledore.

A chapter from the 'Trio's' POV would be very nice- to see Harry fighting his black and white, good and evil view- Ron's equally conflicted aleignces and in particular, Hermione, who, beyond her own inner conflicts, will undoubtedly look into the deeper nature of this brewing conflict and into the history of the Council, should she figure out what the heak is going on...


In any case, great stuff and I absolutely look forward to more (and i can't believe I missed this earlier)

Buffy's arrogance is astounding; What a nice speech from someone who let Angelus rum amok for months before dealing with him. I wonder what they'll do when their secrecy is compromised. And Willow has absolutely no room to talk with the crimes she's committed. Maybe she should spend a little time in a cell for her crimes. The only one with wiggle room is Faith, who paid for her crime. Seriously, someone needs to take the Council down a notch or two. Let He Without Sin Cast the First Stone.

Like in WW2 we allied with Stalin against Hitler. Really neither was better then the other. Facts are that Stalin murdered two to three times as many as Hitler did. It just looked like Stalin was the better choice and probably was in the end but both sides were evil.

Now as regards the Ministry- obliviating is evil. A necessary Evil? I wonder. That is really questionable. So called secrecy? How many people would believe stories of wizards? LIke how many believe stories of Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster and UFO's? There really is not a good reason for what they do; and they do it to HUNDREDS every year.

Voldemort is a worse evil but the edge is NOT great. You add all the corruption of the Ministry and Azkaban and just how much worse is Voldemort?

Remember how the Ministry lied about his return and called Harry a psychopathic liar for a FULL YEAR?

Both need to be taken down. BOTH of them.

Buffy is right on this. Bad and Worse need to go down. Whichever you call them.

Wow. Still looking ambiguous.

I like that they were able to find Diagonally and shop there.

Hah! This is awesome. Because, yeah, when it comes down to it, there's not all that much to choose between when it comes to Voldemort and the Ministry. And there's a very real history of messy ends for countries secluding themselves from the rest of the world.

I am with Buffy on this one.
I always hated the ministry for the high moral crimes they commit. Sorry, obliterating parts of a person's memory is a form of mind rape. You are fundamentally cutting out bits of who that person is when you gut their memories. Babylon 5 called it 'the death of self' when taken to its extreme.
And then there is Azkaban. Anyone who is cool with that prison is a Sociopath. A place that kills all hope? Can we say cruel and unusual? And guards that eat souls? As far as I am concerned, there is no 'grey' here. The ministry is worse than the worst totalitarian regimes to ever exist in the world; their worst crimes are merely genocide... if you believe in an afterlife then those people still had an existence to move on to. The ministry has a method to take that away... killing someone forever. Making excuses for the wizarding 'government' (sorry, but they are not recognized by any other world government, so they have no arguments of having sovereignty) that regularly invades and assaults people belonging to a legitimate, sovereign power is like making excuses for say, French police crossing the border into Germany to torture and terrorize German citizens that witness French citizens in Germany committing crimes. Except where France was not a recognized nation.
So yeah, both the ministry and Voldemort are evil. Which is worse is merely an argument for political philosophers.

Oh, and before people say that the council is no different. I would point out that they are not killing souls or 'wizard baiting'. Hell, if the prime minister of England had not been obliviated, I am sure the ministry of magic would be right in that the wizarding world would be attacked. Not because they are wizards, but in response to all the unpunished/unanswered attacks wizards have committed against the citizens of England. In which case the council could just get state approval in putting down a rogue government.

Howdy!

And here's Faith AGAIN being the voice of logic: As much as we hate it, and as much as we wish it was different...there's shades of grey. There's wrong and REALLY wrong. The thing with just "wrong" is that it can be redeemed, it can be changed. It obeys some rules and laws and seeks acceptance. "Really Wrong" is simply in it for the power and if it can't get its way, its happy to see the world burn.
Buffy STILL, despite all and having exercising hypocrisy in this regard more than once, wants everything to be black and white. After all, is she going to hold Giles guilty for the Old Council's actions while he belonged to them? They were no better and no (well maybe) worse than the Ministry, and Giles was a firm believer in them.

Fact is, the Ministry has a point: The Muggle World may very well seek to destroy them and the New Council, if presented that point, should listen (if they have a modicum of common sense). If not, then war is indeed inevitable. But the point is, Buffy's taking them to war with HUMANS without even trying to determine if the other side has good reasons to do what they do. That happens I know, and legitimately with bad info.
For example: did NOT go into Iraq under false pretenses, unless the intelligence agencies of Russia, China, and France, who voted against going in were also part of the "conspiracy" they'd come to the same conclusions, and simply chose not to act. They felt the consequences of doing so would be counter-productive. Maybe in retrospect they were right. (And remember Sadaam ROUTINELY broke every aspect of the UN-brokered-and-monitered truce as well, so we had cause on that alone. We were NOT at peace with Iraq)

Point is, bad info is as likely as not the norm, and one should take time to confirm information before plunging into war, and Buffy's not doing so. She's decided both are bad and doesn't care why they may be doing what they're doing. (Mind, I have no issue with total war, it's why Japan and Germany didn't want to fight another one! But only when it's warranted.)

Yeah the Ministry's corrupt, but it's the Wizarding World's legal government, wishes to avoid humanity not destroy it, and thus could be dealt with on such terms and expected to act in a civilized manner.
On the other hand, Voldemort wishes genocide on Muggles, period, has the ability to possibly pull it off, is subject to one (insane) man's will, and that right there is all anyone needs to know. Negotiation such a person will at best get you a truce for at time, but a war of some sort is inevitable.
Ask Prime Minister Chamberlain....

But in order for all this to happen, Buffy and her backers need to start seeing the in the realy real world, things are grey not black or white, that institutions are not thinking things bound by laws but things run by and subject to the drives of the people in them (which means they can change), and that genocidal maniacs are ALWAYS the greater of many evils, the darkest of any grey and to be treated as such.
The irony here is that the New Council and the Death Eaters have one thing very much in common: they're both controlled and driven by the wills of individuals with poor impulse control and who are often utterly convinced they're totally in the right. Oh, and willing to kill their fellow humans to back that belief up....
Ask Faith.


The Cracker!