Wesley got up from his seat and circled around the desk, striding towards the teenagers on the couch. On the way by, he motioned for Fred to bring Ginny closer to the others so that she might be able to hear his explanation. What that explanation was going to consist of, however, Wesley was unsure. How much should the ex-watcher tell them? How much should he leave for Buffy to explain? How much information should they shelter the children from completely?

Wesley hadn’t a clue as to what he was going to say to them. They were intelligent children, he knew. And not that young, really, even if they seemed that way to him. They were older than Buffy when she had been called, after all. They were, with the exception of Ginny, in the same year of school as Dawn and the young Mr. Malfoy, and Draco knew everything that there was to know about life in L.A. with the Scoobies and the gang formerly known as Angel Investigations. Not that they had told him outright, mind you, of course. But he was friends with Dawn, and living with Buffy, and a Slytherin who had a knack for spying. He hadn’t been in Sunnydale a week before he knew all about the things that went bump in the night. He knew all the dirty details and he seemed to be okay with it. Maybe the other teenagers would be too.

After all, they weren’t exactly innocents. The senior staff of Wolfram and Hart, those individuals who used to comprise the team of Angel Investigations, knew of the Gryffindor students’ exploits. They had come up against the worst evil in their world time and again, and they had succeeded in escaping with their lives.

Plus, they had seen Dawn and Draco slay the three vampires. And they couldn’t be completely unaware of the reason they had been sent, or that the people meant to protect them were something special, something more than the wizards who had already been doing the job.

Wesley knew he could discuss vampires freely. And magic. What he was unsure of, though, was how they would take the news that they were now in the offices of a once evil law firm that catered to demons and dark wizards, and that was now being run by a vampire, albeit a vampire with a soul.

Should he even bring up the fact that Angel was a vampire? He was still unsure of the things he should tell the young people looking up at him expectantly as he took a seat with them. But he had to say something.

“Well,” he started, as they gathered around him to listen. “I’m sure that you are all curious about what happened at the mall . . .” he drifted off, still struggling to decide which details they needed to know. Still wondering if he should explain about Angel.

But Hermione spoke up and decided the issue of Angel for him.

“How are we supposed to trust you people?! You work for Angelus!”

“Actually, Ms. Granger is it? The name he goes by now is Angel,” Wesley pointed out. “How much do you know about Angelus?”

Hermione, though nervous, allowed a look of pride to flutter across her features. She loved sharing the knowledge she acquired in books with others.

“He was a vampire made in the middle of the eighteenth century. He stayed with his sire, Darla, who taught him to be vicious and cruel, torturing his victims for his own pleasure. He learned so well that he became known as the Scourge of Europe. Angelus and his sire Darla, and two other vampires that they traveled with, Drusilla and William the Bloody, were so ruthless that they were even feared by their own kind. Angelus traveled with them until the beginnings of the twentieth century.”

“And what happened to him after that, Miss Granger?”

Wesley and Hermione were behaving as if they were having a tutorial session in Defence Against the Dark Arts, not as if they were discussing a vicious killer who happened to be just down the hall. A sadistic vampire that was alone with Dawn and Draco.

Gunn looked bored, simply keeping on guard. And Fred was only mildly more interested. It appeared as if they had heard all that the pair had said before. As if, in fact, they perhaps knew the information by heart.

The other Hogwarts students, though, were quite in shock. This was what Angel was? This was the owner of the car that they had been driving in? No wonder those vampires had attacked them. No wonder Hermione had been upset at Dawn for withholding the information. They had been driving around in a killer’s car!

“There is no record as to what happened to him after that. I’ve looked him up in every book that I could think of. There is only speculation that he may have met his match.” Ron took the opportunity of the break in conversation to roll his eyes at the girl. That was just like her, searching for information that no one ever needed to know.

Hermione caught his look. “I was curious!” she shot at him in response.

“There are no records of what happened to Angelus in any book that the wizarding world would have access to, at any rate.” Wesley pointed out.

“What do you mean by that, Mr. Wyndam-Price?”

Wesley visibly flinched at her address. “It’s Wesley,” he told her gruffly. “And what I mean is that no one wanted the wizarding world to be aware of what had happened to Angelus, to know that it was possible. It would have been disastrous.”

“Didn’t want wizards to know what was possible?” Harry inquired

“They didn’t want wizards to know that you could restore a vampire’s soul. That’s what happened to Angelus. That’s how he became Angel.” Wesley looked pointedly at Hermione. “That’s the difference in the names, Ms. Granger. Angelus was a soulless demon. Angel has a soul, and fights for the side of good. That’s why he left his fellow vampires.”

Hermione looked taken aback by the information. Not only was it information that she hadn’t been able to find in a book, but it was knowledge that she hadn’t had when berating Dawn for her actions. It seemed that she may have been misled by something she had learned from a book. And that was a rare thing indeed.

Harry sat quietly, trying to absorb what they had been told. Angel was a vampire, but he was a good one. Dawn trusted him, even though she fought against his kind. Draco Malfoy had helped them that evening. He had saved Ginny. He had killed dark creatures. And he had done it without magic. These thoughts were all whirring through Harry’s mind, trying to allow him to get a grasp on the situation.

The young man’s mind was especially concerned with absorbing the things that Wesley was telling them. It was the first information that they had received other than the names of the people they were going to be staying with. And it was surprising information at that. Vampires could be given souls? And wizards weren’t allowed to know about it? It had been kept from them on purpose for some reason that Harry couldn’t quite see yet. But they had deemed it important for the wizarding world to not know. They. That stuck in Harry’s head, and the question seemed to ask itself without Harry’s volition.

“Who are they? Who kept the knowledge from wizards? Who could?”

Wesley’s response was only one word. “Watchers.”

Harry knew the meaning of the word, but not the significance of it in this context. Not what Wesley was meaning by it. But it was obvious, though, by the widening of her eyes, that Hermione did.

“What’s a watcher?” asked Ron.

“Yeah, Hermione, what’s a watcher?” Harry asked, carefully studying his best friend’s expression. She always seemed to know more then they did, with her love of books and her thirst for knowledge. But this was something that she knew about the situation that they now found themselves in, and Harry was fighting the anger he felt building that she hadn’t let them in on it.

She knew how upset he was at being sent away from Hogwarts, the only place that he had ever considered to be truly his home. If she had had any knowledge as to why they were being exiled in this, their last year, she should have told them.

“I’ve read about them, Harry. The same way I’ve read about a lot of things. Why do you sound so upset?” She was truly puzzled, as if she really could not fathom why keeping this information from Harry might upset him.

Harry stood up and stormed over to the wall of windows that overlooked the city of Los Angeles. “Well, Hermione,” he began, his back facing the assembled group. “Watchers obviously have at least some relevance to the situation. Do you think you might have mentioned them before now?”

“I . . . but . . .” Hermione stammered, trying to understand why Harry was so angry. “I just read a short passage about them in Keepers of Magical Creatures. I have no idea what they would have to do with us being sent here!” she told him, exasperated.

Wesley, having realized that Harry had mistakenly thought that the girl was hiding something vital from them, strode over to Harry and turned the boy from the window. Wesley knew how it felt to have information kept from him, information that pertained to the situation that he was currently involved with. But this was not such a case. Hermione had no way of knowing that the watchers had anything to do with what was now going on.

The younger man was as tall as the former watcher, allowing Wesley to be able to look into his eyes, willing the Boy-Who-Lived to read the truth in Wesley’s eyes, to see that Hermione wasn’t conspiring against him.

“If Miss Granger did indeed know of the watchers before now, Mr. Potter, she would have had no way of knowing that they had anything to do with your relocation to California. What the wizarding world knows about us, other than a few select people like Dumbledore, is nowhere near enough that she would have been able to see any connection at all that watchers would have to your new found circumstances. Do not be angry with her.” Wesley turned Harry further towards the room, and headed back towards the others, encouraging Harry to rejoin the group. “I’m sure Ms. Granger’s knowledge in this area is superficial at best. She would have had know way of knowing that the knowledge would prove useful to you.”

Wesley returned to his seat as Harry reluctantly returned to his own. The younger man’s emerald eyes caught those of his female best friend. She looked sincerely apologetic. But there was something else in her eyes as well, a look Harry had rarely seen there; doubt and confusion. Hermione honestly had no more idea of what was going on here than any of the others.

The wizard was now even more determined to learn what was going on. Who these people were, and how it was they were better equipped to protect them. His curiosity made Harry look at Wesley sharply and intently when the older Englishman started to speak.

“Miss Granger,” Wesley started, sounding very much like one of their professors. “Can you tell us what it is that you know about watchers?”

Hermione visibly relaxed at the tone in his voice, slipping into her well known role as the top student. “The only thing that I have read about them, sir, is that they train and watch over the slayer.”

“And do you know what a Slayer is, Miss Granger?”

She shook her head slightly, disappointed at not being able to answer a question. “All I could discover was that the slayer was some kind of warrior against dark creatures, and that they aren’t wizards. But they aren’t muggles, either. They do have supernatural capabilities, and that they are defined as magical creatures. That was all I was able to find.”

Hermione shifted her gaze from Wesley to Harry, hoping that he would forgive her for not sharing what little she knew about watchers, and for not knowing that she should have. But if she shared everything that she ever read with her best friends, they would probably stop talking to her from sheer boredom.

Her eyes caught Harry’s, and he shot her a sheepish grin, having realized that he had overreacted. He was just so on edge about the whole situation and her brief explanation about watchers had done nothing to help put him at ease.

“So these watchers,” Harry asked, “they hid the knowledge that Angel had acquired a soul from the Wizarding World. But I still don’t understand why.”

Wesley looked over at Harry, his blue eyes flashing intently, showing the young man that there was far more to the transplanted Brit than was apparent at first glance.

“Because, the only way to restore a soul to a vampire is magically. The fewer people who had the knowledge that it could be done, the ability to do it, and power to actually complete the ritual, the better. As far as I know, there is only one person in the world at this time that has all three of those things. If wizards became privy to these things, they might stop killing vampires, and simply try to restore their souls. It would be especially apt to happen if they had known the vampire in question before they were turned. Such a trend would make a slayer’s job very difficult indeed. If a slayer took the time with every vampire to try to ascertain whether or not they had a soul, it would, more likely than not, cost them their lives.”

Harry could understand the logic in this. They were dangerous creatures, vampires, as the Gryffindors had learnt earlier that evening. These slayers would be less effective if they had to bring ethical and moral issues into the fight, such as if killing a being with a soul was murder, or simply something that they were born to do. They could not afford to worry about whether or not a vampire had a soul. They would be less apt to kill them if they had to wonder.

“I guess that makes sense.” Harry told him. “But one question. You said there was one person that has all of the requirements to restore a soul. Is it Dumbledore?”

Wesley shook his head at the young man’s question.

“Is it . . .” Harry tried to ask again, but this time Wesley interrupted him before he could finish. He was fairly certain that the wizard had been about to ask if the person was his enemy, Voldemort. But Wesley couldn’t answer the question, couldn’t tell them who it was. This tale, Wesley knew, was definitely better left for someone else to tell.

“The answer to your question, I’m afraid, Mr. Potter, is one of those things that is not in my power to tell you. It is not my secret to share. I believe, however, that if you have patience, you will learn the answer before your stay in California is over.”

They all sat in silence for a moment, absorbing what they had just learned. Gunn shot a questioning look at Wesley, Fred looking puzzled as well. They both knew who it was that had given Angel his soul, at least, the person who had given it to him the last two times. It would ease the boy’s mind, wouldn’t it, that such a thing was not a capability of his enemy’s? But Wesley just shook his head at them and mouthed “It’s her tale to tell” at his colleagues as the teens were busy looking at each other’s reactions.

The moment was broken when Ron looked towards the adults. “That may be all well and good, and we’ll accept that,” he looked to Harry for confirmation, and the other boy nodded. “For now. But we still want to know something. A slayer is a magical creature, so says Hermione, but what kind of creature, exactly? Are they a type of animal? And how do you know about them?”

At that, Fred choked on a giggle and said under her breath something that made no sense to the teens. “Well, the slayer would be a cow in Pylea.”

“Are you going to answer us?” Ron inquired.

The question was directed at all three adults, but Wesley knew it was up to him to answer it. The thing of it was that he was still trying to decide what he should tell them. His lips pressed together in a hard line, his mind reaching a decision, and he started to speak.

“I know about watchers, Mr. Weasley, because I once was one.” He held up a hand to ward of their shocked reactions. “I can not tell you all that you wish to know. That I shall leave to Buffy. It is up to her to explain the reason you have come to be in her care.” The four Gryffindors were about to protest again when a sharp look from Wesley cut them off. “I will only tell you what I feel I can without breaking the trust of any of the people that I value. The rest I leave up to them.”

At this point, Harry crossed his arms, and leaned back in his chair. He might have been disgruntled at not being told the whole story right now, but he was determined to learn what he could from this man.

“So, Mr. Weasley. I know what a Slayer is because I was a watcher, and one of the Slayers was my responsibility once.” Wesley paused, a look taking over his face as if he were questioning himself. “Or two, really,” he continued. “As for what a slayer is, that part is easy to explain. . . “ he trailed off, waiting for the four teens in the room to give him their undivided attention. When he received it, Wesley took a deep breath, as if preparing for a great speech.

“Into each generation a Slayer is born. One girl in all the world, a Chosen One, one born with the strength and skill to hunt the vampires. To stop the spread of their evil . . . “