BtVS: Bonfire Night (4/?)

[alixtii]

Title: Bonfire Night (4/?)
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Characters: Dawn/Giles, Madelyn
Rating: PG
Summary/Notes: A family celebrates a British holiday and suffers an attack of British poetry. For karabair. This fic involves Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men." You can find it here.

First part can be found here.
Second part can be found here.
Third part can be found here.

Bath, England—November 5, 2019

Remember, remember the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason, and plot,
I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, 'twas his intent to blow up the King and the Parliament.
“What if we’re looking at this wrong?” asked Giles.

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve been assuming that whatever is doing this chose ‘The Hollow Men’ because it’s Bonfire Night. But it didn’t—you chose the poem because it was Bonfire Night.”

Understanding lit in Dawn’s eyes. “I was the one who began to quote from it before Madelyn went—before this happened to Madelyn.”

“So perhaps the relevant forces just picked up on it because it was the last thing you said.”

Dawn frowned. “But then this could be anything. Do we even know that it is connected to Bonfire Night anymore?”

“The coven did detect a slight increase in astral activity. If they could locate a focus point—”

“Call them. Call them now.”

Giles nodded and left the room.

“It’s going to be okay, sweetie,” Dawn said, stroking the face of Madelyn as she laid on the bed, curled up in the fetal position. “We’re going to beat this.”

“Lips that would kiss form prayers to broken stone,” Madelyn whispered back.

Three score barrels of powder below,
Poor old England to overthrow:
By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
Hip hip hoorah!
TBC. . . . here