Buffy the Vampire Slayer belongs to Joss Whedon, UPN, Fox, Kuzui Enterprises, and Sanddollar Television. Angel belongs to most of those, Greenwolf Corp., and the WB. Dead Like Me belongs to Showtime, MGM, John Masius Productions and others. The Harry Potter books and movies belong to J. K. Rowling and Warner Brothers. Any copyright infringements were not intended. This story was written for entertainment and not for profit.

Spoilers and Timing: This takes place after the Dead Like Me episode 'Bicycle Theft', a year after the Angel series finale and during the month of May of Harry's fifth year. There are very loose spoilers for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and slightly more concrete spoilers for the Buffy ep. "A New Man".

Summary: A Dead Like Me/Harry Potter/Buffy/Angel crossover. Chaos literally abounds when Mason's cousins come to town.

"You mind telling me what the fuck is going on?"

Mason closed his eyes. "Oh, bloody hell." He took a deep breath before slowly turning around. "You weren't supposed to see this," he said, heavily.

Rube faced him, fury in his every feature. It was justified fury, to a point. Rube was Mason's boss. Anything Mason did that jeopardized their ability to do their job, grim reaping, was Rube's business. For once, though, Mason hadn't messed up his job. This particular situation had nothing to do with grim reaping, nothing at all. Rube didn't know that, though. He didn't know that his glare was unnecessary. He didn't know that there were parts of Mason's life and afterlife that he wasn't privy to, that had been unnecessary for him to know�or so Mason had thought.

Mason was cursing, over and over, in his mind. This had all turned into one big fuck-up. What was worse, it wasn't over. Now that Rube was involved, it was going to be that much more complicated.

Mason looked behind him and then down at the wand he held in his hand. "Um�" God, he wished he was high right then. Then he would be too messed up to deal with this. Courtesy of magic, however, he was completely sober. He was going to kill that git of a cousin of his for performing the twenty-four hour Sobriety Charm.

George rounded the corner, only to stop, eyes wide. "Holy crap!" Her mouth opened a few times as she struggled to form words. Her arms waved at the alley wall behind Mason. "What the fuck is this?"

Daisy and Roxy appeared. Daisy's eyes widened. "Oh, my."

"Holy-" Roxy muttered. "What the fuck are those?"

Oh, sweet miserable fuck, Mason thought. He ran a hand through his hair. "Wonderful," he muttered to himself.

Rube took several menacing steps forward until he stood nose-to-nose with the British reaper. "What the fuck is going on?" he asked again, accenting each word slowly and clearly.

Mason stared back, gulping, and wondered what he could possibly do or say to explain everything.

The five reapers stood in the alley alongside Der Waffle Haus. The alley was narrow and the ground was paved with cobblestones; either the pavement had been there for a long time, or it was someone's misplaced idea of making the alleyway look prettier. The back wall of a department store blocked off the end of the alley. Roxy and Daisy stood at the mouth of the alley, with George just in front of them. Rube, who had his back to them, stood near the middle with Mason. Behind Mason, against the far wall of the alley, lay four dog-like creatures in broken heaps.

It was the presence of these creatures that was the cause of such distress to Mason's coworkers. The fact that they were likely dead didn't raise any alarm among them. What did shock them was that the creatures resembled neither human nor any animal ever seen in their world, the Muggle world.

Mason was starting to panic. A thought occurred to him, and grasping it like a lifeline, he swung his wand up and aimed it at his coworkers. "Obliviate!"

He ignored the little voice of guilt inside of him. They weren't part of the wizarding world. Therefore, he had permission to use the Memory Charm on them. Unofficial permission, anyway, seeing as how he was supposed to have a license to perform an Obliviation Charm on anybody�

His rambling thoughts died away. A reddish-yellow light shot out of his wand tip and flew at the Muggle reapers. It headed straight toward Rube's chest.

A purple light appeared out of nowhere. It impacted with the reddish-yellow light and the two spells dissipated.

Everyone's jaws dropped. Mason's eyes widened. "Who's there?" he called out, whirling around in his search for the other wizard. "Jex, is that you?"

There was a loud crack on top one of the roofs, and then another crack that was much closer. Everyone jumped, including Mason, who had yet to be re-accustomed to someone Apparating. Now standing off to Mason's right was Jexter Rayne, Mason's cousin. He had neat, graying brown hair, unlike Mason's own messy hair, and gray eyes. He was also thinner and appeared to be older, though Mason had been born first.

Mason rounded on him. His face was screwed up tight in an effort not to explode from both nerves and anger. "Why the fuck did you counter my Obliviation Charm?" he ground out.

Jexter's eyes darted from his undead cousin to the other four, all of whom were making several loud exclamations and demands that Mason tell them what was going on. Jexter shrugged. "We may need them. If we don't, then we can Obliviate 'em."

"MASON!" Rube yelled, making Mason jump.

Jexter winced at the volume in Rube's voice. His gaze shifted left and he started as he noticed the creatures for the first time. "Merlin! It's started already?"

"Yeah," Mason replied, irritated at his surprise. "Where the fuck were you? I didn't have any back up! And after that stupid speech you made about how we had to do this together and that it had to be us! And don't tell me you didn't see the bloody things heading this way or why else would you be here?"

Jexter presented a guilty look. "Sorry, Mace. I was checking a few of the local wizarding haunts and demon bars, seeing if they'd heard anything new. I was heading in this direction when I heard the growls." He straightened and his features shifted to a defensive expression. "'Sides, you told me to stay away from Der Waffle Haus 'cause you didn't want your co-workers to know about all this. Looks like you fowled that up, cuz, without me even needing to be here."

"Well, we don't have time to deal with them now!" Mason exclaimed, aggravated. "If we need them, we'll explain it to them later!"

Before Jexter could stop him, Mason had waved his wand at his friends and performed the Obliviation Charm silently on each of them. Rube, Roxy, Daisy and George rocked on unsteady feet, blinking stupidly. "What the fuck?" Roxy murmured, confused. Without another word, the four of them turned and left the alley in a daze, heading back around the corner to the door of the restaurant. In a moment or two, they would find themselves sitting in their usual booth without any recollection of leaving it to investigate the noises in the alley.

Mason let out a sigh of relief. He rubbed his forehead where he could feel a headache forming.

"Wonderful!" Jexter threw his arms up to the heavens. "Why'd you do that? We could have used them!"

"I don't see how!" Mason countered. "It's not like they can do magic! Besides, it would have taken forever to explain magic to them."

His cousin blinked, surprised. "You mean they don't know? About you?"

Mason stared at him, face twisting in frustration. "Of course they don't know!" he burst. "I told you that yesterday!"

Jexter shifted and folded his arms across his chest, his wand sticking out from under his left arm. "Well, yeah, but I thought you meant that they didn't know we were cousins."

"They don't know that, either. Rube'll pound me into mulch if he even finds out that you worked it out-"

Jexter barked out a laugh. "Oh, please, as if I wouldn't be able to recognize my own cousin, no matter if I the living see a stranger's face instead of your ugly visage. Your aura's very distinctive, Mason, and I've gotten quite proficient at seeing auras since we last parted ways."

Mason frowned at him. He remembered how they'd 'parted ways'. He'd died, that was how. Thirty-eight years had passed since then. It had been quite a shock when Jexter had suddenly shown up in Seattle two days ago, looking for him.

"Ah, hell, Jex�" Mason began, only to stop, unsure of what he was going to say. He shook his head before pivoting on his heels, transferring his attention to the creatures clustered at the end of the alley. "Any idea what fucker is behind this? "

"Actually..." Jexter fidgeted even worse now. "It's not good, not good at all."

"Jexter. Who is behind all this?" Mason asked, glaring now. Like Mason, Jexter was accident prone, so Mason was well acquainted with the signs that meant he'd messed up again. It was never a good sign when his cousin tried to stall, as it usually meant that he felt guilty about something.

Jexter grimaced. "Ethan," he answered quietly. "My son."

One minute, Mason had been chatting to a very attractive woman at one of his favorite bars. She was getting him very worked up in the slinky blue number she barely wore, and from the way she was looking at him, she was feeling the same way.

It was loud in the rest of the bar, but the corner where they sat was the farthest away from the speakers. They still had to speak loudly, but talking was much easier there, not that either of them really cared for making small talk. Already, her bare leg was making its way up his pants leg. If they didn't get a room soon, they would be hard pressed to contain themselves long enough to find even an empty street corner.

"Excuse me." It took a few minutes for the voice to register, and that was only after the intruder had repeated his request four times. Mason and the girl both glared up at the man with slick brown hair and amused, though somewhat shocked, gray eyes.

"We�re trying to have a moment here, do you mind?" asked Mason, scowling ineffectively.

He raised his arms in a peaceful gesture. "Terribly sorry. It's just that�well, I guess I needn't have worried" He addressed Mason, "If you've already returned to the fold, as they say, you must have gotten over that disgusting rash you were suffering from just last week�"

"Rash?" Mason's date asked, alarmed. "What rash?"

"Yeah, what rash?" Mason asked stupidly, his whiskey stunted brain too busy trying to work out where he'd seen the man before. He was British, like him, but his accent was thicker, meaning he'd been in the States for a shorter time. That didn't tell him much, though.

The strange British man winced. He addressed Mason's date, "He gets this nasty rash down around his privates sometimes. It's occurred regularly since he was fifteen. Awful stuff. Contagious, too."

The woman's jaw dropped. Scandalized, she slapped both of Mason's cheeks, hard, before shooting to her feet and out the door of the bar.

Mason rubbed his stinging cheeks as he stared at the door. "What was that for?" he wondered. "I don't have a rash."

At this, the other man could no longer contain himself and burst into giggles. "No, but she certainly thinks so, doesn't she?" After a moment, his giggles died down. He stared at Mason for a long minute, the look of shock returning to his features. He smiled ruefully and shook his head. "So, cousin, I see you have yet to move on as your mum had hoped."

Mason turned away from the door and blinked at him. "Who're you?" he asked, confused.

The other man tsked in annoyance. "Fuck it, Mason," he muttered as he slid into a chair on Mason's right and pulled his wand out of an inner jacket pocket. "You always were such a screw-up in life. You couldn't even change that after your death."

Other patrons were startled when a light suddenly flashed in the dim corner near the entrance to the bar. When nothing else happened, however, they dismissed it and turned away from the table where the two men sat.

Mason shook his head. His head was suddenly a lot clearer. Thanks to the hangover solution his cousin had forced down his throat after performing the Sobriety Charm, he was feeling pretty good, too, though remnants of the potion had dripped down his chin onto his shirt.

His cousin pulled the small bottle away from Mason's mouth, screwed the lid back on and pocketed it along with his wand. "Should have known I'd need a second bottle," he muttered. He told Mason, "I made that potion for me, you cock-sucker."

Mason stared at him, eyes wide. His breath caught in his throat as he finally recognized who sat next to him. Now that his brain was working properly, thoughts flew by quickly. He wondered what Jexter was doing in Seattle. Even more, he wondered what Jexter was doing in that bar and what Jexter thought he was doing waving a wand in there.

"Do I know you?" he tried, trying to look innocently clueless. He was feeling confused enough to pull it off without much effort.

Jexter scowled at him. "Cut the crap. I know you're Mason Rayne, even if you don't look like him. Personally, I'm wondering what you're doing here in Seattle of all places when I know for a fact you died on the East Coast in 1966!"

His voice had risen steadily with each word. Wide-eyed, Mason scooted away from him. The reaper was beginning to panic. "Fuck!" he said. His cousin knew who he was. He didn't know what he was, but he did know the 'who' bit. This was not good, not good at all. Grim reapers had to follow specific rules in death. One of those rules stated very clearly that they couldn�t tell the living what they were. Another one forbade any and all contact with family members or friends the reapers had in life.

"Fuck, Mason!" Jexter exclaimed, frustrated. "It's great to see you, don't get me wrong, but I'm still awfully confused."

"I-I'm�" Mason swallowed. "I'm not a ghost, if that's what you're thinking."

"Well, of course you're not a ghost! You'd be see-through then, wouldn't you?"

"Er, true�" Mason said, frantically searching his mind for some explanation. True ghosts, those few souls that chose to stay behind and not move on, did take on a certain transparency in order to be seen by the living. Fortunately, this only occurred with souls of wizards of witches, seeing as how they were the only ones that knew of the option in the first place. Mason shuddered to think of the number of spooky-looking apparitions that would be floating around the Muggle world if Muggles also knew of the option.

Jexter's eyes narrowed. His eyes roamed slowly down Mason's body as the wizard tuned into Mason's aura.

Brow furrowed, Mason glanced down at himself. "What are you looking at?"

His cousin's jaw dropped. Eyes nearly bursting out of their sockets, he swung his gaze up to Mason's face. "You're a�a-"

He shot to his feet, making Mason jump slightly. Jexter laughed uneasily and gave him an unsteady, peacemaking smile. "S-sorry to have bothered you." Without another word, he shot out of the bar.

Mason watched him go as if stupefied. When Jexter was halfway out the door, though, Mason shook himself, hurried to his feet and ran after his cousin. "Wait!"

Mason raced out the door and onto the sidewalk. He could see no one to the left. He whirled right. "Jexter!" he called after the figure that was racing away down the sidewalk. Without thinking about what he was doing, Mason gave chase. Jexter had a good head start, but Mason was the better runner and was steadily catching up to him.

Jexter glanced behind him. He panicked when he realized the reaper was gaining on him.

A loud crack resounded in the air.

"No! Wait!" Mason cried.

His cousin vanished, Disapparating.

Mason ground to a halt, panting heavily. He stared ahead at the empty sidewalk. "Fuck it!" he exclaimed.

Part Two