Pale Serpents: Draco
Author: Lucinda
rating: pg
main characters: Willow Rosenberg, Draco Malfoy QPC #24
the Quickie Challenge site: http://quickie.moonlightpaths.com
disclaimer: I do not own anyone from Buffy the Vampire Slayer or from Harry Potter.
distribution: WLS, NHA, Twisting the Hellmouth, Quickie Challenge, Bite Me please? anyone else ask.
She could hardly believe her unexpected change in fortune. She'd expected England to be lonely and unfamiliar and alien. Instead, she'd found somewhere that felt like home: the Wizarding world.
She'd met a man name Albus Dumbledore, a wizard of considerable reputation among the wizards and witches of England. It seemed that Dumbledore had a school where children were taught how to be wizards, and they needed someone to teach a class called Defense Against the Dark Arts. It sounded like a milder version of how to survive over a hellmouth. She'd wanted something to do, and that had sounded useful. It would be good if the young witches and wizards knew how to protect themselves, and it would also have her somewhere that she would have someone to let her know if she was shifting towards the dark side.
Now, she was a teacher, at a school for magic. It was a delightful and amusing development, considering that she'd already taught once before, her sophomore year of high school. But this was different. She was teaching many different ages, from little children who couldn't have been more than ten or eleven all the way to students who were only a few years younger than she was.
Willow made a very careful point of working in her spare time with the other teachers, learning how to use a wand like all the other wizards and witches did. There was probably a reason why they didn't just go without, and it wouldn't do to mess up the poor kids learning curve just because their teacher didn't do things in the traditional way. But she was still a bit hesitant with the wand, and some of the students had noticed.
Professor Flitwick was delightful, all excitable and excited about everything. His specialty, Charms, gave her the most trouble, most likely because she wasn't used to the slight differences in the way wand-magic worked. McGonagall was... well, she was educational. Brisk and a bit impatient, she reminded Willow of a math teacher that she'd once had. Fortunately, she didn't have a lot of previous experience with Transfiguration to mess things up. AS for the other major area of use for Defense, there was Potions as taught by the unforgettable Severus Snape. He was tall and glowery and always lurking around in sweeping black robes. He was amazing at Potions, but the most sour tempered living man that she'd... well, maybe not the sourest, but certainly among the crankiest.
But even Snape was a delight in comparison to the alternative, life without friends or family, nothing more than her guilt and the temptation to fall back into darkness. She was at a place filled with magical learning, somewhere that she could spend decades just learning. The fact that the stairways and paintings moved was an added fascinating thing.
On the down side, she finally understood why so many teachers didn't like their students. Some of them didn't pay attention, and others thought that she was a joke, that she obviously couldn't have any idea what she was talking about because she was young, and pretty. The worst of the lot was a fifth year student named Draco Malfoy, the son of Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy, the wealthy, spoiled scion of a pureblood wizarding family that could trace their ancestry back almost to the founding of Hogwarts a thousand years ago. He seemed to think that generations of dead wizards in his ancestry made him superior. Predictably enough, he'd noticed her tendency to leave her wand sitting on her desk as she lectured, and had also picked up on her hesitance when using the wand for magic.
It appeared that young Malfoy was spreading nasty rumors that she was an incompetent witch, that she could hardly use her wand. That she was so weak and puny in her magic that she was only a bare step up from a mudblood, whatever that meant. She was pretty sure that it was an insult. He was also predicting that she'd be dead before the term was over.
Today, she was lecturing about vampires, a topic that she could discuss in her sleep. This was one of the fifth year classes, the Gryffindor-Slytherin session. She'd been warned that Harry Potter had a tendency to attract 'interesting occurrences', Hermione Granger could find the right book for any information, Ron Weasely was the younger brother to Fred and George Weasely, the worst pranksters the school had seen in years. There was Neville Longbottom, the human embodiment of well meaning bad luck and ineptitude. But far more annoying to her were Draco Malfoy and his minions Crabbe and Goyle.
Right as she was explaining the most basic methods of slaying a vampire; decapitation, incineration, or wooden stake, she heard Malfoy's voice as he spoke to his left hand flunky, not even bothering to whisper.
"I bet if she ever saw a vampire she'd fall down in a faint. She's probably quoting a book at us because she can't cast any magic worth a lead knut."
Willow had had enough of him. He was rude, arrogant, and worst of all, he had the potential to be an excellent student if he would just apply himself. "Malfoy, if you haven't figured it out, this is MY classroom, which means that I talk, you don't."
"You don't even have your wand with you, you left it on your desk again like the incompetent half rate witch that you aspire to become." He was sneering at her.
She could feel her eyes going darker as the power inside of her flared, crying out to hurt the arrogant brat. Instead, she made the 'zipping' gesture, silencing his mouth with a small use of power. "Actually, the wand is entirely for the benefit of the students. I only started using one this year. I don't need a wand for magic, Malfoy."
She curbed the power inside her, contenting herself to levitate him and his books from the desk, tossing him out into the hallway, the door opening just in time for him to sail out. "You have detention tonight, and owe me a two foot scroll on vampires and methods of fighting them by Friday. AND I'm deduction fifty points from Slytherin for you inexcusable lack of manners."
The door slammed shut in front of Draco, firmly leaving him outside of the class. Since he figured that he already knew everything, she'd just let him go get an early start on that paper.
Sometimes it was good to be the teacher.
"Now, for the rest of you, I was about to explain the wonders of a simple levitated tree branch..."
end Pale Serpents: Draco.
Author: Lucinda
rating: pg
main characters: Willow Rosenberg, Draco Malfoy QPC #24
the Quickie Challenge site: http://quickie.moonlightpaths.com
disclaimer: I do not own anyone from Buffy the Vampire Slayer or from Harry Potter.
distribution: WLS, NHA, Twisting the Hellmouth, Quickie Challenge, Bite Me please? anyone else ask.
She could hardly believe her unexpected change in fortune. She'd expected England to be lonely and unfamiliar and alien. Instead, she'd found somewhere that felt like home: the Wizarding world.
She'd met a man name Albus Dumbledore, a wizard of considerable reputation among the wizards and witches of England. It seemed that Dumbledore had a school where children were taught how to be wizards, and they needed someone to teach a class called Defense Against the Dark Arts. It sounded like a milder version of how to survive over a hellmouth. She'd wanted something to do, and that had sounded useful. It would be good if the young witches and wizards knew how to protect themselves, and it would also have her somewhere that she would have someone to let her know if she was shifting towards the dark side.
Now, she was a teacher, at a school for magic. It was a delightful and amusing development, considering that she'd already taught once before, her sophomore year of high school. But this was different. She was teaching many different ages, from little children who couldn't have been more than ten or eleven all the way to students who were only a few years younger than she was.
Willow made a very careful point of working in her spare time with the other teachers, learning how to use a wand like all the other wizards and witches did. There was probably a reason why they didn't just go without, and it wouldn't do to mess up the poor kids learning curve just because their teacher didn't do things in the traditional way. But she was still a bit hesitant with the wand, and some of the students had noticed.
Professor Flitwick was delightful, all excitable and excited about everything. His specialty, Charms, gave her the most trouble, most likely because she wasn't used to the slight differences in the way wand-magic worked. McGonagall was... well, she was educational. Brisk and a bit impatient, she reminded Willow of a math teacher that she'd once had. Fortunately, she didn't have a lot of previous experience with Transfiguration to mess things up. AS for the other major area of use for Defense, there was Potions as taught by the unforgettable Severus Snape. He was tall and glowery and always lurking around in sweeping black robes. He was amazing at Potions, but the most sour tempered living man that she'd... well, maybe not the sourest, but certainly among the crankiest.
But even Snape was a delight in comparison to the alternative, life without friends or family, nothing more than her guilt and the temptation to fall back into darkness. She was at a place filled with magical learning, somewhere that she could spend decades just learning. The fact that the stairways and paintings moved was an added fascinating thing.
On the down side, she finally understood why so many teachers didn't like their students. Some of them didn't pay attention, and others thought that she was a joke, that she obviously couldn't have any idea what she was talking about because she was young, and pretty. The worst of the lot was a fifth year student named Draco Malfoy, the son of Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy, the wealthy, spoiled scion of a pureblood wizarding family that could trace their ancestry back almost to the founding of Hogwarts a thousand years ago. He seemed to think that generations of dead wizards in his ancestry made him superior. Predictably enough, he'd noticed her tendency to leave her wand sitting on her desk as she lectured, and had also picked up on her hesitance when using the wand for magic.
It appeared that young Malfoy was spreading nasty rumors that she was an incompetent witch, that she could hardly use her wand. That she was so weak and puny in her magic that she was only a bare step up from a mudblood, whatever that meant. She was pretty sure that it was an insult. He was also predicting that she'd be dead before the term was over.
Today, she was lecturing about vampires, a topic that she could discuss in her sleep. This was one of the fifth year classes, the Gryffindor-Slytherin session. She'd been warned that Harry Potter had a tendency to attract 'interesting occurrences', Hermione Granger could find the right book for any information, Ron Weasely was the younger brother to Fred and George Weasely, the worst pranksters the school had seen in years. There was Neville Longbottom, the human embodiment of well meaning bad luck and ineptitude. But far more annoying to her were Draco Malfoy and his minions Crabbe and Goyle.
Right as she was explaining the most basic methods of slaying a vampire; decapitation, incineration, or wooden stake, she heard Malfoy's voice as he spoke to his left hand flunky, not even bothering to whisper.
"I bet if she ever saw a vampire she'd fall down in a faint. She's probably quoting a book at us because she can't cast any magic worth a lead knut."
Willow had had enough of him. He was rude, arrogant, and worst of all, he had the potential to be an excellent student if he would just apply himself. "Malfoy, if you haven't figured it out, this is MY classroom, which means that I talk, you don't."
"You don't even have your wand with you, you left it on your desk again like the incompetent half rate witch that you aspire to become." He was sneering at her.
She could feel her eyes going darker as the power inside of her flared, crying out to hurt the arrogant brat. Instead, she made the 'zipping' gesture, silencing his mouth with a small use of power. "Actually, the wand is entirely for the benefit of the students. I only started using one this year. I don't need a wand for magic, Malfoy."
She curbed the power inside her, contenting herself to levitate him and his books from the desk, tossing him out into the hallway, the door opening just in time for him to sail out. "You have detention tonight, and owe me a two foot scroll on vampires and methods of fighting them by Friday. AND I'm deduction fifty points from Slytherin for you inexcusable lack of manners."
The door slammed shut in front of Draco, firmly leaving him outside of the class. Since he figured that he already knew everything, she'd just let him go get an early start on that paper.
Sometimes it was good to be the teacher.
"Now, for the rest of you, I was about to explain the wonders of a simple levitated tree branch..."
end Pale Serpents: Draco.