Chapter 12: August 12, 2014 – Wizarding Studies
Warning: tiny amount of violence
Challenge: for the livejournal 2014 August Fic-a-Day Challenge.
Disclaimer: BtVS/AtS characters belong to Joss Whedon/Mutant Enemy. HP characters belong to JK Rowling. I claim no rights to any copyrighted material. Please do not copy or take this story without my permission.
Buffy's office
"So one thing I've learned at the Wizengamot, Buffy…" Willow explained as part of their weekly get-together, "The Wizarding World really has a thing about traditions. Some of them are bizarre, like you and I getting Dumbledore's jobs because we beat the Dark Lord; some are oppressive, like marriage contracts; some actually has a purpose, like ritual-based magic. The trick is figuring out which ones we can work towards getting rid of and those that should be celebrated."
Xander interjected, "Well, Hogwarts has a Muggle Studies class to teach about the Muggle world. Why not have a Wizard Studies class to teach about the magic world?" He listened to the rest of their conversation with half his attention so he could get back to studying the proposed changes to the school and looking for any particulars that were missing to turn it into a great school instead of a dangerous theme park experience.
Buffy nodded in agreement. "Cool idea. Thanks, Xander. So we need somebody old school who isn't one of Voldemort's supporters, public or otherwise. I hate suggesting that it has to be a pure-blood, but honestly, they probably know the material better. Maybe a half-blood could handle it if necessary."
"Until a generation or two has passed, I think you have to ease into the changes," Tara remarked. "It takes baby steps sometimes to get from point A to point B. After all, you'll probably have a Muggle, Muggle-born or half-blood as the Muggle Studies professor, won't you?"
"Do you have any ideas?" Buffy asked Willow.
Willow nodded. "As a luck would have it, I do. I asked her to meet with you so she could give you a crash course in their culture, but this could work even better. Her husband was murdered a year ago for opposing Voldemort. Now that she's out of her mourning period, a job could help her feel more useful to society."
Longbottom Manor
When Willow was unable to floo the manor, she took Buffy there using her form of apparition. It wasn't exactly like the Wizarding World's version, but it was close enough that most of them couldn't tell the difference.
"I'm guessing the light display isn't a planned thing, Will?" Buffy asked rhetorically, pulling out her Scythe in preparation for battle.
Willow shook her head. "Be careful, I'm going back to get the others. Try to be stealthy, please?"
"It's my middle name," Buffy assured her. When Willow shot her a look of disbelief, she added, "Okay, for tonight it will be. Now, go!"
She crept her way to the side of the intruders so that she wouldn't be in the way of any spellfire that got passed them from the residents of the house. As she was trying to figure out which one was the most dangerous – and therefore the one who needed to go down first – a figure shimmered in at her side.
"Hey, Buffy," Cole greeted her softly. "Can you tell their numbers?"
"I've only seen the two here, but they'd be crazy not to have somebody in the back," she answered.
"I'll cover the back, then," Cole said, shimmering out less than 30 seconds after he arrived.
A scream from far away signaled that either Cole was noticed in the back or the baddies got in and were hurting the family inside. Either way, it was her cue to get moving. She ran forward and swung her Scythe down on the wand arm of the terrorist closest to her. His hand and the wand it held fell to the ground as he let out a blood-curdling scream of pain.
As she kept moving towards the second terrorist, she made sure to step on the fragile piece of wood in order to snap it in half. If he wanted to attack her again, he'd have to find another way to do it.
The second guy didn't give her a chance to use non-lethal methods. He started firing off those killing curses too fast and too close together for her to get within striking distance. All she was left with was her stake and her throwing knives. Since she kind of doubted that he was a vampire, she opted to use a knife. It was supposed to go into his shoulder, but at the last second, he stumbled and it went through his temple.
"Bugger!" Buffy cursed, running over to break his wand, then towards to house to help Cole and the others.
Meanwhile, Cole shimmered to the back door just as that pair of terrorists broke through the wards and into the house. Upon entering the house, they each chose their targets and cast the torture curse on the husband and wife.
Remembering that he wasn't supposed to be evil anymore, he generated some low-level energy balls and targeting the wand hands of the terrorists with them. It didn't kill them, but it did render their arms useless – probably for the rest of their lives. Once the torture curses were lifted, Frank and Alice Longbottom stunned their attackers, then turned their wands on Cole.
"My name is Cole Turner. I've come to help Headmistress Summers after she and Chief Witch Rosenberg discovered you were under attack," Cole explained as calmly as possible. He wasn't sure what their magic could do to him, but he really wasn't wanting to find out at the moment, either.
Buffy came running in from the other side of the room then, and given the media coverage of her defeat over Voldemort and her appointment to Hogwarts, the Longbottoms recognized her right away. "Is everyone alright?" she asked. "Let me rephrase that, are all the good guys alright?"
"We were hit by the torture curse, but it was only for a few seconds, so a potion should take care of most of the effects," Frank answered. "I don't know what spell Mr. Turner used on them, but it appears to be a kind of lightning spell?"
"I called them energy balls," Cole told them. "By controlling the strength of the energy in them, it can incapacitate or kill. I wanted to start with the former and only use the latter as a last resort."
"Thanks, Cole," Buffy expressed her gratitude for his assistance with a warm smile. "My guess is that the Aurors will be here shortly with Willow, then maybe I can talk to the elder Mrs. Longbottom about a position at Hogwarts?"
"She's upstairs with Neville," Alice managed to get out through her chattering teeth.
Needless to say, saving Augusta's family went a long way to convincing her to take the job offer.
Tonks home
At the request of Augusta, Buffy kept searching for another professor to manage the younger classes of Wizarding Studies. Augusta felt that she didn't have the temperament to deal with smaller children. She would refine the older Muggle-borns and half-bloods until they could interact seamlessly with the pure-bloods in social settings. But somebody else would have to get them ready for her.
With that in mind, and after a couple conversations with the families she helped to save, Buffy wound up with the name Andromeda Tonks as a potential candidate for the position.
Once she got through the small talk and made her proposition, Andromeda reminded her, "You do know that I was raised in the Black family…aptly named because they tend to use the darker magic."
"And yet you chose to marry for love," Buffy retorted. "And you married a Muggle-born. That speaks volumes for your character. I worry more about your character and not that of your family. To be honest, I'm actually kind of hoping that having a Black – even if it is former – as a professor at the school will help ease some of the pure-bloods concerns that I'm changing too much too soon at Hogwarts."
"I'd have to live at home," Andromeda said, starting the negotiations.
A/N: Hopefully this will appease the pure-bloods of the world.
Tomorrow…What position would you like to see next?
