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Lesson Plans

Five days later, it was a much thinner Buffy that made her way through the corridors of the castle. She hadn't eaten more than a few bites of the food left in her room by the house-elves since she had holed herself up in the dormitory days before. In her grief she hadn't felt hungry at all, and had only eaten enough to prevent the teachers from storming in and force feeding her or following though with their threats of confining her to the hospital wing, which had grown steadily more believable by the day. From overheard conversations she had gathered that it was Dumbledore and Flitwick she had to thank for being left alone in her grief.

That had been then, and this was now, and though she still felt the pain of her sorrow like a dull ache in her soul, it was no longer coming in engulfing waves as it had before her outburst, or causing her the constant intense pain she'd felt the past few days, merely from the fact that she was alive and here and safe, and Angel wasn't. Buffy could now just about think his name without a flood of emotion overwhelming her, though she did feel a sob well up in her throat.

Buffy left the room, going straight through the Ravenclaw common room with its new addition of a trunk embossed with her name and House containing a hat she hoped they didn't want her to wear, some plain black copies of the robes all wizards seemed to wear, equipment and books. From the look of the amount of books she had to study, Buffy wouldn't be doing much else this holiday. She had wandered aimlessly out into the corridor and through the castle, not paying any closer attention to where she was going than she had on her first trip to the Ravenclaw tower, and was now terribly lost.

What had Flitwick said? If you get lost ask the paintings. She turned to the moving portraits that had graced the walls of almost every magical building she had visited. Seeing painted faces move around her had become so normal that she had hardly noticed the movements of the crowd which had followed her along the walls of the corridors. She turned to face a group of painted figures, who halted their whispered conversation when she looked at them.

"Do you know which way to…" Buffy paused and thought about where she wanted to go. Not back to the Ravenclaw tower, the Great Hall was off; she didn't want to see all the teachers, who might still be eating their lunch. Flitwick, the Ravenclaw Head hadn't seemed so bad, and he had said that he wanted to talk to her. She changed her question "Does Professor Flitwick have an office?"

After some discussion, a man in a costume that could have come out of a Shakespearian play stepped forward from the group "Yes, If you take the next corridor on the right…"

He was interrupted by one of the other paintings pulling on his ruff, whispering at him about "A short cut through the…" Ignoring her words, he and the others stared down the large woman who had disturbed him, until eventually she walked out of the frame in a huff when they refused to listen to her.

Once she had left the spokesman continued his directions "… as I was saying, take the next corridor on the right, up the flight of stairs at the end and it's the third door on your left" all the remaining figures in the painting seemed to agree with these directions so Buffy set off down the passage.

Buffy was surprised to find that she actually passed the great bronze eagle that was the entrance to the Ravenclaw tower on the way to Flitwick's office, though on reflection it did make sense to have the head of House near his students. She stopped outside his door and knocked, waiting for his squeaky reply before entering. The man was almost hidden behind a desk piled high in books and scrolls with a high chair behind it to bring the small Professor level with the worktop.

"Hello Miss Summers, how are you feeling?"

Buffy flushed, embarrassed at the reminder that the whole school, including the building itself if you count the paintings, knew of her outburst of grief. "I'm… better, thank you sir. You wanted to talk to me?"

"Ah yes, your studies…" He sorted through the muddle of scrolls on his desk until he came to the appropriate set "As I'm sure you know, the… Minister…" his lack of respect for the man holding that position was evident in the small man's tone "has charged us to tutor you up to a level where you can complete your OWLs at the end of this coming school year. OWLs are usually taken after five years of study, so unfortunately you will have to work very hard to catch up." Flitwick looked at her from under his bushy eyebrows as if trying to judge if she was up to the challenge.

"We have decided that, in the summer, we will get you as far as possible in the core magical subjects – Potions, Charms, Transfiguration, Defence Against the Dark Arts, and Herbology. If you've got far enough in these subjects by the end of the holidays, you may take on an extra subject during term time." He peered at another piece of parchment before adding it to the growing collection he had set aside.

"As the teachers are on their own holidays, you will be expected to mostly do the work by yourself. I will be here to help you with your Charms work and expect you to start reading your text this week. Professor Sprout will be in the Greenhouse a lot of the time, so visit her if you have any questions on your Herbology work. Professors McGonagall and Snape will be away from the castle allot, but they will drop by occasionally to assess your progress and set essays. Professor Snape will be overseeing your work in both Potions and Defence, as our DADA teacher left at the end of the last school year. Your teachers have written lists of reading requirements and essay subjects with due dates." He had gathered together a worrying amount of scrolls, handing them to Buffy.

"You are slightly behind due to your… illness…" He smiled comfortingly at her, then looked about, putting on a secretive manner, and whispered to her conspiratorially. "If I was you I'd do the work for Professor Snape first, he will not take kindly to you being behind when he visits."

Buffy nodded silently, glancing through some of the assignments on the scrolls. It seemed that they actually did expect her to read all of the books in the trunk. She was beginning to think magic school wasn't going to be so fun after all. Collecting the scrolls into her arms, she thanked the small wizard glumly, and made her way back to the tower.

An hour later she heard a gasp as someone else entered the tower. Since Buffy had the common room, which was intended, judging by its size, to house at least a hundred students, all to herself; she had taken over the whole room with her work. In an attempt to avoid the large workload she was faced with, Buffy instead organised her equipment and books required for each subject onto different tables and put notes in the pages she'd need to use for essays.

This all made the room seem as if there were at least thirty occupants, not just one lone girl. Buffy had just finished sorting it all out, and was dejectedly considering the fact that perhaps she should actually start doing some of the work, when she was disturbed by the presence in the room.

Professor McGonagall looked over the mess Buffy had managed to create with a kind of fascinated horror, before alighting her eyes on Buffy. As soon as her gaze fell on the petite American, it hardened, her face returning to its standard stern expression, this time highlighted by a hint of distrust.

"The Headmaster would like to see you in his office." She indicated for her to go down the stairs, purposely keeping Buffy in her line of sight as she moved towards the exit; the Deputy Headmistress's suspicion evident. As they walked through the hallways to Dumbledore's office, she thought about the only reason he could want to see her or, at least, the only one that might cause Professor McGonagall's new attitude towards her; that wand. She had known that eventually Ollivander would tell him, but with her mind on anything but magic for the past few days, she'd stopped worrying about what his reaction would be, how this might distance her from her only companions in this strange country.

They finally stopped outside a stone figure of a gargoyle and McGonagall said the password, causing it to reveal the entrance to the Headmaster's office. It was a round room, situated in one of the numerous towers of the castle, filled with odd objects, many of them whirring away as they completed some unknown purpose. In a prominent central position was a large desk behind which Dumbledore himself was seated with three teachers; Flitwick and two others Buffy didn't know, standing beside him.

"Won't you take a seat?" Buffy hastily sat down, hoping his amiable expression meant that she wasn't in too much trouble. "Would you like some tea?" She took the offered cup and gingerly sipped it, slightly put off by the intense stare of the tall man who stood directly behind Dumbledore. His greasy black locks shrouded most of his face from view; all that could be seen were his beady eyes and large hooked nose, the concealment of his face only adding to the strength of his glare. "I spoke to Ollivander, He told me about your incident with the wand. Do you have anything to say?"

"Uh, I didn't do anything deliberately, it just happened when I picked up the wand." He nodded thoughtfully

"I see, what did the connection to the wand feel like?"

Buffy thought back to the sickening darkness she had felt when she waved that wand, the sense of something moving, awakening within "It wasn't nice… I don't know really… It was different to the one I bought."

"Yes, it would be. The thing is, we can only create magic without the effort of incantations, without purpose, using a wand that connects to our power source within. Most wizards only have one power source, but sometimes people can have more than one power source. A girl who was half veela and half wizard, for example might have a source of both her veela and her wizarding power. Does this make sense?"

Buffy decided that it wasn't worth mentioning that she had no clue what a 'veela' was, so merely nodded and gulped down her tea. It made sense now, that power had come from the part of her that was a slayer… but did these wizards know about slayers? Did they now know what she was? Would they try to force her to take part in their fight against the evil wizard Neil had talked about if she told them? She felt something, something indescribably foreign whisper through her mind as the Headmaster continued. Buffy shook her head and the sense of otherness retreated, a creature flinching back as it realised it had been observed.

"The power that came from that wand was quite… malevolent." She waited breathlessly for them to tell her they knew; that she had to go back and face what had happened, that there was no escape from her calling. "We were wondering if you had been bitten by any wild dogs recently."

Buffy almost laughed in relief as all the teachers looked at her intently, waiting for her answer.

They thought she was a werewolf. She considered letting them continue to think so, it wasn't like they'd find out until the next full moon. But then the presence returned to her mind, accompanied by something else that was sharper and more intrusive than the one that had almost stayed hidden in her surface thoughts before.

There was a slight, barely noticeable, pressure on her thoughts, oddly reminiscent of the control the Master had somehow had over her, and her thoughts of werewolves were pushed over to the memories they were linked to. Jumbled images of a boy with hair that changed shades with each scene; laughing with her best friend, performing on stage, a face and bare shoulders seen through the mesh of a cadge. She concentrated, forcing the thoughts down, away, and the pressure which had brought them up out.

But there was still something, someone there. In her head tickling at her senses as it floated in the backdrop of her mind. Could the vague sense of self in her head tell if she lied? Was it worth testing?

"No, I'm not a werewolf."

The greasy, sneering man was quite surprised that the blonde American had managed to figure out where their not-so-subtle line of questioning was going, looking at her with a new level of respect as he decided he should probably retract his previous plan of just writing her off. Although perhaps that should have been done earlier, when she was sorted.

"Do you know anything about your real parents that might hint where this power is from?" Dumbledore asked her, not at all surprised by the new Ravenclaw's agile mind.

She tensed, half expecting that overwhelming force to try and pull more out of her, but nothing came, only the faint pressure that sat like a parasite on her thoughts.

"My parent's names weren't on my birth certificate" It was the truth, an evasive answer but nevertheless a truthful one. The thought of them, even without any pressure on her mind, brought on a wave of anger and hurt, a jumble of emotions connected to her adoption. She didn't want the whole room knowing about her life, though they possibly had already found out as much from Dumbledore.

She looked carefully across the desk at the Headmaster, daring him to reveal himself and dig deeper, certain who it was delving into her mind. That pressure began to build again, stronger this time as it tried to force out memories, but now she knew what to expect; blocking out her thoughts and emotions as she had when she resisted the Masters thrall.

"Was there anything in your given name that might suggest who your parents are?" She should have known that someone clever enough to run a school wouldn't be fooled into thinking that meant she had no clues to who they were. If they found out her name they might know who her parents were and try to find something else, to find out the truth of the slayer's power within her. Or worse, try to make her contact them. She could feel a consciousness within her own waiting, hoping to catch her in an outright lie, but perhaps they would be thrown off by another partial truth.

"They named me 'Anne'. It's my middle name now, Buffy Anne Summers." Dumbledore nodded, those bright blue eyes holding her gaze as surely as his mind had her thoughts, assessing the honesty of her words.

"Do not try to access this other power; as you saw in Ollivanders, it is not benign and you might harm yourself." He stared her straight in the eye, trying to impose on her the importance of this. What he didn't understand was that she never wanted to feel like that ever again.

By some subtle signal, it seemed, he had opened the floor to his senior staff; Dumbledore sat back, those eyes intently upon her as they continued the questioning. When she was dismissed from the room after many more inane questions, she lent back against the door in relief at having deceived them. She heard voices trickle through the door.

"I think she was lying" a bitter voice commented

"You detected a falsehood from her Severus?" that was the lilting tone of McGonagall

"No, nothing she said was a lie, but…"

"But you couldn't get deep enough to unveil all without notice, I know." The Headmaster mused.

"How could one so young and untrained in our ways have such defences?"

"Yes, she is definitely... unusual. In more than just the way she was found" Dumbledore paused and those both inside and out of the office held their breaths; waiting for the verdict. "I am sure she told us everything she could. Now, do you have nothing better to do than bicker in my office?"

Buffy heard the approach of the teachers to the door and bolted downstairs. She only stopped running when she got to the eagle statue. Did no one in this stupid country trust her enough to just let her be?

So they had some power that could sense your thoughts, or at least the honesty of them, since if they could read everything that went through her head they couldn't help but know what she was, who she was. Her experiences as a slayer seemed to give her the ability to resist to some degree. At least they hadn't asked her outright what she thought the reason for her power was. She didn't think she could have hidden a direct lie.

A/N - Story Revisions: For clarity when reading reviews which may mention this alteration; it was originally Veritaserum not Legilimancy used to verify the truth of Buffy's words.