A/N: Okay, so I know that by making Ginny the slayer, I'm going to be getting a lot of questions about Faith having died or whatever. So, let me explain and get it out of the way...I know that 'practically' Faith would have to die in order for another slayer to be born, but I am basing my new slayer after the show itself. In season 7 when Dawn believes that she is one of the potentials, she becomes all sad and because she says the only way for her to be a slayer would be for her sister to die. Therefore, even though Faith is the real slayer, Buffy's death could still bring about a new slayer according to the show. So, I'm going with that, whether or not it was a fluke on the show's writer or whatever. After Buffy's death in season 5, the new slayer was born. Faith isn't dead. I don't think. I'm not planning on making her dead. I'm sorry if that's confusing or disagreeable with anyone but it's the way that I see things so...there you go...
To Dawn's relief, after she confessed everything to her new friends, things seemed to become a lot less stressed between them. Hermione continued to gradually warm up to Dawn's friendship, which of course made the guys happier because they hated seeing their two best girlfriends as enemies. However, after another week of Hermione and Dawn's nightly secret-sharing and bonding time, they started to become closer friends then perhaps the guys would have preferred. They started keeping more secrets, which made the guys jealous, and their desire for girl time increased, which made the guys feel left out. Dawn, however, couldn't have been more pleased to finally have a good girl friend at her new school who she could actually feel comfortable sharing secrets with and enjoyed spending time with. Hermione helped Dawn with her homework which greatly improved Dawn's magic skills and class grades and of course made Hermione feel even smarter than she already did.
Amidst all the hectic happenings with classes and studying, Dawn's mind had managed to shove the possibility of Ginny Weasley being a slayer to the back of her conscience. In other words, she forgot to mention it to her sister. She actually hadn't managed to see her see much outside of class. Both of the Summers girls had been keeping busy. Dawn had considered talking to Buffy about Spike, and Buffy had definitely thought about talking to Dawn about the same vampire, but neither girl had made a real attempt.
A week before the Christmas holidays, Hogwarts was bustling with the pressure surrounding the approaching midterms along with the stress for those who had bags to pack for their journey home for the holidays. Ron and Harry planned on spending Christmas with Ron's family at the Weasley's home, Hermione was returning to her home in London to spend the vacation with her parents, and Dawn as well as Buffy, Willow, and Tara, planned to remain throughout winter break at Hogwarts; plane tickets home and back again cost way too much for four people.
The second the final quill was placed upon desks and the final test parchments were collected and the final magic wands were tucked away inside students' capes, a burst of cheering erupted throughout the many halls and classrooms of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The students fled from their classes shouting gleefully and meeting friends with congratulatory hugs. Fred and George Weasley, true to their mischievous nature, shot fireworks from their wands. Only an hour after classes had ended students who were leaving had all their trunks packed and were waiting to be taken to the station to board Hogwarts Express and to return to their homes in the muggle world. Dawn stood in the main hall, waiting to say goodbye to her friends for the two weeks of vacation.
Hermione arrived first, carrying her large, floppy cat in her arms. She looked different dressed in jeans and a sweater; her usual Hogwarts robes were absent. Her fluffy, brown hair bounced around her shoulders as she noticed Dawn and skipped across the marble hall to meet her friend.
"How do you feel you did on your tests?" Hermione asked with sparkling eyes.
Dawn shrugged, not too concerned with the importance of her magic grades. She hadn't cared much about her grades at her regular high school, and unfortunately for her teachers, her concern at magic school was even less. "I'm pretty sure I passed!" She smiled. "I'm sure you have no worries though! No doubt you'll get the highest marks, as usual!"
Hermione grinned, "Well, I don't care to brag, but I do feel fairly confident about my success!"
Dawn laughed. "Are you kidding? You love to brag!"
Hermione shrugged. "Well, fine, maybe I do." She glanced around the crowded hall. "What are you going to do here all alone over Christmas?"
"I won't exactly be alone," Dawn whispered. "Remember..."
"Oh right!" Hermione appropriately whispered back. "Have a good time with your sister!"
"I will!" Dawn gave Hermione a quick hug. Even though their friendship was improving, Hermione still didn't seem to be exactly the hugging type. "Have fun with your family!"
"I will! I'll send your present by owl," Hermione explained.
"Hmm...that would be fun. I've never gotten a present by owl before!" Dawn grinned. "Maybe I can find someone to loan me their owl here and I can send you a present. It would definitely be an experience..."
They were interrupted by Malfoy's sudden presence in the hall. He always seemed to alert his entrance by making an unnecessarily rude come to some poor undeserving student from any house except for Slytherin. This particular entrance brought his criticism upon Neville Longbottom. The Gryffindor had been struggling with his heavy trunk and when he had turned around to drag it, he tripped over another student's trunk that had been left in the hall. He fell backwards and landed on his bottom with his arms and legs flailing in the air pathetically. From the first day she had met him, Dawn pitied Neville. He was so sweet and innocent, but very very pathetic. Malfoy ruthlessly mocked him, probably more than any other student.
"Ah, did the wittle boy fall and hurt himself..." Malfoy teased in the most annoying forced baby voice. "At least you had plenty of padding to fall on. That's the benefit of a fat ass, right Longbottom?" His own laugh was joined by his two bodyguards, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. "Well, you can go home now and cry to your mommy, maybe she'll be sympathetic to your lame pain." He glanced around at the gathered students, all to afraid of the evil Slytherins to dare and help Neville. "Nobody here cares about you."
Poor Neville looked on the verge of tears. Dawn emotions took over and she quickly approached the boy who was still lying helplessly on the ground. "Are you okay, Neville?" She took his arm and helped him up. Dawn ignored Malfoy's bitter glare as she helped Neville straighten out his rumpled jacket.
Malfoy wasn't going to stay quiet. "How sweet, Longbottom's finally got himself a girlfriend!" Crabbe and Goyle sniggered. "Do you pick out his clothes for him too? And how about his lunches, do you cut his meat into little bites for him, Mommy Sutten?" He seemed to be stretching for criticisms. Dawn continued to ignore him. "So, have you set the date yet? For the wedding I mean...but wait, which one of you is the bride?" He turned his attention fully on Dawn. "I noticed that Granger's been tutoring you, how're you going to last without her assistance during break?"
Neville was stuttering, trying to get the strength to stop Malfoy's rudeness. "Sh-shut it Malfoy!"
Malfoy put on a mock whimper. "Oh no! Longbottom's going to hurt me!" He turned to Crabbe and Goyle. "Maybe he'll sit on me with his fat ass!"
Dawn's face was turning red with anger. "Back off Draco!" She placed a comforting hand on Neville's arm and continued to confront the Slytherin bad-boy. "I've told you before and I have no guilt saying it again, no one thinks you're amusing!" She glanced at Draco's loyal sidekicks and roll her eyes. "Fine, tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum laugh at your jokes, but I bet you a trillion bucks that they only laugh because they have to share a room with you." She raised her eyebrows at the two who were shifting their feet nervously at her accusation.
"I can't understand why you hate me so much! What've I ever done to you?" His eyes shined with malicious mischief. "Sure, there's a few things I've imagined doing to you..." He licked his lips jokingly. "Too bad you're a Gryffindor!"
"Gross!" Dawn exclaimed with a slight shudder. "I'm going to try and ignore that last comment because honestly you've freaked me out so much that I'm not sure I can continue this verbal sparring with you, but I am going to put my abhorrence of you above your vulgarity and continue to make you feel insecure." Malfoy was frowning in confusion and Dawn continued. "So, where was I? Oh yea, I was debating whether or not I wanted to punch you. Well, I know I want to punch you but I wasn't sure if I wanted to make you bleed because this is my favorite shirt and I don't want it stained with any part of you!" She made a show of smoothing out a wrinkle in her gauzy, green shirt.
"Why do you bother Sutten?" He started circling her like a vulture. "Why do you bother defending pathetic beings like Longbottom? For a while I actually thought you could have the potential to be better than them, but you just keep proving me wrong."
"Don't tempt me Draco! You should know that I'm not shy of fighting!" Dawn lowered her eyebrows into the most threatening glare she could muster, it wasn't very frightening though. Dawn's face was too gentle to be too mean.
Draco laughed. "You wouldn't be the first girl I've fought, Sutten!"
"Ooh, I'm so scared!" She moved closer to him. "You wouldn't be the first guy I've injured!" She pushed him hard, building up violent energy.
"Dawn, stop!" Hermione had moved closer to them when she noticed the tension building. Neville had almost backed out of the way completely.
Draco seemed to growl and his fists clenched angrily. Dawn raised her fists preparing to strike. Before she had a chance, there was a murmur through the group of staring students as a couple teachers broke through the crowd. Professor Snape led the way with Professor Spike at his heels. It was interesting how alike they seemed. Both were dressed completely in black and neither of them ever smiled. Many of the students gossiped about how Spike had become Snape's apprentice in evilness. Crabbe and Goyle grinned as they realized that the two evil teachers had arrived and would undoubtedly take Malfoy's side. Dawn groaned when she noticed Spike. She had been doing her best to avoid him ever since their last confrontation in his classroom.
"What's going on here?" Snape roared.
Malfoy instantly turned sympathetically to his favorite teacher. "Professor Snape, Sutten is actually attempting to threaten me!"
Dawn figured that neither of the teachers would assist her so before anyone could stop her she threw a hard punch at Draco, landing it perfectly at the ridge of his nose. Draco's constant display of macho-ism shattered along with his nose. He shouted out in pain; his shrill screech resembled a little girl. Blood spilled from his nose, splattering onto his clothes as well as Dawn's cherished blouse.
"Dammit Draco, look what you made me do!" Dawn hissed.
Draco was glaring fiercely with his hands held up covering his damaged nose. Snape jumped to attention. He pulled Draco back a few steps and looked eager to lecture the boy about letting a girl hurt him but he restrained his desire to criticize and quickly inspected the student's injury.
"You're fine Mr. Malfoy," Snape decided. He turned to Dawn with a ferocious scowl. "Miss Sutten, I am very disappointed in you." His words were drawled out for emphasis. He stepped closer to the girl, towering over her like a dark shadow. "Fighting is not permitted at school..."
Dawn cut in, "Like hell it isn't! Professor you encourage fighting in your students. You're just ashamed that your perfect student got beat by a girl!" Snape was fuming and tried to stop Dawn's drawl but she wouldn't stop talking and her voice was beginning to raise to controlled yelling. "If the situation were reversed and Draco had hurt me then you'd be congratulating him and still probably lecturing me for invoking his anger!"
Snape finally cut off her shouting. "Miss Sutten, if you do not lower your voice and stop this horrific display I will..."
"You will what? Expel me? You don't have that sort of authority! I'm not in your house, remember?" Dawn wasn't exactly in the mood to listen to the professor's threats. She turned back to Draco who had been cowering behind Snape. She stepped towards him and raised her fists again. He jumped and backed up farther. She kept following him until Snape made her stop. He grabbed her arm and pulled her back. "You're hurting me Professor!" Dawn glared. Snape's grip only tightened. Dawn felt like he could crush the bone in her arm. She winced and instinctively tried to pry the professor's fingers off of her.
Snape ignored her attempts to get free from him and turned to Spike who had been silently watching the whole scene. "Take Mr. Malfoy to Madam Pomfrey, I will deal with Miss Sutten." Snape once again tightened his hold on Dawn and her eyes unconsciously began to tear.
"Let me go, Professor Snape," Dawn tried to control her voice but it shook with fright and pain. "You can't do anything to me! Professor Summers is head of my house!" She almost smiled at the double meaning in her statement. Buffy was in charge of her Hogwarts house as well as the Summers house. She struggled again to get free as Spike started walking Draco away from the goggling students. What's he going to do? She was starting to panic. Maybe Snape did have some sort of authority. Dawn really didn't know too much about the rules of the professors at Hogwarts. I never should have hit the idiot, even if he did deserve it.
"Move along, there's nothing to see here!" Snape bellowed to the curious students as he started dragging Dawn away from the main hall. "I don't know how you managed to get into this school, I can see no magic potential in you!"
"What are you going to do to me?" Dawn asked nervously.
Snape didn't answer but picked up his speed, causing Dawn to almost stumble as she struggled to follow him. Halfway down the corridor they were cut off by Harry and Ron running towards the main hall. They noticed Snape's hold on Dawn's arm and frowned.
"What's going on?" Harry asked quickly, eyeing the situation. "Are you okay Dawn?"
"Mr. Potter, this is none of your concern." He shoved past the two boys. "Miss Sutten requires punishment."
"Could you please let go of me, Professor Snape?" Dawn begged. "My arm's going numb!" She tried to shake her arm out of his grip but he held her firmly.
The boys hesitated. They didn't feel that they should leave Dawn alone with Professor Snape, but there was nothing they could do. With a hopeless glance towards Dawn, the boys started heading down the hallway away from them.
"We can't leave her!" Ron insisted in a harsh whisper to his friend. Harry shrugged. The boys looked back towards their friend and saw her cringe as Snape pulled her with a hard jerk. Before they had a chance to think of something to do, Professor Snape and Dawn were stopped again, this time by Professor Spike. The boys watched hopefully, remembering how Dawn had told them about her past acquaintance with the strange professor. However, they also remembered how hard Professor Spike spoke with Dawn in classes.
"Have you taken care of Mr. Malfoy?" Professor Snape questioned.
"I dropped him off with Madam Pomfrey, he'll be fine if he ever stops his bloody bawling!" Spike rolled his eyes. "Now, Professor Snape what are your intentions with Miss Sutten?" He lit up a cigarette and leaned casually against the wall. Professor Snape stared blankly. "Because, obviously you can't enforce punishment on a student from another's house. So, you may as well just let her be."
"I most certainly will not just let her be!" Snape exclaimed. "She must be punished and I'm going to see to it myself that she is!"
"Buggar off Severus!" Spike growled, stepping towards the other teacher. "Let Miss Sutten be."
Snape glared. "What're you getting at Spike?"
Dawn stood perfectly still without saying a word watching the growing confrontation between the two professors. Is Spike actually going to stand up for me? She glanced towards Harry and Ron who were still waiting a few feet away.
"You haven't been here long enough to know the rules and..."
Spike approached Snape until they were only an inch apart. Their heights were pretty even, Snape was perhaps an inch taller, but Spike could manage to be rather intimidating when he tried. "You don't want to upset me, Severus!" Dawn worried about Spike's anger releasing his inner vampire. She wasn't sure if anyone in the school knew about Spike being a vampire. She doubted that Dumbledore would want that getting around the students. He turned to Dawn. "Miss Sutten, ten points will be taken from Gryffindor. Now, go back to your mates." Snape didn't release his hold on Dawn. "Severus, I'd hate to think of you being in trouble with Dumbledore for mistreatment of a student..." He threatened.
Snape growled and released Dawn. He shoved her forward harshly. Dawn didn't keep her balance and tripped onto the marble floor. She stayed on the ground until Snape had fled down the hallway and disappeared around the corner. Rubbing her sore arm, Dawn glanced up at Spike.
"You didn't have to interfere, Spike," Dawn stated. She rolled up the loose sleeve of her shirt to inspect the place where Snape had held her. Her arm was red where his hand had gripped her and it felt slightly bruised. Harry and Ron slowly made their way over to Dawn.
"Did he hurt you Dawn?" Spike asked quickly.
Dawn shook her head with a smile. "I've been hurt worse," She looked at Spike. "Why'd you help me?"
He took her arm and pulled her to her feet. "I made a promise niblet?" He put out his cigarette on the stone wall. He looked at the two guys as though seeing them for the first time and frowned. "Eavesdropping?" Harry and Ron jumped from the professor's low tone.
"It's okay Spike, Harry and Ron know who you are." She leaned closer to Spike and whispered. "They don't know what you are though. I wasn't sure if they were supposed to."
"Well, they're not exactly supposed to know who I am either!" Spike reminded Dawn.
She shrugged. "Oops." She grinned. "I've only told three people and they needed to know, well actually they didn't need to know but they were sort of spying on us that day in your class..." She stopped talking as she remembered how mad she had been that day. "Anyway, thanks for helping."
"Yea well, don't get used to it," He looked back at the boys who may as well have had their mouths hanging open with surprise. They had never seen their professor having a normal or calm conversation, especially with Dawn. "Are you going home for break, Dawn?" She shook her head. "Right, then I'll probably see you around, but don't count on it."
Dawn rolled her eyes. "See you later Spike." She turned to Harry and Ron and they walked with her back towards the main hall where she had left Hermione. "I don't get it." She said. "I never know how he's going to act about things."
"I know he yells sometimes, but Professor Spike seems to care an awful lot about you Dawn." Harry decided.
Dawn was silent. It was true of course. She knew that Spike cared about her and she knew that no matter how ferocious he pretended to be, he'd never let any harm come to her. He couldn't break his promise to Buffy, even though it had been over a year and he and Buffy weren't exactly still friends. She smiled to herself as she thought about how lucky she was to have a protector like Spike to look after her. Hermione was waiting eagerly, just where Dawn had left her. As soon as she saw Dawn approaching with the guys, Hermione ran to them.
"What happened? Are you okay? Did he expel you?" She rambled out at least a dozen more questions before stopping to catch her breath.
Dawn didn't answer any of the questions but simply responded, "Everything's fine."
"Well, it's time for us to go," Ron announced as the group of students gathered in the hall began filing out the main doors. "Have a happy Christmas!"
"Yes Dawn, have a happy Christmas!" Hermione chimed in.
"You too! All of you," Dawn turned to Harry. "Have a good time with the Weasleys!"
"Oh, well actually," Harry hesitated. "I'm not going with the Weasleys over the holidays."
"Really?"
Ron explained, "We were supposed to stay home this Christmas and my parents were happy to have Harry join us, but my parents have changed their mind and decided to take us all on vacation. The whole Weasley family in fact." He turned to Harry and rolled his eyes. "My parents made sure Harry knew that he was more than welcome to join us, but he decided that he'd prefer to stay here."
"I felt that they needed their family time," Harry defended his decision.
"So, you're going to be here over the holidays?" Dawn was growing excited with the prospect of having a friend with her during Christmas.
"I also thought you could use a mate to spend Christmas with." He shrugged nonchalantly.
"Definitely!" Dawn grinned. "I was worried that I'd have to be all alone over break. Do you have any idea how boring that would be? Now we can go shopping and run around the school finding secrets and..."
Hermione frowned. "Stay out of trouble you two! I don't want to come back next year and find that the both of you have been expelled!"
"We make no promises!" Dawn winked. "You two better get going or else you might get left behind!" She gave both of the departing friends quick hugs and then stood with Harry and watched them follow the rest of the leaving students down to the boats that would take them to the train station.
"Well, well, what do we do for two weeks by ourselves?" Dawn grinned mischievously.