A/N;
Thanks to the reviewers, CallaRose4ever, LabsByEerie, AintGotNone, RaSulli, katescats and guests!
A quick point to address one of the comments a guest reviewer left on the last chapter. Life Debts were not invented by me. They are JKR canon and used at least twice in the books.
...
The Love Child
Walburga's shadow fell across her and Buffy was aware of Travers inching away, and students on both the Slytherin and Ravenclaw tables casting furtive looks over at her.
"You're Lovegood-Summers?" The Slytherin girl's tone was unimpressed.
"Uh-Huh."
A tic twitched at the side of Walburga's mouth, and she let out a sigh of exasperation. "Madam Bones wishes to see you in the hospital wing. Professor Dumbledore asked me to escort you."
Across the hall, the Gryffindor table broke out into uproar. Students around the hall turned to look, some rising to their feet and laughing when they saw what was happening. Walburga glared over at the Gryffindors as shouts of "Quick! Catch it," and "it's walking off the table," drifted across the hall.
On the Ravenclaw table, a boy laughed and said, "Someone has transfigured legs onto the plates and the students are trying to catch them."
Walburga moved her sharp gaze from the Gryffindors to Dumbledore. The wizard sat at the high table, placidly eating chocolate pudding next to Horace Slughorn and ignoring the disruption.
"Dumbledore never disciplines his House properly." Walburga's face reddened with anger and disapproval. "He lets them do as they please and rarely takes points." Turning back to Buffy, she snapped, "Why haven't you moved? Are you going to sit there all night, stuffing your face like a pig in a trough?"
"Hey! I'm not even eating!"
Ignoring the comment, Walburga replied, "I need you to come with me." Without waiting to see if Buffy was going to fall in with the command, she spun on her heel and marched back the way she'd come.
When Buffy gave no sign of following her, Travers hissed, "Don't argue, just go! If you don't, she'll cause a scene."
"Don't care," said Buffy mutinously, but the Grindylow bite on her arm had begun to itch again, and she knew it needed treating.
Realizing there was no way of escaping a hospital visit, Buffy rose and followed Walburga. The students on either side of her turned their heads to watch as she passed - with the notable exception of one student. Tom Riddle kept his head rigidly fixed away, not as much as glancing as she passed behind him. The snub rubbed salt onto her already raw feelings. Why should she care? Let him be like that. She wasn't going to grovel for a kind word or a welcome from Tom Riddle. She'd make new friends. She clenched her teeth and hurried on; passing the sixth years and passing the section filled with seventh years until she arrived at the door where Walburga waited.
"You move at the pace of a disabled snail," snapped the dark-haired girl, pushing the door open and letting them both out into the main entrance hall.
Once the door had closed, Buffy asked, "Why is everyone staring? Have I grown an extra head or something?"
The dark-haired girl ran a critical eye over Buffy. "Not an extra head – exactly."
Leaving Buffy puzzling over that cryptic comment, she marched off - her robe billowing out behind her as she headed up the main staircase.
Was the girl joking? "What you mean, not exactly?" Buffy called, hoping no one had jinxed her during the feast. Uncle Peregrine had grown a hand out the top of his head after an argument with Professor McGonagall.
The older girl didn't hear, she'd already rounded the first landing and ascending the second set of stairs. Buffy quickly sprinted after her.
"Hey, I asked you..." Buffy's words petered away, as the painting in front of her caught her eye.
It wasn't as much the subject matter that was unusual, although the jester in the portrait had a large distinctive nose. What held Buffy's interest was the way the jester left the chair he'd been painted seated on and had walked to the front of his painting, pressing his nose against the glass. When he saw that Buffy had seen him, he stepped back and began to dance from foot to foot while making stabbing motions with his marotte.
Buffy let out a squeak and sprinted up the steps after Walburga. "The paintings are alive!" she gasped.
Walburga's face went an odd shade of purple. "What are you," she snarled, "a Muggleborn?"
"Two heads and a Muggleborn as well. Gee, I must be lucky."
Walburga stopped beneath an oversized canvass of three Elizabethan witches. The witches peered down at her and spoke in undertones amongst themselves.
"You," said Walburga, "are strange."
"What can you expect from someone who has two heads?" Buffy replied breezily.
"I said, not two heads exactly!" Walburga rolled her eyes. "Salazar and Morgana!" she muttered, beginning to climb the stairs again. "Why me? Why should I have to deal with her? I'll kill Rigel for this!"
"Hey! Don't say that. I've only just saved him."
Walburga slowed her pace, allowing Buffy to walk alongside her.
"You don't have two heads, but as far as the other Hogwarts students are concerned, you might as well have," the seventh year explained. "By leaping off the boat and saving a stranger you exhibited reckless Gryffindor bravery, yet the hat placed you in Slytherin. People want to know why." She put out a hand and stopped Buffy from climbing any further. At Buffy's questioning look, Walburga pointed at the step in front of them."Hogwarts has many traps to snare the unwary."
The tread on the next step had vanished.
"What happened to the step?" Buffy asked, aghast that any school would allow its students to use an unsafe staircase. This was a lawsuit waiting to happen. "Why have they left it like this? It could kill a kid or at least break their ankle."
"This one catches a lot out," Walburga admitted, hopping over the gap. "I suppose a past student thought it funny to jinx it and it's never worn off. There's no need to worry about a broken bone, though. Madam Bones has a store cupboard full of Skele-Gro."
They left the vanishing step behind but hadn't gone very far when the stairs they were on began to make a loud creaking noise. Walburga instantly grabbed the bannister. Buffy copied her, glad she'd done so when, seconds later, the staircase detached from its upper anchor point. The two girls hung on as the staircase swung out into mid-air and before reattaching itself to a different part of the wall.
"A moving staircase?" As a new student, Buffy had been given a simple map of Hogwarts. Now it appeared that the map was almost useless. How would she ever find her classroom if the route she was taking took her elsewhere? "Does this happen a lot?" she asked.
"Too often." Walburga jumped another lethal missing step. "It is annoying when you're running late for class."
"Does anything else move that I should know about?" Lovell had told Buffy that he often got lost on his way to class, she'd put it down to him daydreaming and not paying attention to where he was.
"Door handles move, doors come and go, and sometimes the classrooms themselves move to another section of the castle," Walburga replied. The set of stairs they were on let out a loud creak. Walburga sprinted to the top, shouting, "Hurry up!"
Buffy didn't need warning twice, already she was sprinting after her. "What is this place, a kind of Wizarding Bermuda Triangle?" There was a loud groan, and she felt the staircase sway beneath her feet. She leapt, just as the stairs dropped away, and landing in a half-crouch next to Walburga.
To Buffy's relief, Walburga turned away from the stairways and entered a corridor lit by rows of flickering torches. They walked along the corridor until they reached a suit of armour holding a gruesome halberd and the statue of a fat, balding wizard bearing a scroll. Here, Walburga stopped and turned large grey eyes onto Buffy and began her interrogation.
"You're American. Did you attend Ilvermorny before transferring?"
"Nope. I'm a late developer," Buffy replied. "I'm all new to the magic mojo."
"NEW to magic?" Walburga's eyes were sharp with suspicion. "Are your parents... Muggles?"
Buffy could tell Walburga thought she was being polite, but the sour way she said Muggles revealed a lot about how she thought.
"My Mom is from one of the British Wizarding families. The Lovegoods." Thinking of her Mom reminded her of the letter she needed to owl. Buffy shuffled uneasily. "Mom is also a Squib."
"Ah," replied Walburga, leaning back against the statue. "Squibs happen to the best of us. All the bloodlines and none of the magic." Her eyes raked over Buffy. "What about your father?"
"Sperm donor."
When Walburga's fine brows drew together in confusion, Buffy explained, "My parents are divorced. Dad has decided that he didn't want anything to do with either Mom or me. He's washed his hands of both of us."
The nasty letter she'd found from Hank Summers still rankled. He'd admitted that Buffy was blameless, yet chose to walk away from his daughter as well as his wife. What sort of man told his child that he no longer wanted her?
"I take it Mr Summers is a Muggle?"
Buffy nodded.
"Then be thankful that he's out of your life," Walburga replied looking happier. "It is a pity he isn't dead as its more permanent, but we can't have everything." She began to circle Buffy, like a shark searching for a weak spot before it attacked its prey.
Buffy watched her from the corner of her eye. The girl was weird, and she didn't trust her.
Finally, Walburga came to a stop in front of her and delivered her verdict. "Physically, you've thrown to the Lovegoods. However, no Lovegood has been sorted into Slytherin before, so there must be something different about you." She made ticking noises with her tongue as if pondering a conundrum. "You're mouthy, irreverent, and come across as slightly stupid. But there is far more to you than that, isn't there?"
Buffy not only thought Walburga was rude, but she didn't like the way Walburga was eyeing her. Buffy? Did she know Buffy was the one who'd fought off the vampires in the cemetery? What if the vampires had been reported missing? What if Walburga put two and two together and threw her name in at the Ministry, and they came to school and arrested her for being a serial vampire killer?
"Ah, I know!" Walburga beamed. "You're covering your intelligence with stupidity, you excel at duplicity and use it to charm and throw your opponents off track. My guess is that you use your gifts as weapons and at your previous school you were not only popular but a leader. Am I correct?"
Buffy wasn't sure of the best way to answer that. "Er, I don't know."
Walburga raised a disbelieving eyebrow.
Buffy went on, "I was caught up in a Grindelwald terror attack and a building fell on me. When I came around I was in a Muggle hospital with amnesia and remembered nothing from my previous life. Then Dumbledore appeared, telling me that I was a fully paid-up member of the Witch Club. I honestly, don't remember much of my life before that."
She'd deliberately kept the details to a minimum and didn't mention orphanages or how she'd met Tom. The girl might talk, and since Tom was already ignoring her, she didn't want to add fuel to the gossip. "Why the twenty questions?" she asked.
Walburga shifted her gaze from Buffy to the doors on the opposite side of the corridor, then back to Buffy again. "Because you saved Rigel, my family are in your debt."
Since she only mentioned Rigel and not herself, Walburga still mustn't know it was Buffy who'd saved her life in the cemetery. Buffy let out a huff of relief.
"... if I'm going to introduce you as my protégé," continued Walburga, "we need to eliminate any stain of Muggle blood from your pedigree. You're illegitimate-."
"Hey!" protested Buffy. "I'm not illegitimate! I appreciate your interest, but no thanks -."
"SHHUUTTTT UPPPP!" screeched Walburga.
Buffy wondered if the girl was part banshee. The scream echoed around the high corridor, it dislodged dust from the ceiling, and in one of the paintings, a young couple who'd been cavorting in a summer meadow hid behind a tree.
Walburga put up a hand. "Be quiet while I think."
"Look," said Buffy, keeping her voice low and even. "What's wrong with Muggles? Mom liked them enough to marry my Dad and until recently I was one."
She was trying to keep calm, but Buffy didn't like where Walburga was going with this. Her Uncle Peregrine had warned her about Pure-Blood elitism and how some wizards despised and hated Muggles.
"You're a Slytherin! That's what's wrong!" Walburga's eyes shone with indignation and her hair rose around her face as magic crackled all about her.
Buffy took a wary step back, not sure if she'd be attacked. Sensing violence, her Slayer part uncurled and her magical core began to hum in readiness. Magic rose in the corridor, like silver motes in the air, between the two girls and something darker than magic waited on Buffy's side. The tension grew, and Buffy realised that she'd need to add more hexes to her list of things to research. She couldn't go around blinding people with an over-powered Lumos charm and then staking them with her wand while they were groping for their eyes.
Walburga was the first to back down. She took a deep breath, pulling in her magic and stepping away from Buffy.
"No," she said firmly, using her hands to smooth her hair. "It shall never be said that the Blacks renege on a debt. If this is to be done, it shall be done properly."
Buffy had a feeling Walburga was convincing herself more than anyone else.
"From now on," Walburga continued, her voice resolute and brooking no argument, "you are the illegitimate daughter of a pure-blood Wizard. He and your mother fell in love. When your mother became pregnant, he confessed to his family and they, quite naturally," she sneered, "refused to allow them to marry. Heartbroken, your Squib mother left for America, married a Muggle, and convinced him that you were his daughter."
Buffy gaped at her, gobsmacked.
Walburga grinned gleefully at Buffy's expression. "You think it won't work? Believe me, it shall. Everyone thinks the Slytherins are cold-hearted but they are wrong. There is nothing a Slytherin understands more than family loyalty and the tragedy of loving someone our parents disapprove of. It is a message that will strike home and tug at the heartstrings of many Slytherins. The mystery of your parentage could make you one of the most popular girls in our House."
By now, Buffy's brain had stuttered to a standstill and she found that her mouth no longer worked properly. She did a few fish impressions until she regained control of her brain. "Uh-no. The only place that story is gonna happen is inside your head, Walburga. I don't care much about Dad, but I'm not telling people that Mom had an affair-."
Walburga interrupted, her smile smugger than ever. "Ah, but this is the beauty of my plan. You shall tell them your father is a Muggle. I, however, will whisper my lies into the right ears and guess who everyone will believe? A progeny of a Lovegood and a Muggle in Slytherin? That doesn't make sense. But the illegitimate daughter of one of the Sacred Twenty-eight? Don't scowl so Buffy, it makes your face ugly."
Buffy glowered at Walburga.
"You'll gain a lot of attention, the entire school will wonder who your father is." Walburga cackled softly. "Perhaps the teachers will wonder as well and the parents of the students."
"No." Buffy knew she had to stop this crazy idea now before it went any further. "I'm not falling in with your evil plans. Mom is gonna kill me if she hears about this."
Walburga smirked, and Buffy realised that she preferred Walburga when she was scowling. A smiling Walburga was far more dangerous.
"If this is about Life Debts and payments. Consider it scrubbed." The smile didn't move off Walburga's face and Buffy panicked. "Look, just hate my Muggleborn ass and leave me to my Muggle heritage. Don't put yourself out for me."
Affronted, the dark-haired girl drew herself up disdainfully. "The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black," she replied haughtily, "will repay their debt to you whether you like it or not. In saving Rigel you have gained our patronage. You should be grateful that you have not gained our enmity."
She pointed a finger at the carved arched doorway across the corridor from them. "That is the hospital wing. I shall visit the imp from Muggle hell whilst the nurse examines you. After that, I escort you to the dungeons and introduce you formally to our Housemates."
…...
Walburga came very close to the truth there... Also a clue to why she became so bitter and bad tempered. More on that later.
Next chapter should deal with introductions etc. Buffy has to settle, research and make friends. Tom is also circling... He might want to keep away, but he really can't.
If you enjoyed the chapter please leave a comment. If you didn't enjoy the chapter leave me a comment explaining why.