Chapter 12 – Feral Felicis – Part Two
A/N: Sorry for the looong delay, everybody. The whole process with that pilot, and the additional episodes got really complicated when we lost our animator. That can take the sails out of a project filmed on a green screen.
Any way, I also wanted to bring attention to the stand-alone story I posted a few weeks ago: Harry Potter and the Matrix. I wrote it mostly as a for-adoption plot seed, and I'm hoping someone might take up the tale.
Lastly, anyone who thinks I own either Harry Potter or Buffy the Vampire Slayer is VERY behind in pop culture knowledge.
Auror Academy – September 7th
The time for Lights Out was approaching fast, but Ron was determined to get this letter out before he had to return to the barracks. He had decided that sending the letter directly to Harry would be too much of a red flag. He didn't know if the mail was checked in general, or if his would be after request, but either way, he was going to take a page from fifth year and make the message nice and vague. Just in case.
Hermione,
What were those travel guides you got for Harry called? I may need some of my own, here, soon.
Love,
Ron
Ron examined the message one more time. If someone read this, it would merely appear to be a question to a girlfriend. If someone connected to the ICW read this, he figured the fact that no one said who they would be seeking would be his alibi if anyone got suspicious. But Hermione, he knew, would piece it together. She didn't get Harry a travel guide because Harry never said where he would be going.
Mr. Platt's Office – Sunnydale High
Buffy stepped through the door into Mr. Platt's office just as the clock ticked over to two o'clock. Her only view of the man, hidden by his tall-backed office chair, was of his right hand, holding a lit cigarette. The breeze coming in through the open window dispersed the acrid smoke quickly. Buffy closed the door behind her, making certain the man knew she was there.
"Two o'clock," Mr. Platt said, still facing out the window. "Miss Summers."
Buffy forced her best cheery smile onto her face. "Buffy Summers, reporting for sanity."
The only response from Mr. Platt was another, large exhalation of cigarette smoke. 'Okay, faking excitement, not going to work here,' Buffy thought to herself.
"Look," Buffy began. "I know that I have to do this, and I'll cooperate, and I'll look at your ink blots and everything, but... I don't think I really need this." Buffy fidgets as she mulls over how that sounded. "I'm not saying your job is unnecessary in general, or anything, I mean, for me; I don't think I need this. I made a new friend over the summer that has made it really easy to open up." A genuine smile crosses Buffy's lips as she thinks back on her bus ride with Harry. "He even helped me reconnect with my friends when I came back. So, I don't what the rules are about being friends here—"
"We're not going to be friends." That statement would have concerned Buffy if Mr. Platt hadn't turned around at that moment, showing his kind, smiling face.
"From the sounds of it, you have good friends, already." Mr. Platt took a long drag from his cigarette, a pleased grunt rumbled from his throat, before crushing it out in an ashtray on his desk. "Friends are a good thing: They like you, agree with you, tell you what you want to hear."
Without breaking eye contact, he reached into his desk drawer and retrieved a can of air freshener. "That's not what you need right now. What you need is a trained, not... too crazy professional who will always give you his honest opinion."
Mr. Platt popped off the lid, and sprayed the area around his desk with the air freshener. Buffy just kept giving him an odd look as he swept his arms repeatedly toward the window before shutting it.
"Which I offer." He looked between her and the chair before gesturing. "Have a seat." Buffy eased herself down into the seat as he capped the spray and returned it to his drawer.
"Not too crazy? Those are your credentials?"
Mr. Platt chuckled as he stood and walked around his desk. "Look, Buffy, any person - grownup, shrink, pope - any person who claims to be totally sane is either lying, or not very bright." He leaned against the desk, with a beaming smile. "I mean, everyone has problems. Everybody has demons, right?"
Buffy could only thank the experience from two and a half years of keeping mum about being the Slayer for not reacting more than breaking eye contact at the mention of demons. "Gotta say I'm with you on that." 'Literally,' she finished in her head.
"Excellent. So, here's what I offer you: I'll help you with the demons you feel you can't bring to your friends; because they can be fought. People can change. You can change." At that, Mr. Platt crossed his arms across his chest. "Now, it's your turn. Let's start with why you ran away. "
'Yeah, because that's not a complicated issue,' Buffy thought to herself. "That's a long story," she offered, with a weak smile.
Mr. Platt merely shrugged. "Bore me."
"You sure," Buffy hesitantly asked. "I mean: I came back, I'm moving on. I feel good… I'm even going out with someone new."
Mr. Platt raised a calming hand, cutting Buffy off. "All good things. But you're bringing me in at the end of the movie."
Buffy was struck silent. She hadn't needed to elaborate about what she felt to the others, only what she did. The other Scoobies had been there, sharing her pain. Harry and Faith had also gone through that same kind of deep loss. How was she supposed to discuss it with someone who had no idea about vampires, or curses, or magic, or souls?
Awkwardly, Buffy started on a heavily redacted version of what happened. "I was dating someone." She swallowed a sob as she recalled the look on Angel's face when she drove her sword through him. "Uh, it ended badly. My mom and I were fighting, and I... kinda freaked."
"Well, tell me more about this guy. 'The Bad Ending Guy.'"
She needed another moment before she could answer that question. Angel had been such a central part of her life in Sunnydale, yet she could only tell this man a fraction about him. So many of his good acts she couldn't share. All she could tell him was the emotions he brought up inside her.
"He was my first." She brought her eyes back up to look at Mr. Platt's. "I loved him, and then he..."
"Changed."
There was only a small part of that was surprised when she registered he had not phrased that as a question.
"Yeah."
Mr. Platt's face took on an expression of understanding. "He got mean."
"Yes."
"And you didn't stop loving him."
Buffy didn't know how to respond. It was only now that she realized how much she had allowed the specifics to insulate her from talking about the initial pain. There were no self-help books about your vampire boyfriend losing his soul, but could her pain, once the supernatural was stripped away, really be so common?
"Look, lots of people lose themselves in love. It's, it's nothing to be ashamed about. They write songs about it." Mr. Platt paused to take a read on Buffy. She was not his most stubborn student to deal with. She was actually fairly open once they got started. He was very hopeful that she would be one of the stronger ones that would actually pull through. "The hitch is, you can't stay lost. Sooner or later, you have to get back to yourself."
"And if you can't?"
"If you can't..." Mr. Platt took a deep breath, before softly exhaling. "Well, love becomes your master, and you're just its dog."
A/N (2): Okay, as much as I wanted to only make this a two-parter for the episode, that 6+ months of no new chapters is really getting to me. So, I hope you enjoyed this mini-chapter as I finish the rest of Feral Felicis. Count at time of posting: 164,959 Views. 1,344 Follows. 948 Favorites. 267 Reviews. You guys are awesome, and I humbly apologize for the long wait.
So you don't think I'm too much of a lazy jerk, the story behind the gap is that the episodes we were shooting for the show got greatly delayed when we lost our animator. If you ever try to produce a show shot primarily on green-screen, have at least TWO animators. Trying to scrounge together enough useable footage, and work on three other writing projects is not fun.
Speaking of other writing projects (and shameless, lazy plugs), I put a story up for adoption! It is a Harry Potter-Matrix crossover, cleverly titled: Harry Potter and the Matrix. If any of you decide to pick it up, and run with it, shoot me a PM. I'd love to see where you guys go with it.
Lastly, the reader question. This one is paraphrased from a message from Knight25: Is Oz going to stick around, or leave like he did in Canon?
For what I have planned for the rest of A Year Abroad, and for the possible sequel, Oz will leave during the events of season 4. Most of which will be referenced, but not necessarily seen. Also, Willow/Tara is just the cutest pairing from the show, and they will be together in A Year of Living Glory-ously, when I get to writing it.