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Chapter 8 - The New Professor

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A/N: Contains BtVS spoilers

There was bangs and shouts from all over outside. Dawn looked in the mirror, but she was not herself anymore. She was a maiden dressed in fairytale clothes. Above her right beast and below her shoulder was a mole. Her skin was as pale as snow, and checks the colour of roses. Her hair was fair long and silky, and her eyes as blue as sapphires.

She turned ran out of the room she was in and seen she was in Gryffindor tower, but not as it looked today. It looked younger somehow and was decorated differently. She ran into what was the common room, but different furniture, and the only thing the same was the fireplace. She was headed of the portrait hole here she pushed past, a very alive Nick with his head still on. She ran down to the outside of the castle, it was night and there was a battle going on in the front lawn. There was a crowed of vampires trying to defeat the wizards there protecting the grounds.

Then she got out a wooden steak, and started to fight the vampires, one by one turning them to dust. There was only one left now. She started to fight it, but then it suddenly grabbed her own steak off her and plunged it through her heart.

Dawn woke up in her bed with a start, and covered in a cold sweat. She got up and drawled the curtains of her four poster bed and looked around her. Everything was the way it was before, and the other girls was fast asleep in their own beds. She walked up to the mirror and opened her robes looking where the mole had been on the girl in her dream, and looked at it. She knew that she used to have a mole there along time ago that she had removed. Well actually she didn't really have one there, because those memories where false. But Buffy had when she was young and got it removed for her seventh birthday.

****

That day at breakfast Dawn looked up anchossly for Ripper as the owl post flew in. Then last thing Ripper came in as most the other owls was flying away and dropped a note on the table. He sat on Dawn's shoulder and nipped her ear affectionately, then flew off when she gave him a peace of bacon. She opened the note and read it.

Dawn

Sorry for being so brief, and not replying to your last letter. I have been so busy preparing to move for a while. I just came back from America. Now I decided recently not to give up my wizard heritage, I really appreciate being able to apparate again. Really beats being in a plain for 7 hours packed like sardines.

I had some bad news from Angel. Apparently Faith took her own life in prison. Cut her wrists with the bed springs on her bed and left a scrawny note to Buffy, Angel, Wesley and I. Said she was sorry for everything she had done and couldn't live with herself anymore. Poor Wesley took it bad, blames himself really. If you ask me I think the council had something behind it, I heard they still been trying to find ways to terminate her from inside the prison. She also would have had to been alone for a long time for it to have worked. Her slayer healing would have meant it would take her allot more time to die. Anyway, it looks as if the council can't find the new slayer. I got a few rouge watchers on the look out. Hopefully we will find them before the council does. Or someone worse.

In to school I'm proud to hear you are a Gryffindor, always knew you had the Gryffindor bravery in you.

As for the incident in Potions there was no real way to predict that was going to happen. Best not do anything requiring your blood from now on just incase. Tell your friends nothing unless you have to until you know they are entirely trustworthy. As for Snape if I know him he would have found out by now and no need to worry he won't tell anyone.

Well best be heading off now, will see you soon.

-Giles

She carefully folded up the parchment and put it in her robes, then continued eating a huge pile of food on her plate.

****

It was now after lunch, and she had some comments from Ron that she's been eating allot lately. She just shrugged it off as being hungry. Though she couldn't help thinking about the dream she had, Giles letter, Faith being dead, and no new slayer found yet. That was like one of those dreams her sister used to get. She made a mental note to talk to Nearly Headless Nick later about a few things. Then she took her seat in DADA, and chatted to Ron, Harry and Hermione.

"So why you recon that Owl is in that cadge, and how come there is books in the far side of that cadge now too?" asked Ron.

"Also where is Snape?" Harry asked.

Dawn looked at the cadge to see the owl seemingly reading an open book on the floor, but shook it off as coincidence. The owl still looked familiar somehow still and dawn still couldn't place where. Also some of those books that was there looked allot like the ones Giles used to have them all look through constantly for research. She gave a small smile at the memory of the library in Sunnydale High, because the cadge reminded her of the book cadge they used to lock Oz up in when he transformed into a werewolf.

"Look!" Hermione exclaimed "That owl, turned the page on the book!"

Dawn was too lost in thoughts to notice. She just followed Harry, Ron and Hermione up to the front of the classroom, and to the cadge where they watched the owl's eyes follow the words in the book, and every so often turn a page. Then Dawn saw what it was reading, it was a book of prophesies that they sometimes had to go through with Giles when researching. Dawn was quite sure she had read through it once herself. "Why is an owl sitting on the floor reading a book of prophesies leading to the apocalypse?" Dawn asked thinking out loud more than anything.

"T-that is a v-very good question." A very familiar English male voice said from behind them.

Dawn turned around to see Giles standing behind her dressed in wizarding robes. "Giles!" Dawn gave him a quick hug.

"Thought I'd s-surprise you." He said letting go. He then looked at the other three standing there. "Y-you three must be Harry, Ron, and Hermione I presume. Dawn's told me about you."

"The Owl?" was all Ron managed as it turned another page.

"What n-never seen a reading owl before?" Giles asked them.

"Well, em no didn't know owls can read." Harry answered honestly.

"Really. So how did you think they knew who to deliver your letters to unless they read the name?"

"Well guess that makes scene" Dawn answered. "But why is it reading a book of prophecies referring to things in the chronicles?"

"N-Now that is a better question." Giles opened the cadge door and walked inside. He picked up the book and looked at the title. Sure enough it was the one Dawn said it was. "Now, now Ethan. Didn't I tell you about reading in front of the students? You'll only make them stare at you and wonder what's going on. It's not common knowledge owls can read you know. Also what are you doing looking at this book? Honestly leave you alone for five minutes and your up to your old tricks." Ethan just looked up at Giles trying to look innocent.

Giles put the book away in a book shelf wedged between books so that an owl couldn't pull it out.

Dawn looked at the owl as it dawned on her where she had seen the owl before. It was Ethan Rayne in his Animagus form. "Ethan?"

"Yes, Dawn it is Ethan. You remember him don't you?" Giles asked cryptically.

"I knew he looked familiar. Giles why is Ethan locked in a cadge in here?"

"He's sick and I need to keep an eye on him." Giles just answered coming back out of the cadge.

*You can say that again*

"Now if you four don't mind taking your seats. The show is over."

They did what they where told not taking their eyes off the cadge. It was obvious that anyone here from a Wizarding family was slightly afraid of Giles by the looks they where all giving him.

Giles stood up at the front of the classroom and spoke, "I'm Professor Giles, I'm your new Professor for defense against the dark arts. You may know me as Ripper, but I assure you that is not who I am anymore. I have spent the better part of the last 20 years drying up from a dark magic addiction, then after that I spent my time fighting all types of demons and vampires in Sunnydale California. I was only back in England a few months when Dumbledore asked me to come here and teach. As well as teaching you defense against the dark arts, it is my job to remind you what it is like to be a dark wizard, and how you have no control over your actions. Since the Dark Lord has risen and will be looking for more followers we both feel this is important. We feel if you know about the side effects fully you will not be tempted to join his side."

He did the role call and then stood to face the class. "Now I understand you have had a different teacher for this subject each year. In fact Professor Snape was Dumbledore's first choice for the position but he feels that it is jinxed and something will happen him by the end of the year."

Most of the class gave a small laugh, trying to think of the most grouse way possible to get rid of Snape.

"Personally I feel this is just because of the lack of good people to fill the job. Often having to resort to people just because they are the only one for the job. I intend to last more than a year here, but we will see, if the Defense Against the Dark Arts jinx strikes again. After all I won't say it doesn't exist. The worst thing to have in this field of work is a closed mind. In my experience anything can and will happen."

"What? Even aliens form Mars landing on the front lawn?" Dawn couldn't resist.

"Well that is being silly Dawn." *she reminds me so much of her sister sometimes.* "But yet still not imposable. Just highly unlikely. But when they do be sure to tell them to come see me. I never met a Martian before."

Then the whole class started laughing.

Once they calmed down, he continued. "After all, I met all sorts of things on my travels. A vampire with a soul, one that used to be the bloodiest and meanest vampire there was. Yet he made a mistake, one day he drank the blood of a young gypsies girl, a favorite in her tribe. Then the tribe put a curse on the vampire. They gave him back his soul, so he will eternally have to live and regret the things he done. The only way he will ever get the curse lifted is to experience one moment's true happiness and he loses his soul and becomes the bloody monster he once was."

"A vampire with a soul?" One of the Gryffindor girls asked from the back. "Never thought it possible."

"Yes, well it is true," Dawn interrupted, "He works in LA now and helps people in need."

"Yes he does. Of course anyone that has a closed mind may not believe it. The very idea of a vampire with a soul and helping people is ludicrous after all.

"Then there was a bunch of Muggle commandos that belonged to a secrete military organization. What there job was to capture demons and do experiments on them. I knew an infiltrator from them. One of the most curl things they did was on a boy that by no fault of his own is a werewolf. They tortured him, to make him transform into his werewolf form, there for proving that a werewolf is not changed by the cycle of the moon, but stress. That same young man can now control his transformations, and is going from place to place teaching other werewolves how to stop themselves from transforming. With some luck you will be meeting him next week. You may have been told that all werewolves are dark wizards but this is not true. In fact most werewolves outside Britain where ordinary Muggles who thought they had been bitten by a large dog. After all I believe you all met Professor Lupin, with the exception of Dawn. And I don't think anyone of you here believe for one minute that Remus Lupin is a dark wizard. See once again closed minds got a perfectly good defense against the dark arts teacher fired.

"Another thing those Muggles did was they put control chips in the vampires brains. What those did was control the vampire's violent tendencies. Most of them was killed after but there is one that I know escaped. His name is Spike, or William the Bloody. If I'm not mistaken studying different vampires is on your syllabus this year, so we will be studying his earlier days since I have allot of information on him. Of course now, much to Spike's annoyance he cannot harm a human. Every time he tries to hurt a human he gets disabling pain. So now he can only hurt demons. There is another example of something you wouldn't believe with a closed mind.

"They also captured a dark wizard that unfortunately was someone I knew from my Ripper days and my days at Hogwarts, Ethan Rayne. Of course Ethan made it his life work to worship chaos, and cause it so he deserved everything he got."

The owl in the cadge glared back at him.

"They took him away and locked him up in Area 51. Of course he just apparated away as soon as he got there, pity I would have liked to know what they really had in Area 51."

All the students that are muggle born laughed at the joke, and the wizarding ones didn't get it.

"But does this mean we should hate muggles? Well if you ask me no. Just because of some people that do things a little extreme doesn't mean we should not like all of them. There is dark muggles just like there is dark wizards, after all unfortunately where there is good there is always some evil lurking in there, there will probably never be no evil in this world. This is why people like the Dark Lord must fall, they try to upset the natural balance of things by causing too much fear and evil."

So the rest of the class went on taking down notes on his lecture. After it was finished Dawn stayed behind saying she would catch up with the others latter.

"Giles, that was great. You did that whole speech without stuttering once!"

"Y-Yes well. I been working on my stutter, got it mostly under control now."

Dawn smiled and turned to the cage "Hay Ethan, what was Area 51 like? Meet any aliens there, other than yourself that is? Cause I'm sure you looked in a mirror a few time in there."

Ethan just turned his back to her in the cadge sitting on a perch with his head tilted up and eyes closed.

"Oh don't patronize poor Ethan. He did come to me for help after all. Said he wanted to dry up from dark magic. so that's what he's doing. I got him locked up in there, and a spell on him so he can't change back into a person and call for help, and he can't just fly away either. Not that he would survive in the wild very long. He came to me about you at first kept saying that you where doing accidental magic all the time. So we both went to see Dumbledore about it. With the dark lord risen this is the safest place for you."

"Em Giles just one thing."

"Yes?"

"I had a really weird dream last night."

Giles looked at her curiously.

"Well I was in Gryffindor tower but I wasn't me. I was a maiden, and it looked like along time ago because I saw Nick in it looking alive and well. Then I ran downstairs and outside and started fighting in a battle with vampires, then the last one killed me with my own steak and that is when I woke up." She said very quickly almost babbling.

"Tell me Dawn, in this dream did you have a mark? A mole-"

"Yes above my right breast and below my shoulder. Kinda creepy cause Buffy used to have one there before she had it removed, and I had one there too and removed it in my false memories."

"Dawn have you noticed anything unusual lately? Been eating allot? quickened reflexes? Enhanced strength?"

"Well other than the eating part, no. Why?"

Giles sighed. "Dawn could you do me a favor?"

"Sure."

"Could you move this desk? Want it over there."

Dawn went to the desk and picked it up finding it surprisingly light. Then moved it to where Giles wanted it moved to, only to turn around and see Giles and now Snape there as well looking at her in disbelief. "What?"

****

TBC

A/N: Well come on you had to have guessed Giles? Right? And Ethan the owl *sniggers* Thx for the review everyone :) I really appreciate them

More will come soon!

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