Notes: Sorry that it took so long to get this out. I've been plagued with
finals at school, but they're all over. Now I have ample time for fics and
hope to get much work done on this one. Thanks to all the people who
reviewed.
Okay, someone pointed out that with the changed ages, then the Angel and Buffy relationship would be kind of gross (her sleeping with him when she was like 14 or 15?). So, I'm going to change that. Angel did not lose his soul that way, he lost it another way.
We'll say through something about the Judge and Druscilla. I'm working on it currently, but Buffy and Angel did not have sex.
Part Ten
Her first week at Hogwarts passed without further incident. Actually, once the shock of her father's identity had passed, people immediately began consoling themselves with the fact of her maternal heritage. After all, if she was related to the Weasleys, how bad could she really be? And add onto that, she had the personal endorsement of Dumbledore stating that she was not evil as far as he could see.
It was the sweetest thing anyone had said since she left Sunnydale. Which should show people how really bad things had been for her.
Even her own housemates were acting a bit warmer towards her. This had a lot to do with the fact that her cousins, Harry, and Hermione were constantly at her side, trying to get people to at least give her a chance. Another large part of it came from Neville Longbottom, who was on the verge of worshipping Willow due to the help she gave him in Potions. It was cute, but kind of weird. She wasn't sure how many more times she was going to have to explain to Neville that she wasn't a good luck charm. He knew how to do the potions, he just got too scared to do them properly when Snape was around. But Neville wouldn't be convinced of that just yet, and Willow found herself with a fan.
The only problem was, he wasn't her only fan. The whole of Slytherin seemed to be the basis of the Willow Fan Club, only their reasons weren't as innocent as Neville's. People like Draco and that Parkinson girl were insistent on calling her Princess, and the others were also smiling and generally acting warm and welcoming around her. It was all so fake she could barely stomach it! She didn't want to even look at their table during meals anymore. She just couldn't handle their friendliness/worship. It was disturbing, especially since she knew where it came from.
But other than that, the first week had gone off pretty well. She was adjusting just fine, her classes steadily becoming less confusing and overwhelming. She was even being cooperative enough with teachers, using her wand to complete all her spells. Besides, it was better than having people break out into hysterical whispers when she didn't use one.
As she became more comfortable at school, Willow eventually relented to requests from Ginny and Hermione to talk to her parents. She wasn't angry at them anymore, but that didn't mean she was happy with them at all. But she was at a point where she could admit to herself that there wasn't much else that her parents could have done. Not against her father anyway. Willow had spent much of the week listening to various stories of her father's previous exploits, including one from Ginny and her firsthand experience with the monster that was Lord Voldemort. Willow couldn't understand how her father could have been so evil, even at such a young age as sixteen.
But then again, evil probably didn't know any age limits. From all accounts, Draco had been downright evil since before he even came to Hogwarts, though she didn't quite see it. Sure, Draco was mean enough to everyone around him, but he wasn't evil. Even after hearing about the incident of Buckbeak and Hagrid from third year, Willow wasn't convinced that Draco was annoying. He seemed like a colossal brat, but he wasn't evil. She had seen evil in her life. Hell, she had lived through months of Angelus, Druscilla, and Spike conspiring to kill her and all her friends. Draco was not evil by any accounts.
But her father. Yeah, he was evil. It only took the story of the Chamber of Secrets to convince her of that. He was big time evil. He was Master-like evil, and that was EVIL.
But she wasn't evil. She wanted everyone to learn that, and it seemed that everyone was well on their way to learning that. The Slytherins might hang onto hope of her inner bad-girl for a while to come, but she was going to have to disappoint them. This redhead was going to stick to the straight and narrow. No matter how much that House of Slytherin wanted her to deviate from it.
Of course, she would have felt more comfortable with that if it hadn't been for that letter she got, eleven days into her stay at Hogwarts. It was in response to the letter she had sent home the first day of classes. Apparently Hedwig had made it all the way to Xander, and her friend hadn't had a heart attack since he was capable enough to send her a reply. Or so she thought.
It came with the morning post. She had been sitting in between Ron and Harry once again, facing away from the Slytherin table and across from Fred and George. Harry and Ron seemed to be her bodyguards from just about everyone while Fred and George did the scare tactics of the job. At that moment, they were glaring certain death over her head in the direction of the Slytherins. She didn't have to turn around to see who they were glaring at in particular. She knew it was Draco. The boy had yet to give up his idea of befriending her or whatever.
She was ignoring him, along with the rest of Slytherin. She said it before and she'll say it again: she didn't need their warped brand of Willow-worship. She had enough of that worship trouble with Neville, but at least Neville didn't want her to be his Dark Princess. Well, she certainly hoped he didn't, because that would be bad in so many ways.
Anyway, it came with the morning post. Hedwig came flying in with all the other owls. She swooped down and deposited the letter right before her plate. Her job finished, Hedwig turned to her master, chirping happily when he feed her a bit of his breakfast.
"Is that from Sunnydale?" Ron asked, mouth full of food as always. Willow fixed him with a reprimanding look, one that she saw mirrored on Hermione's face from Ron's other side. Her cousin just rolled his eyes, motioning to the letter with his fork.
"Open it," he commanded, making a show of swallowing his food before talking. Willow arched an eyebrow at his command, picking up her letter while only listening to Hermione's quick lecture on table manners. She opened the scroll sent, surprised to find two of them. She recognized the messy writing on the first letter as Xander's script, but it was the familiar handwriting on the second letter that caught her eye.
"Buffy!" she exclaimed, causing everyone around her to jump slightly. But she didn't look up, didn't meet any of their questioning gazes. She almost tore apart the letter from Buffy, eyes skimming over the words quickly. Her face was almost radiant with joy as she began the letter, something everyone around her noted.
But when her face started falling, her friends began to get a bit concerned. They watched as Willow read line after line, her face growing more and more horrified with each passing word. By the end of the letter, the redhead had tears in her eyes.
Finished, she rolled up the letter again and placed it next to Xander's on the table in front of her. Her eyes were full of tears, some rolling down her cheeks as the redhead sat back and tried to absorb everything.
Harry gave a surprised grunt when he was forcibly removed from Willow's side by Ginny. He had to protest, wanting to find out what was wrong with her as well, but shut his mouth when he saw Ron getting the same treatment from Hermione. Both girls crowded around Willow, whispering to the girl quietly. Harry tried to edge forward to hear what they were saying, horrified when he heard the telltale sounds of sobs coming from Willow.
"What is it?" Fred demanded, reaching for the letters on the table only to have Ginny snatch them out of his reach. He gave his little sister a glare, one she returned with more force than his own. He backed down quickly, but the look on his face showed that he wasn't going to let this go. George tried to diffuse the situation with a nervous.
"What? Did someone die?" he asked jokingly. In horror, he watched as his words caused his cousin to break out into loud, heart wrenching sobs. Willow leapt up from the table, running out of the Great Hall as fast as her legs would take her. Everyone in the hall fell silent at her exit, the Slytherin table on its feet as they watched their 'Princess' leave in tears.
"Brilliant George," Ginny snapped at her brother as she stood. "Don't you remember where she's from? You don't ask that!"
George realized his mistake too late. He flinched visibly, looking immediately apologetic. But Ginny ignored him, scooping up Willow's letters and followed Hermione out of the hall as they went in search of Willow. Fred waited until they were out of sight before fixing his brother with a disgusted look.
"Did someone die?" he repeated, glaring at the red-faced George. "Damn it man! You're supposed to be the smart twin!"
"Don't be so hard on him Fred," Ron jumped in quickly. George shot him a grateful look to which Ron just responded to with a smirk.
"Besides, no one ever thought either of you was all that smart."
*****
She ran all the way from the Great Hall to the Gryffindor Tower. She was barely able to choke out the password before dashing through the Common Room and up the stairs to her bedroom. Once there, she flung herself on her bed and dissolved into a fresh batch of hysterical tears.
After a few mintues, she heard the door creak open slowly. She didn't move as Hermione and Ginny seated themselves on her bed, Ginny reaching out tentatively to stroke her hair. Hermione took Willow's hand, placing the letters she had received this morning by her shoulder.
"What's wrong?" the brunette asked softly. "I thought you would be happy that Buffy had come home. You sounded so worried before."
"It's not that," Willow sobbed. "It's not that at all. I just can't believe-I shouldn't have done it. Mom told me, Giles didn't want me risking it, and just look at what happened! I messed up everything! It's all my fault! God, how could she forgive me?"
"Willow, what are you talking about?" Ginny asked, a bit frantic as her cousin continued to berate herself. The older redhead deflated at that, falling silent as she grasped her pillow closer to her chest. An answer was mumbled out, but neither of the calm girls heard it.
"What was that, Willow?" Hermione prodded her gently. Willow heaved a great sigh, closing her eyes in remorse as she replied in a louder voice.
"I sent Angel to Hell."
*****
Okay, someone pointed out that with the changed ages, then the Angel and Buffy relationship would be kind of gross (her sleeping with him when she was like 14 or 15?). So, I'm going to change that. Angel did not lose his soul that way, he lost it another way.
We'll say through something about the Judge and Druscilla. I'm working on it currently, but Buffy and Angel did not have sex.
Part Ten
Her first week at Hogwarts passed without further incident. Actually, once the shock of her father's identity had passed, people immediately began consoling themselves with the fact of her maternal heritage. After all, if she was related to the Weasleys, how bad could she really be? And add onto that, she had the personal endorsement of Dumbledore stating that she was not evil as far as he could see.
It was the sweetest thing anyone had said since she left Sunnydale. Which should show people how really bad things had been for her.
Even her own housemates were acting a bit warmer towards her. This had a lot to do with the fact that her cousins, Harry, and Hermione were constantly at her side, trying to get people to at least give her a chance. Another large part of it came from Neville Longbottom, who was on the verge of worshipping Willow due to the help she gave him in Potions. It was cute, but kind of weird. She wasn't sure how many more times she was going to have to explain to Neville that she wasn't a good luck charm. He knew how to do the potions, he just got too scared to do them properly when Snape was around. But Neville wouldn't be convinced of that just yet, and Willow found herself with a fan.
The only problem was, he wasn't her only fan. The whole of Slytherin seemed to be the basis of the Willow Fan Club, only their reasons weren't as innocent as Neville's. People like Draco and that Parkinson girl were insistent on calling her Princess, and the others were also smiling and generally acting warm and welcoming around her. It was all so fake she could barely stomach it! She didn't want to even look at their table during meals anymore. She just couldn't handle their friendliness/worship. It was disturbing, especially since she knew where it came from.
But other than that, the first week had gone off pretty well. She was adjusting just fine, her classes steadily becoming less confusing and overwhelming. She was even being cooperative enough with teachers, using her wand to complete all her spells. Besides, it was better than having people break out into hysterical whispers when she didn't use one.
As she became more comfortable at school, Willow eventually relented to requests from Ginny and Hermione to talk to her parents. She wasn't angry at them anymore, but that didn't mean she was happy with them at all. But she was at a point where she could admit to herself that there wasn't much else that her parents could have done. Not against her father anyway. Willow had spent much of the week listening to various stories of her father's previous exploits, including one from Ginny and her firsthand experience with the monster that was Lord Voldemort. Willow couldn't understand how her father could have been so evil, even at such a young age as sixteen.
But then again, evil probably didn't know any age limits. From all accounts, Draco had been downright evil since before he even came to Hogwarts, though she didn't quite see it. Sure, Draco was mean enough to everyone around him, but he wasn't evil. Even after hearing about the incident of Buckbeak and Hagrid from third year, Willow wasn't convinced that Draco was annoying. He seemed like a colossal brat, but he wasn't evil. She had seen evil in her life. Hell, she had lived through months of Angelus, Druscilla, and Spike conspiring to kill her and all her friends. Draco was not evil by any accounts.
But her father. Yeah, he was evil. It only took the story of the Chamber of Secrets to convince her of that. He was big time evil. He was Master-like evil, and that was EVIL.
But she wasn't evil. She wanted everyone to learn that, and it seemed that everyone was well on their way to learning that. The Slytherins might hang onto hope of her inner bad-girl for a while to come, but she was going to have to disappoint them. This redhead was going to stick to the straight and narrow. No matter how much that House of Slytherin wanted her to deviate from it.
Of course, she would have felt more comfortable with that if it hadn't been for that letter she got, eleven days into her stay at Hogwarts. It was in response to the letter she had sent home the first day of classes. Apparently Hedwig had made it all the way to Xander, and her friend hadn't had a heart attack since he was capable enough to send her a reply. Or so she thought.
It came with the morning post. She had been sitting in between Ron and Harry once again, facing away from the Slytherin table and across from Fred and George. Harry and Ron seemed to be her bodyguards from just about everyone while Fred and George did the scare tactics of the job. At that moment, they were glaring certain death over her head in the direction of the Slytherins. She didn't have to turn around to see who they were glaring at in particular. She knew it was Draco. The boy had yet to give up his idea of befriending her or whatever.
She was ignoring him, along with the rest of Slytherin. She said it before and she'll say it again: she didn't need their warped brand of Willow-worship. She had enough of that worship trouble with Neville, but at least Neville didn't want her to be his Dark Princess. Well, she certainly hoped he didn't, because that would be bad in so many ways.
Anyway, it came with the morning post. Hedwig came flying in with all the other owls. She swooped down and deposited the letter right before her plate. Her job finished, Hedwig turned to her master, chirping happily when he feed her a bit of his breakfast.
"Is that from Sunnydale?" Ron asked, mouth full of food as always. Willow fixed him with a reprimanding look, one that she saw mirrored on Hermione's face from Ron's other side. Her cousin just rolled his eyes, motioning to the letter with his fork.
"Open it," he commanded, making a show of swallowing his food before talking. Willow arched an eyebrow at his command, picking up her letter while only listening to Hermione's quick lecture on table manners. She opened the scroll sent, surprised to find two of them. She recognized the messy writing on the first letter as Xander's script, but it was the familiar handwriting on the second letter that caught her eye.
"Buffy!" she exclaimed, causing everyone around her to jump slightly. But she didn't look up, didn't meet any of their questioning gazes. She almost tore apart the letter from Buffy, eyes skimming over the words quickly. Her face was almost radiant with joy as she began the letter, something everyone around her noted.
But when her face started falling, her friends began to get a bit concerned. They watched as Willow read line after line, her face growing more and more horrified with each passing word. By the end of the letter, the redhead had tears in her eyes.
Finished, she rolled up the letter again and placed it next to Xander's on the table in front of her. Her eyes were full of tears, some rolling down her cheeks as the redhead sat back and tried to absorb everything.
Harry gave a surprised grunt when he was forcibly removed from Willow's side by Ginny. He had to protest, wanting to find out what was wrong with her as well, but shut his mouth when he saw Ron getting the same treatment from Hermione. Both girls crowded around Willow, whispering to the girl quietly. Harry tried to edge forward to hear what they were saying, horrified when he heard the telltale sounds of sobs coming from Willow.
"What is it?" Fred demanded, reaching for the letters on the table only to have Ginny snatch them out of his reach. He gave his little sister a glare, one she returned with more force than his own. He backed down quickly, but the look on his face showed that he wasn't going to let this go. George tried to diffuse the situation with a nervous.
"What? Did someone die?" he asked jokingly. In horror, he watched as his words caused his cousin to break out into loud, heart wrenching sobs. Willow leapt up from the table, running out of the Great Hall as fast as her legs would take her. Everyone in the hall fell silent at her exit, the Slytherin table on its feet as they watched their 'Princess' leave in tears.
"Brilliant George," Ginny snapped at her brother as she stood. "Don't you remember where she's from? You don't ask that!"
George realized his mistake too late. He flinched visibly, looking immediately apologetic. But Ginny ignored him, scooping up Willow's letters and followed Hermione out of the hall as they went in search of Willow. Fred waited until they were out of sight before fixing his brother with a disgusted look.
"Did someone die?" he repeated, glaring at the red-faced George. "Damn it man! You're supposed to be the smart twin!"
"Don't be so hard on him Fred," Ron jumped in quickly. George shot him a grateful look to which Ron just responded to with a smirk.
"Besides, no one ever thought either of you was all that smart."
*****
She ran all the way from the Great Hall to the Gryffindor Tower. She was barely able to choke out the password before dashing through the Common Room and up the stairs to her bedroom. Once there, she flung herself on her bed and dissolved into a fresh batch of hysterical tears.
After a few mintues, she heard the door creak open slowly. She didn't move as Hermione and Ginny seated themselves on her bed, Ginny reaching out tentatively to stroke her hair. Hermione took Willow's hand, placing the letters she had received this morning by her shoulder.
"What's wrong?" the brunette asked softly. "I thought you would be happy that Buffy had come home. You sounded so worried before."
"It's not that," Willow sobbed. "It's not that at all. I just can't believe-I shouldn't have done it. Mom told me, Giles didn't want me risking it, and just look at what happened! I messed up everything! It's all my fault! God, how could she forgive me?"
"Willow, what are you talking about?" Ginny asked, a bit frantic as her cousin continued to berate herself. The older redhead deflated at that, falling silent as she grasped her pillow closer to her chest. An answer was mumbled out, but neither of the calm girls heard it.
"What was that, Willow?" Hermione prodded her gently. Willow heaved a great sigh, closing her eyes in remorse as she replied in a louder voice.
"I sent Angel to Hell."
*****