CHAPTER THREE: THE POWER
Buffy showed Willow around as much of Hogwarts as she knew. The previous year Harry, Ron and Hermione had showed her the various secrets passageways that they knew of, and in turn, Buffy showed them to Willow. Willow was just constantly in awe of everything that the Hogwarts Castle had to offer.
The girls turned the corner, laughing and talking loudly. Buffy hadn't been paying too much attention to which part of the school they were in, and had led Willow down to the Dungeons, near Snape's classroom and the Slytherin Common Rooms. Distracted by their conversation, Buffy and Willow very nearly bumped into a scowling man. Willow gasped and took an involuntary step backwards. Buffy just rolled her eyes.
"Professor Snape," she greeted.
He glared at her, and she forced herself not to retaliate. As much as she really didn't like Professor Snape, he was still a teacher at Hogwarts, and she was still a student.
"Summers," he replied coolly. "What, prey tell, are you doing down here with your…friend?"
"I'm just showing Willow around Hogwarts. Your classroom happens to be within Hogwarts, so…that's about the it," she replied calmly.
Snape cast his gaze over Willow who managed to draw upon some well of inner strength and net his eyes.
"Willow, this is Professor Snape, Professor, this is my best friend Willow Rosenburg. We went to school together in California," Buffy explained.
Snape looked at the girl and raised an eyebrow. "Fascinating."
Buffy rolled her eyes. And she'd thought that she abused sarcasm.
Snape flicked his gaze over Willow again before walking away, murmuring an almost polite "good day" as he walked. Willow watched him leave and nearly began hyperventilating as soon as he was gone.
"Goddess, is he always that creepy?" Willow asked.
Buffy nodded sadly and the girls began walking in the opposite direction to where Snape had gone. "Pretty much. Fred and George call him Professor Cranky-Pants."
Willow giggled a little and nodded her approval. "It's a fitting title. He's just so…icky."
"That he is. But you should meet some of the other Professors. Some of them are really nice. Professor Flitwick's adorable, he's so little! Oh, and McGonagall is awesome. She's an animagus, like Harry's godfather Sirius. She can turn herself into a cat. Can you imagine how cool that would be? To just be able to turn yourself into an animal at will?"
Willow looked at her best friend with new eyes. Seeing Buffy in this setting seemed so unnatural, and yet Buffy seemed to fit in so well within the school. Willow could see the genuine excitement that Buffy had for anything magic related, including schoolwork, which was something that Willow had never been able to interest Buffy with before. It was a change, but Willow decided that it was definitely a good one.
Something in Buffy's voice made Willow a little suspicious of her best friend though. She was showing an awful lot of enthusiasm on one topic and Willow had to wonder whether or not it was within school rules. Knowing Buffy, whatever she had planned would be breaking at least a few of the rules.
"You seem pretty keen on that animorph topic, Buff," Willow said, attempting to be casual.
"Animagus," Buffy said, startling Willow with the second correction of the day. It was strange for Buffy to be doing the correcting instead of being on the receiving end of it.
"Yeah, that. You seem kinda interested in it. You sure it's not just purely curiousity. You're not trying to learn how to do something like that are you? Cos that sounds all kinds of advanced."
"It is advanced," Buffy admitted. "Really, really advanced, but…can't you imagine having that ability. I mean, come on, talk about cool!"
"Are you even allowed to try something like that?" Willow asked.
"No," Buffy pouted. "Not until we're out of school. Plus you have to be registered and stupid stuff like that. Don't see why. Sirius isn't registered and he gets away with it just fine. Has done for years."
"It's probably a safety thing Buff. Besides, if it's advanced, then…well, are you sure you're ready for something like that?" Willow asked.
Buffy bit her lip and decided to just go in for the kill.
"You know that whole disapparating thing we did to get here?" Buffy began. Willow nodded. "Well, you kinda aren't allowed to even try something like that until you're eighteen."
Willow's eyes bugged out. "Then why-"
"And disapparating into Hogwarts…it's theoretically impossible. No one has ever been able to apparate into Hogwarts cos of it's protective barriers. They're the strongest magical barriers that this world has, and not even Dumbledore can break past them," Buffy said.
Willow's eyes went even wider and Buffy wondered whether it was actually possible for someone's eyeballs to fall out of their sockets.
"But you…and we…but we just…"
Buffy nodded, somehow understanding Willow's half sentences.
"Yeah, Will," Buffy said.
Willow could only stare at her best friend. "Wow."
At first, all Willow could think of was the coolness factor of it all. It took several moments for the reality of it to sink in. Buffy had explained the previous day who Dumbledore was, and the fact that many people considered him to be the wizard with the greatest power in all the world. To then hear that Buffy was doing something that the greatest wizard in the world couldn't was slightly…frightening.
"You're stronger than Dumbledore," Willow finally said. "Magically I mean."
Buffy nodded. She had had copious amounts of free time over the last month to reflect on what had happened in the final month at Hogwarts. She had found the time to finally process exactly what had happened and had come up with the same conclusion that Willow had drawn. She was stronger than Dumbeldore. And whilst many witches and wizards would have loved to have made that claim, the very idea of it scared Buffy to death.
She didn't want to be that strong. She didn't want to have that kind of power. And not to be cliché, but Buffy knew that with great power came great responsibility. Her name was well known within the wizarding community now. People recognised her on the street and either shied away from her or came and congratulated her. Half feared her, and the other half worshipped her.
The fearful half were afraid that Voldemort's daughter had only killed her father so that she could take his place and become the unquestioned ruler of the wizarding community. Buffy couldn't count how many rumours there were about her evil scheme to take over the wizarding world. Everyone respected her though, whether from fear or from awe, they respected what she had done. But many of them were just waiting for Buffy to make a move and try to build up an army of Death-Eaters of her own.
"Doesn't it frighten you?" Willow asked.
Over the last year Willow had dabbled into the Wiccan arts and had learned to float pencils and summon the four elements ('two out of four isn't so bad') as well as small glamour charms. And Willow had been scared by those small steps. She couldn't imagine being thrust into a position of having enormous amounts of power and not really knowing what to do with it.
"Honestly," Buffy began slowly, "half the time it terrifies me. I mean, I'm only seventeen years old-"
"Which, by the way, is weird in itself," Willow interrupted her. Buffy grinned and then sobered, going back to her original topic.
"I have all this power Will. I don't deserve it, and…I don't know what to do with it. I just know I don't wanna do what my father did with his power. I don't want to abuse it, but I do wanna learn to control it. The only problem is, no one else has this much power to control, so I can't really get too much help from anyone. Giles and Dumbledore have been great though, but…they don't really have any idea how much power I'm holding back. I still don't know how much power I'm holding back."
"I guess all you can really do is just do what you did in Sunnydale when you were the Slayer. Help people, use it for good. You've always had some sort of power, even if you didn't know it. And yeah, controlling it may be a problem, but I have faith in you," Willow said encouragingly. "I know you Buffy, and I know you'll do everything you can to help these people."
Buffy tried to muster up a smile for her friend and could only manage to give a half-hearted attempt at one. She sighed and the two of them continued down the hallway towards the Great Hall.
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Yes, I know that the age you can apparate is 17, but this is my fic, my rules.
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