CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: THE MEMORIES
"You are the Chosen One. You alone can stop them. The vampires." Merrick! Oh god…I…I'm so sorry. "You burnt down a gym!" "It wasn't my fault!" "I'm sorry Buffy…your father and I…we're getting divorced." Moving? What? Why? And where the hell's Sunnydale?
Her chest felt tight. She was unable to breath, and all she could hear was her parents fighting over what was best for her. She curled up into a ball, her hands over her ears, trying to get the voices to cease whispering to her. It did nothing to help her, and the voices continued to assault her.
"You know, I just wanted to start over. Be like everybody else. Have some friends, y'know, maybe a dog…but, no, you had to come here, you couldn't go suck on some other town." Jesse… "I don't like vampires. I'm gonna take a stand and say they're not good."
"I'm not in trouble." "No, not yet…" "Your own thing, whatever it is, got you kicked out of school, and we had to move here to find a decent school that would take you!"
"You killed my date!" "Responsibility and sacrifice…" Sacrifice, huh? "Two days in my world and he really would get himself killed. Or I'd get him killed. Or someone else."
"Angel, what, what is it? What's wrong?" *screams!* Angel's a vampire?! "For a hundred years I offered ugly death to everyone I met, and I did it with a song in my heart."
"What's the fun of burying someone if they're already dead?" "This isn't real. You can't be free." "I am free because you fear it. Because you fear it, the world is crumbling. Your nightmares are made flesh…what are you afraid of? How about…being buried alive?" "You never told me you dreamt of becoming a vampire."
"Tomorrow night, Buffy will face the Master, and she will die." I'm sixteen years old. I don't wanna die. "You're the one that sets me free. If you hadn't come, I couldn't go. Think about that."
Even dying hadn't been this painful. This was a thousand times worse than death. This was being in hell, alone with only the worst of the most horrible of her memories.
"What I don't want is to be disappointed in you again." "What happens on Saturday?" I kill you. "Do we really need weapons for this?" "I just like them. They make me feel all manly."
"I did a lot of unconscionable things when I became a vampire. Drusilla was the worst. She was…an obsession of mine. She was pure and sweet and chaste…I made her insane. Killed everybody she loved. Visited every mental torture on her I could devise. She eventually fled to a convent, and on the day she took her holy orders, I turned her into a demon."
"Ted! You killed him!" He was a person, and I killed him. "I'm the Slayer…I had no right to hit him like that."
"I'll be back. I will." "But when? Six months? A year? You don't know how long it's gonna take, or even if you'll…"
"Like I really wanted to stick around after that." "Was it me? Was I not good?" "It's what? Bells ringing? Fireworks? A dulcet choir of pretty little birdies? Come on Buffy, it's not like I've never been there before." Dream on schoolgirl. Your boyfriend is dead. "If Angel achieved true happiness, even just a moment…he would lose his soul." So it was me…I did it. "You can't do it. You can't kill me." "Give me time."
"Instead of protecting Theresa from a werewolf I was able to not protect her from something just as bad." Theresa's a vampire. "Angel sends his love."
"Sorry Angel…changed the locks." "If Giles wants to go after the fiend that killed his girlfriend, I say 'faster, pussycat, kill, kill'." "You can't leave me. I can't do this alone."
"This does not look good for our heroine." "Please don't make me stay here." "So this isn't about you being afraid of hospitals cos your cousin died and you want to conjure up a monster you can fight so you can save everybody and not feel so helpless?" It killed Celia.
Memory after painful memory cascaded through Buffy's mind, making the blonde girl retreat further and further into herself to try and be rid of them. Unfortunately for her, the harder she tried to avoid them, the more painful the memories became.
"I want it over with." "You have the right to remain silent…" "The doctor said it was head trauma…" "In the end, you're always by yourself. You're all you've got. That's the point." "He's got your Watcher. Right now he's probably torturing him." Mom…I'm a Vampire Slayer. "Buffy this is insane, you need help!" "If you walk out of this house, don't even think about coming back!" "No weapons, no friends, no hope. Take all that away and what's left?" Close your eyes.
"You're Voldemort's daughter." "You're saying that I'm about sixteen?" "Finite Incantatum." "That wand…nothing but darkness." "Trust needs to be earned." "Did any of you know that Vol…that You-Know-Who had a child?"
"Welcome home Elizabeth." Hello lover. "For tonight is the night that our dark princess has been brought back into the fold." "It's the Dark Mark, Voldemort's symbol." "Like we'd leave Hermione in here with a murderer!" "You're his daughter!" "You're a Death-Eater!" "You dared to escape from me." "Crucio!" "If I kill him then…I become him." "Avada Kedavra!"
"I will never trust his daughter." "They wish to take away your slaying abilities." "So, basically what it comes down to is that you don't trust me." "I feel weak."
"When she finally follows in her father's footsteps like everyone thinks she will, Malfoy will be the first to join up." "I am right, you are wrong. That is all I need to know." "And I will not stand by and watch you destroy the wizarding world."
She'd never felt despair like this before. It was as though every piece of hope, every piece of happiness, every piece of bliss that she'd ever held onto was just sucked dry, leaving her with only the most painful of memories. She squeezed her eyes closed and pressed her hands over her ears, as though to stop the barrage of voices that yelled into her mind. Except the voices didn't stop. On and on they came until all that was left was a whimpering mess, curled in the corner of the room.
From the small slot window in the door, Cornelius Fudge watched with complete satisfaction. He hadn't excepted things to go so well. This was far better than what he'd hoped for. He knew that there was no way that Buffy could escape the room she was being confined in. Not only would she need to break out of the haze of pain, she would have to defeat the Dementor and find a way out of the room. He was definitely glad they'd removed the Slayer's strength from her at the beginning of the year.
The room she was confined in had been spelled to prevent any form of apparating, but Fudge knew that Buffy could apparate into and out of Hogwarts, something that was heretofore impossible. He could only hope that the spell would work more strongly when it was concentrated on a smaller space.
With a satisfied smile, Fudge closed the slot window, turned the key to the small slot, and left Buffy in complete darkness, alone with the Dementor that continued to thrive on killing every piece of joy in Buffy's memories.
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Quotes from: Welcome to the Hellmouth, The Harvest, Teacher's Pet, Never Kill a Boy on the First Date, Angel, Nightmares, Prophecy Girl, When She Was Bad, School Hard, Lie To Me, What's My Line II, Ted, Surprise, Innocence, Phases, Passion, Killed BY Death, Becoming II. The pre Sunnydale quotes were basically made up cos I couldn't find my copy of the original movie…
Awww, poor girl. *sniffs*
So…it's the night before my exam and what do I find myself doing? Grrr. *lol* It's so damn typical that as soon as I should be doing school work I actually WANT to write. Blah.
So very bored…someone update so I have something to read please?! Many thanks to everyone for your reviews and emails! You guys rock!
Toodles.
DKG.