CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: TRUST
Monday, 1st March 1999
Buffy ran blindly out of the school, heading as far away as she could possibly get, tears streaming down her face. She kept running until she hit the edge of the forbidden forest. She wasn't so out of it as to go in there. Instead, she slowed her pace and caught her breath, walking the barrier of the forest until she hit a large hut.
"Oi! You there!" a loud voice called out to her. "What d'you think you're doin' here?"
She turned and gasped as she saw the incredibly large man in front of her. Whatever she'd been expecting, it hadn't been that.
"I…I'm sorry," she said quietly.
Hagrid saw that the girl had been crying, and his heart went out to her. He approached her cautiously and wondered what had happened to her.
"Are you orright?" he asked gently.
Buffy shook her head sadly and sat on the steps of the hut.
"D'ya want to talk about it?" Hagrid offered.
Again, she shook her head. Hagrid was at a loss for words. He'd never really had to deal with crying teenagers before. Especially ones that he'd never met before.
"I don't think I've seen you 'round here before. What's yer name?"
"Buffy Summers," she replied.
Hagrid's eyes widened in surprise. He recognised the name. He'd heard the Professors talking about her. She was the young American girl that had been sent to Hogwarts as some sort of disciplinary measure.
"Yer the American girl," he said.
"Yup."
"Rubeus Hagrid's the name," he said. "Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts. Does anyone know you're out here?"
"Nope. Not my fault anyway. They can blame him," Buffy said, still shaking slightly and not entirely with all of her sanity in tact.
She rested her head on her arms that were proper up on her curled up knees. She tried to calm her breathing, remembering the techniques that Giles had taught her. After several minutes, she felt the air around her shift and she knew that someone was sitting beside her. She knew instinctively that it wasn't Hagrid.
"You and Professor Rayne had a history," Albus Dumbledore said quietly, stating it as a fact rather than questioning her.
Buffy laughed harshly and looked up and across at the headmaster. "You could say that," she replied wryly.
"I wasn't aware that you two knew each other," he said. "He should not have done that to you."
Buffy sighed, grateful that she wasn't the only one thinking that Ethan had been completely out of line.
"What was it?" Buffy asked. "I mean…it wasn't actually him, was it?"
Dumbledore shook his head.
"It was a boggart. A shape-shifter of sorts. It assumes the form of our greatest fears. As a Slayer, a vampire would naturally be the thing you fear the most," Dumbledore explained. "Why it was that vampire in particular however…"
"Angelus," Buffy whispered sadly.
"Rupert told me that the two of you had been in a relationship at one stage," Dumbledore prodded.
Buffy nodded. "Yeah. We were. I mean, I was with Angel. Not with Angelus."
"It was a rather cruel thing for Ethan to do," Dumbledore said. "He and I will be having words."
Buffy sighed tiredly. "It wasn't all his fault. I asked him about something I knew he would be upset about. He was just being Ethan and decided it was time for payback."
"Ah, but he is old enough to know better. And I believe that you were retaliating to his provocation from your first lesson. Am I right?"
She nodded and looked up at the sky, enjoying the sun on her face. After facing her worst fear, the fresh air was exactly what she needed. A thought occurred to her suddenly, and she knew that she needed to know the answer. She was fairly certain she was going to regret asking, but she knew that if the Headmaster discovered her treachery, she would be shipped off to the Watcher's Council.
"Sir? Today's injection…I don't think it worked properly. Usually I'm feeling really tired, and…during that fight, I was nearly at full strength," she admitted.
Dumbledore smiled and nodded, glad that he had been right in his assumption that Buffy would tell him as soon as she discovered her strength.
"Yes, I know."
Buffy just looked at him in confusion. "You do?"
He nodded as though the answer was obvious.
"I wanted to see if you would tell me about it."
Buffy didn't know exactly how to react to that piece of news. Hearing that she was being tested without her knowledge had felt like a kick in the gut, but knowing that she had passed with flying colours within two hours of the test beginning made her feel grateful that she had confessed.
"How long did I have to come clean?" Buffy asked curiously.
"Until Wednesday afternoon," Dumbledore replied.
"Are you going to give me another dose?" she asked apprehensively. She hated the injections almost as much as she hated what they did to her. She'd always had a strange fear of needles ever since she was little, and the thought of having to have another injection in one day wasn't helping her nerves.
"No," he replied simply.
"No? I mean, not that I'm complaining or anything, but…no? Just like that?"
"It's another test you see," he explained. "To see if we can trust you when you are no longer being sedated. And for you to begin to trust yourself."
"I've always trusted myself," Buffy replied, without really thinking. She suddenly realise what she had just said, and turned to look at him, to see if he had been offended by her outburst. He just smiled benignly.
"I knew that too."
She couldn't help but grin. Even though it was Dumbledore who had been giving her the hated injections, she couldn't help but like the elderly wizard. "How long is this test gonna be?"
"Another week of half injections, and if all goes well, we'll stop administering them altogether."
Buffy smiled happily. It was nice to hear that she was being given a chance to prove herself. She'd definitely missed her energy levels that she'd taken for granted since becoming the Slayer. The lethargy that she'd been feeling for the last four weeks had been annoying her, and hearing that she would soon be back to her normal self was heartening.
"Thank you Professor," she said gratefully.
"You're quite welcome my dear. I do, however, have one thing that I would like to ask you," he said.
She looked at him curiously and nodded. "Shoot."
Before he asked her, however, he removed two small sweets from his pocket. Lemon drops, his favourite. He popped one of them into his mouth and offered the other to the Slayer. She took it, not wanting to seem rude. She'd never been a fan of lemons, but she wasn't going to complain. She bit the sweet in half and crunched it until she could swallow it. "Ask away."
"You didn't kill Allan Finch, did you?"
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Hmmm, yes I like cliff-hangers. Yes I'm cruel, yes I love the fact that I tease you all.
Oh, and to KT whoever you are and didn't even sign in, get over yourself. If you don't like crossovers, don't read them. It's pretty clearly marked BTVS/HP usually means it's a Harry Potter crossover. You can't deal with that, don't' come and tell me off about it. Sheesh. And if you can't work out that it's set when Buffy is 18 and the SAME age as Draco, then you really need some serious help. Grrr…
Sorry, ppl like that annoy me to no end.
As for the rest of you wonderful ppl, you guys truly make my day!!
Toodles.
(No sneak preview cos nothing really happens next chapter. *sighs*)