CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: THE SLAYER
Sunday, 14th March 1999
The group walked back into the Great Hall that was still bursting with noise. As the double oak doors opened, the entire room glanced towards them, several paranoid students looking as though they were about to run in case there was another vampire attack. Most students breathed a sigh of relief as they saw Professor Dumbledore followed by a multitude of others.
Madame Pomfrey and Professor Dumbledore walked towards the teacher's dining table at the front of the hall, Giles following them. Hermione moved back towards the Gryffindor table while Draco, Blaise, Buffy and Willow made their way to the Slytherin table. Professor Snape forewent the rest of dinner in favour of searching out the retreated Slytherin student, Pansy Parkinson, in order to fully understand why she had attempted to severely injure, if not kill, Buffy Summers.
Claire, Keeta and Millicent were quick to begin questioning Buffy on what had happened earlier. Dumbledore standing at the front table and clapping his hands, however, brought silence to the entire hall.
"Wow," Willow whispered quietly. "Snyder'd never get that kind of response."
Buffy grinned and shook her head. There was no way that the students at Sunnydale High would ever respect there fuehrer…ahem, principal, enough for that.
"May I have your attention please," Dumbledore said. "To answer the multitude of questions that you all must have, I have only two things to say. Yes, the creatures that just attacked the school were vampires. And yes, Miss Buffy Summers, a seventh year Slytherin student was the one to save us. As many of you know, Miss Summers transferred here from a school in America. Most of you believed her to merely be a muggle, but in actual fact, Miss Summers is the Slayer."
A chorus of 'wow' 'woah' 'cool' and 'wicked' broke out over the whole school. Buffy was not normally one to blush, but she could feel her cheeks flaming brightly as students craned their necks to get better looks at the small blonde American girl.
"I must ask you, however, not to harass Miss Summers in any way. Your questions will be answered eventually, but not at this point in time. So…let us continue with dinner."
Dumbledore took his seat, and the hall was once again filled with noise.
Keeta, Claire and Millicent all looked at their friend in awe. "The Slayer!" Claire breathed. "Why didn't you ever say anything?"
"She wasn't allowed to, you dolt," Keeta replied for Buffy.
"Guys, look, I know you're all gonna have questions, but…let's just leave them for a while, okay?" Buffy said. "I swear, you will get answers, but not just yet."
The girls looked put out but they nodded steadily. Keeta finally noticed the newcomer to the table.
"Who's your friend?" Keeta asked.
Willow flushed brightly as Claire and Millicent swung their attention to look at the redhead.
"Guys, this is Willow, my best friend from back-home. Wills practises Wiccan magic," Buffy explained, knowing that even though the Slyetherins weren't as horrible as they were thought to be, they still tended to have very low opinions of muggles. "Will, this is Claire, Keeta and Millicent."
The Slayer looked across the table and saw someone very noticeably missing. "Where's Pansy?"
"She went up to the dorms," Claire explained, exchanging dark looks with the three other Slytherin girls.
Buffy gave them blank looks. Apart from Pansy it didn't look as though any other students had left the Great Hall, so it wasn't as though the others had been frightened off by the vampire attack.
"Why?"
"Why what?" Draco asked.
"Why's she upstairs?"
"Well…after the 'her trying to kill you' thing, I think she feels slightly guilty about you saving her life," Blaise replied.
Buffy looked to her newest best friend with a blank expression. "I did what?"
Blaise grinned at her friend's confused expression.
"You saved Pansy's life. Those two vampires that you threw off a student…well, the student was Pansy," Blaise explained.
Buffy went silent for a moment. She hadn't realised who it was that she'd saved. She hadn't given another thought to whomever it was that she had pulled the vampires away from.
"What we wanna know is why you didn't wait just a little bit longer," Millicent said darkly.
"Who's Pansy?" Willow asked quietly.
"Pansy Parkinson," Buffy replied. "She's a Seventh Year Slytherin as well. She and I never really hit it off."
"She tried to give you a bad name just after you started dating Draco," Blaise added.
"And she tried to kill you a few days ago," Draco finished.
Willow's eyes widened. She couldn't imagine hating anyone enough to try and kill them. She understood people trying to ruin someone else's reputation, she'd been tormented for most of her school life until she'd become friends with Buffy. Everyone had left her alone after that, which was fine by her. But even then, Willow had never wanted to physically kill someone who didn't like her.
"Do you think they'll throw her off the Quidditch team?" Banks, the sixth-year Slytherin Chaser, who was seated close enough to eavesdrop on the conversation, asked.
Draco's eyes darkened. He hadn't thought of that. And whilst he wasn't Pansy's biggest fan, he didn't want to have to go through the horror of having to train a new Chaser before the next match. They were playing against Gryffindor in two weeks. And, even though Pansy wasn't the best of Players, she could almost hold her own in the Quidditch matches.
"Where would we get a Chaser for the next match if they did kick her off?" Draco asked.
"Who cares?" Blaise asked. "She deserves it. Bloody bitch. She could have killed us with that Bludger."
"Bludger?" Willow asked.
"It's an enchanted ball in Quidditch. It flies around the pitch trying to knock the Players off their brooms. You really don't want to get hit by one," Buffy said.
"Unless you have Slayer reflexes and can catch them without even blinking an eye," Draco added.
Buffy grinned at him. She was just glad that the secret that she'd been keeping from Draco was finally out in the open. She'd hated lying to him, and she hadn't been tremendously good at it either. She knew he'd had trouble believing that she'd been able to defeat the vampiric boggart purely because she knew sword fighting skills and martial arts, and she knew that Draco had been sceptical about her appearance at Hogwarts seeing as she was seemingly a muggle.
"So, Willow, you practise Wiccan magic?" Claire asked with interest.
Willow looked slightly startled at being addressed. She just nodded.
"That's wicked," Keeta gushed. "Only very select people are allowed to study wiccan magic here."
"I didn't know you could study wiccan," Buffy commented.
"Granger's studying it," Draco said.
"Isn't Granger studying everything?" Millicent asked with a snide giggle.
Willow leaned into Buffy, trying desperately to keep up with the conversation.
"Are they talking about Hermione?" she asked.
Buffy nodded. It was strange having more knowledge than Willow about any particular topic, especially about magic. It was even stranger to think that she would be as talented, or more talented than Willow was magically.
"She's the brightest student at Hogwarts," Buffy explained. Draco cleared his throat pointedly, and Buffy just rolled her eyes. "Closely followed by the ever-wonderful Draco Malfoy."
"Ever-wonderful?" Blaise asked mockingly. "What planet are you living on?"
"Planet Draco. It's gorgeous there," Buffy said.
Draco couldn't help but smile, lean closer to Buffy and drop a gentle kiss on her shoulder, a favourite activity of his.
"Before you two make me sick," Keeta began, smirking at the Slytherin couple, "have you all done your Potions homework?"
Draco groaned and buried his face miserably in Buffy's hair. He shook his head sadly. He hadn't really given it too much thought before Keeta had brought it up. The others answered with an assortment of yes's, no's and half-done's. He straightened and glanced towards the Professors table, his eyes scanning across the table. Where the Potions master usually sat was Giles, rather than the slimy Severus Snape.
"Where's Snape?" he asked curiously.
The others looked to the front table, shrugging in a non-committal fashion before turning back to their far more interesting conversation that had very little to do with their least favourite Professor.
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Professor Snape sat staring at an incredibly uncomfortable Pansy Parkinson. They were seated in the Slytherin Common Room, Pansy with her hands twisting nervously in her lap.
"You could have killed her, do you understand that?" Snape demanded angrily.
Pansy just nodded, unable to speak, for fear of her voice wavering.
"You understand of course that you can no longer be a member of the Slytherin Quidditch team," Snape continued. "And you will serve detention with me for the next four weeks."
"Yes sir," she whispered quietly. She knew she deserved no less, but it was still a real blow to be taken from the Quidditch team.
"I'd suggest getting some rest," Snape said, his voice still low and angry. Whilst he may have been suggesting for her to rest, he was really telling her that she was confined to her room for the rest of the evening. He'd never been so disappointed in a student as he was now. Enarly killing someone, especially someone in the same house was not to be tolerated, even by Severus Snape. He'd had several students try to do something similar to him, so he could sympathise with Buffy Summers completely.
Snape stood up and left Pansy Parkinson to her tears and regrets. Snape began his walk back to the Great Hall, wondering how on earth Slytherin was going to get a new Player before the next Quidditch match.
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Gee, guess where I'm going with that sub-plot…
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Toodles.