Chapter Fourteen: Where's Buffy
In the Great Hall the next morning, Harry couldn't help but be worried when he noticed the slayer missing. Sparing a glance at the professors, and seeing that none of them looked worried, only confused him more. Snape, himself, didn't look quite as composed as he normally did, but that could have been due to something as simple as planning out his next attack on Neville.
"Ron, have you seen Miss Summers?" Harry asked his red-headed friend.
"Not since yesterday, why?" Ron mumbled around his food.
"When did you see her yesterday?" he questioned and then sighed in exasperation at getting no reply. "Ron, this is important! When did you see her?"
"She was headed towards Dumbledore's office, in a real hurry I'd say. Come to think of it I saw her later too, heading back from there, except I think she was crying."
Harry's face clouded over and he seemed to lose much of his color.
Getting no response, Ron blurted, "You don't think he kicked her out do you Harry?"
"Kicked who out?" Hermione inquired through a yawn, as she had just come from bed.
"Buffy… no one's seen her since yesterday and Ron says she was upset." Harry muttered, becoming more worried by the second.
"You think Dumbledore kicked her out?" Hermione's sleepiness fell quickly and she too become troubled over their new 'professor's' whereabouts.
"No, I don't think so," the boy-who-lived denied, "but I am going to ask Dumbledore where she is."
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Albus had been is his office all morning, trying to figure out how the slayer could acquire the 'talents' she had. In all known slayer history, no other girl had gained any abnormal sort of power, let alone any magical kind. Just as he was about to start another search, Harry Potter pushed through his door looking unusually upset.
"Is something wrong Harry?" the headmaster coaxed. It was no secret that he felt a special need to look over this boy particularly closely.
"Where is Miss Summers sir?"
"She's not in the dining hall?" Albus inquired ill at ease. The girl had been frantic the day before and when he'd suggested she lie down, she'd bolted from the room with a speed rivaling that of a firebolt broom.
"No, I was just there and Ron said he saw her come from here yesterday and that she'd been upset…" the accusing tone in his voice could not have been missed.
"Buffy seems to have developed yet another extraordinary power and that is why she was here Mr. Potter. I found that she seems to not have gotten over her past problems as readily as she made us believe."
"What is that supposed to mean? What past problems?"
"The kind that I'm not free to tell you. If you wish to know, you should ask her. But know this Harry, you're not the only one who has lost loved ones nor are you the only one to fight for your life."
With that, Dumbledore went back to his examination of books and Harry, taking it as the dismissal it was, quietly left in search of someone he knew must at least care about where she'd gone.
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"Professor Snape?"
Severus looked from his potion at the call of his name only to see his most despised student. "What is it Mr. Potter?"
"I was wondering if you'd seem Miss Summers? No one else has seen her since yesterday and I was wondering if…"
At the mention of Buffy, Snape focused on what the boy was saying and was annoyed at what he was implying.
"Are you trying to say, Potter," he interrupted, 'that I would have seen her last night and consequently this morning?"
Harry's ears reddened at the professor's question, but he stammered on, "No, I didn't mean it like that! I was just… it is just… no one else knows and I thought that you might because you two seemed close. Well, she thinks you're close anyway."
The pleasure at hearing that Buffy thought that they were close was overshadowed by the fact that Harry had sunk so low as to ask him. Did that mean she really was in trouble or hurt?
"Why is everyone worrying? I'm sure she probably overslept or didn't feel like coming down to eat," he tried to seem as uncaring as usual.
"It's just that when Ron saw her yesterday she was crying and…"
"What do you mean she was crying," the professor practically growled. "Why hasn't any one gone to her room to check on her? Why hasn't Albus gone to see her?"
"I think that Dumbledore said something to her that made her cry," Harry hinted, hoping to get the angry professor to make Dumbledore explain what he wouldn't explain to the young wizard.
"Why do you think that Potter? What did Albus say?"
"He said that she hadn't gotten over her past problems as well as he thought, whatever that means. He wouldn't tell me. All he would say is that I wasn't the only one who lost loved ones or the only one who fought. He would tell me anything more."
"He shouldn't have told you that much," Severus hissed. "It's none of your business. You know nothing about her past, Potter, so don't speak so flippantly about it!"
Harry cringed back at the professor's rage wondering what he'd said wrong.
"Go back to the hall Harry; I haven't the patience for you now. I shall go in search of Miss Summers and see what has happened."
Before he'd even finished speaking the potions professor was out the door with his robe swaying behind him.
