CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: THE REQUIREMENT
Hermione raced up the stairs, panting and out of breath. She hurried through the portrait, shouting out the password before she'd even rounded the corner of the hallway so that the opening would be accessible. She ran up the corridors to the right and burst through the door to the Sixth Year Girls Dormitories.
Buffy jumped, completely startled by the sudden bang of the door against the wood on the door behind it.
"Hermione," Buffy breathed, her hand going to her chest, her heart seeming to skip several beats.
"You can't leave," Hermione said frantically.
Buffy looked down at the bags that she was frantically throwing clothes into and then back up at her best friend.
"How did you know what I was doing?" Buffy asked suspiciously.
Hermione stopped and bent over, trying to catch her breath, her hands resting on her knees.
"I…I saw you. In the Forest. Talking to one of your ghosts."
Buffy turned back to her packing. "Then you know why I have to go."
"Buffy, I know that they're real," Hermione said forcefully. "I know that you're not crazy or anything like that."
"No…not crazy. Not yet anyway," Buffy said darkly. "Besides, I have to leave. I can't risk hurting you or Ron or…or Harry."
Hermione noticed the way that Buffy's voice caught in her throat when saying Harry's name. She could still remember the tears in Harry's eyes when he'd told her and Ron about breaking up with Buffy. Neither of them wanted to be separated, but they were staying away from each other anyway.
"You won't!" Hermione yelled. "We wouldn't let you."
"I've already hurt Harry!" Buffy yelled back, stopping her packing and turning to face Hermione. "Did he tell you about that?"
Hermione sighed and nodded.
"I saw the bruise," she admitted.
Buffy shook her head and bent down to pick up one of the discarded weapons that she'd thrown onto the floor amidst the frantic packing. It was the crossbow that she'd transfigured earlier in the Shrieking Shack.
"I didn't just hit him," Buffy said, throwing the unloaded crossbow at Hermione's feet.
Hermione's eyes opened wide as she stared at the weapon.
"You…" she trailed off, not entirely sure how to word such a sentence.
"Shot him," Buffy finished for her. "Yeah. In his shoulder. If Dumbledore hadn't been there, he would have bled to death."
"But…it was an accident, wasn't it?" Hermione asked.
"I shot the bow on purpose," Buffy admitted. "It wasn't aimed at him though."
Hermione felt somewhat relieved for that small favour. She couldn't quite fathom the idea of how Harry could have been shot if it hadn't been aimed at him though.
"Now do you get it?" Buffy asked angrily. "Do you get why I need to go? The First keeps making me see things! It gets inside my head…makes me do things that I don't want to do, but I keep doing them cos I keep seeing things! I can't risk hurting the people I love."
Hermione was silent, swallowing hard as she listened to Buffy speak vehemently about her reasons for leaving. They were valid points, and Hermione couldn't fault the Slayer for not wanting to put her friends in danger.
Her eyebrow suddenly furrowed as she remembered another portion of Buffy's sentence. "The First?" she asked.
Buffy sighed and zipped up the duffle bag she'd been packing. "Ask Giles about it. He'll tell you."
Hermione grabbed hold of Buffy's arm, knowing that if Buffy apparated somewhere, she'd be taken as well. Buffy glared at her best friend, knowing the same thing that Hermione knew. She couldn't leave with Hermione holding onto her.
"You can't go!" Hermione yelled.
Buffy looked down for a moment, clutching tightly at the bag in her hand. She felt the familiar tingling at the back of her neck and looked up just in time to see herself attacking Hermione from behind, a stake in her doppelganger's hand, heading towards Hermione's back. Buffy swallowed the sick feeling in her stomach, and gave Hermione a tight hug, closing her eyes to the image that the First was projecting of herself.
"Take care," Buffy whispered.
Buffy shoved her friend away from her, careful not to put too much strength into the shove. Hermione tumbled onto the mattress behind her and got caught up in the unmade bed sheets. She could only watch in dismay as Buffy disapparated out of Hogwarts.
"No!" she yelled, but all that answered her back was the silence of an empty room.
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Hermione raced into Dumbledore's office, flinging open the door without even knocking first.
"She's gone!" Hermione yelled.
Professor Dumbledore and Giles both jumped to their feet, exchanging a worried glance. They knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Hermione was speaking about Buffy. The implications of Buffy being gone were not ones that they liked to think about.
"Gone?" Giles asked. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, she packed her bags and disapparated out of here!" Hermione explained frantically.
Giles grabbed his cloak and quickly pulled it around his shoulders.
"We must find her," he said.
"We don't know where she went," Hermione answered. "She could be anywhere for all we know!"
"What about Willow's?" Giles asked.
"It's too obvious, Rupert," Dumbledore replied. "She won't go anywhere that she believes we'd be able to find her."
"Well, who else would she have gone to for help?" Hermione asked.
Giles and Dumbledore exchanged looks, Dumbledore shaking his head sadly. Giles sighed and sat heavily in the chair behind him, hanging his head sadly.
"Chances are she wouldn't have gone to anyone for help," Dumbledore explained. "Slayers are such independent creatures, Buffy especially. And if she's frightened of harming other people due to her ghosts, then it is likely that she would isolate herself to keep that from happening."
Hermione couldn't believe what she was hearing. She didn't want to imagine the next year and a half without Buffy being there as well. So much had changed for them all just by the Slayer's presence, and to have been robbed of it seemed grossly unfair.
"She'll stop being haunted by the ghosts now though," Hermione said, somewhat grateful for that. "Now that she's not on Hogwarts grounds anymore."
Dumbledore shook his head. "No, my dear girl, she will still be visited by the spirits," the Headmaster said gravely. "For they were not ordinary ghosts."
"What were they?" Hermione asked, completely confused.
"The First," Giles muttered angrily. He was annoyed that they hadn't found any useful information regarding the First or its plans. He couldn't believe that a library as extensive as the one on Hogwarts grounds had had nothing useful to tell them about an entity that called itself the First.
"The First?" Hermione repeated. "Buffy said something about that. About how it was making her see things…making her do things that she didn't want to do."
"We believe the ghosts were trying to make her harm her fellow students," Dumbledore explained. "Aside from that, we cannot even begin to imagine what else it has planned."
Hermione sighed. Buffy had been right in wishing to leave then. If she wasn't near the students, she couldn't harm them. It was a logical leap, but Hermione still felt uncomfortable about it.
"We have to start researching," Hermione said. "We have to learn more about the First and about what it wants. Isn't there a summoning spell or something we could use in the library?"
"Unfortunately the library would not allow a summoning charm to work. Something about the books believing that students should have to work to find out where the information is hidden rather than using a spell to find the information they…" Dumbledore suddenly stopped, a smile gracing his face. He paused for a moment before completing his sentence, "…require."
Dumbledore grabbed his pointed hat and swung his cloak around his shoulders. "Come quickly," he said, leaving the office as Giles and Hermione followed with some confusion.
"Where are we going?" Hermione asked.
Dumbledore stayed silent, but continued leading them to the seventh floor. Hermione recognised the room immediately, the Room of Requirement. Dumbledore paced the length of the tapestry on the wall three times before a door appeared before them. The Headmaster led them through the door and into a room that was lined with bookshelves, each containing musty tomes.
He walked to the shelf and picked up a book, allowing it to flip open to a page that he would require.
Giles finally put all the clues together, realising where they were, for he'd never been there before, and realising that Dumbledore was known to be the most brilliant wizard for a reason.
Giles followed the Headmaster's example and pulled a book off the shelf, Hermione doing the same.
For forty minutes, they researched in silence, each of them learning more and more about the entity called the First Evil.
"Here's something," Hermione said, breaking the silence.
Giles and Dumbledore both looked up at the girl, waiting for her to continue.
"The First can only enter the realm of man when summoned, or unless there is a mystical imbalance," Hermione read. "The First will attempt to rectify such an imbalance by creating an equilibrium. Such an imbalance usually occurs when Warriors of Light become too numerous."
"Warriors of Light?" Giles repeated. "Like Slayers?"
"The Chosen Two," Hermione said. "Buffy and Faith. That's the imbalance."
Dumbledore took the book from Hermione's hands and read through the relevant paragraph again, liking it even less the second time around.
"Creating an equilibrium," Dumbledore quoted.
"What does that mean?" Hermione asked.
Dumbledore shook his head, not entirely certain of the answer. Hermione tried thinking about it for a moment longer but it was Giles who put the pieces together. His face paled and he felt as though he were about to throw up.
"Professor Giles?" Hermione asked softly.
"An equilibrium," Giles said quietly. "If there's too many Warriors of Light…the First will try to rectify it."
Hermione too paled significantly. "It wants to kill Buffy?" she asked.
Giles shook his head. "Worse. When its done with her, Buffy won't be a Warrior of Light anymore. She'd be a Champion of Darkness."
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Yeah, I'm sick of this fic. So, you guys get three updates today. Enjoy!!
Toodles.
DKG.