AN: CHAPTER TEN UP NOW. THIS WILL PROBABLY BE MY LAST UPDATE FOR A WHILE, AS I AM GOING TO FLORIDA FOR A FORTNIGHT FROM SUNDAY. MY PARENTS HAVE BANNED THE PACKING OF MY LAPTOP AND I THEREFORE MUST CONTENT MYSELF WITH THE ENTERTAINMENT PROVIDED BY ALL THE THEME PARKS WE WILL BE STAYING NEAR. THE ONLY THING I REGRET IS ALL THE Buffy I WILL PROBABLY BE MISSING WHILE I AM THERE. HANG ON, I CAN WATCH IT ON THE CABLE TV IN OUR VILLA IN KISSIMMEE AND THEN OUR APARTMENT ON THE GULF COAST, YAY FOR ME AND CABLE TV.

DISCLAIMER: I AM ACTUALLY LETTING ANGEL AND Buffy BE TOGETHER, I THEREFORE CANNOT BE JOSS WHEDON. I AM NOT J K ROWLING AS I WOULD NEVER LET MY DARLING SNUFFLES DIE. A NOTE ON THAT. I READ THE BOOK AND THREW IT AGAINST THE WALL WHEN I CAME TO THAT PART. THIS BEING AT NINE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING ON THE DAY IT WAS PUBLISHED. MY BROTHER WAS HIGHLY ANNOYED BY THE SOUND OF A LARGE HARDBACK BOOK COLLIDING WITH THE WALL AND MY CRIES OF RAGE AT THE DEATH OF SNUFFLES. OUT OF PROTEST, I REFUSED TO FINISH THE BOOK UNTIL THAT EVENING.

RATING: PG-13, PERHAPS R IN SOME PARTS FOR LANGUAGE AND SEXUAL INNUENDO.

Chapter Ten

Hermione Granger waited with Ron Weasley outside the classroom where they had been directed to go for physical defence. Despite the fact that they had spent a few days with the slayer, they were just as anxious to see her fight as the rest of the class. Even the Slytherins seemed intrigued by the idea of meeting her and were talking almost as loudly as the Gryffindors. In an amazing display, Malfoy had even forgotten to be rude to Hermione and Ron all morning.

Ron and Hermione had been the first Gryffindors to arrive outside of the Defence classroom that morning. They had been astonished to find Malfoy the only other one there, without his usual tagg-ons of Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy Parkinson. He had said nothing when he had seen them, only nodded at them once and turned back to waiting.

The other Gryffindors and Slytherins had slowly arrived, all exchanging guesses and rumours about what the class would be like. In the excitement, Slytherins and Gryffindors forgot about their rivalries and exchanging ideas between each other. Malfoy stood slightly separated from the others, talking to no one, not even anyone in his own house, he seemed slightly aloof from the rumours and excitement. Then he spoke over a lull in the noise,

"So, Weasley, I heard that Potter and his friends came to see you after he came back from Sunnydale. Care to share any interesting information about the slayer and her friends?"

Ron and Hermione stared at Malfoy as complete silence settled over the class. They did not know quite what to say. The question had been fairly polite and Malfoy didn't seem to be the only one to have heard this little rumour. Before they could answer, the party from Sunnydale swept up, ending all discussion before it could begin again. The Slayer approached the doors and swung them open, a path opening up for her as she walked through the crowd of students with her friends. The very much-changed Potter walked exactly in step with her and her friends followed behind them.

The Slayer turned as she entered the room and gestured for them all to follow her into the room. They found themselves in a large chamber with no furniture except a large desk and a black board at one end of the room. There were several stacks of chairs up against one wall and a large number of locked cabinets. Two doors led off of the room and there was a stack of blue gym mats against one wall. To all those from Muggle homes it looked exactly like a normal gymnasium. In one corner of the room there was huge array of gym supplies, with everything from trampolines to trapezes.

The slayer sat down in the large leather office chair behind the desk and spun around on it a few times. She turned back to face them then and said,

"Everyone get a chair and sit in a semi-circle in front of my desk."

The Hogwarts students scrambled to get a chair and a prime position in front of the slayer. The visitors from Sunnydale smirked slightly and then grabbed chairs for themselves and sat round their friend's desk. Harry Potter leant against the wall behind the slayer's desk, staying well in the shadows. Malfoy noticed then that there were no windows in the room and the lighting was fairly dim. Once everyone was seated, the slayer began to talk,

"Ok. As you all know, I'm the vampire slayer. This does not make me a professor. Anyone who calls me a professor will be made to run the entirety of the grounds twice a day for a month. My name is Buffy Summers, so use it."

There was complete silence in the room as the slayer spoke.

"The people sitting behind me are my friends. Xander Harris, Cordelia Chase, Willow Rosenburg and Daniel Osbourne, but everyone calls him Oz. You are to treat them with the same respect as you treat me, that is as you would treat any one of your peers. Do not underestimate any of them. They have been fighting vampires and other creatures of evil with me for a long time and are more than capable of defending themselves. This class is not for them. They will help me with demonstrations and tell you about some of the things we have fought, but they do not need to learn how to defend themselves, I know just how capable they are of fighting for themselves. You are the ones who are here to learn, not them."

The silence was interrupted then as someone spoke, Malfoy identified him as Blaize Zabini, a Slytherin of little importance but a big mouth,

"But we already know how to defend ourselves. That's what we have our wands for."

Malfoy winced mentally. He knew how important a wand was to a wizard, but he also knew that if one relied too heavily on any one form of attack, then it became more of a weakness than a strength. That was why he didn't want to antagonise the slayer. As an aristocrat he had had some lessons in fencing, but he knew his skills of actual defence were shockingly lacking. The slayer would be able to teach him what he needed to know better than anyone else. The slayer answered the arrogant Zabini in this manner,

"Mr Zabini. In the time you have since you just said that, I could have killed you in exactly twenty different ways, not a single one of them involving my using a wand. You do not have anything resembling the mental control to perform magic without a wand, therefore once you have lost your wand, you are and have nothing."

The cocky Zabini was not to be dissuaded,

"No one can perform magic without a wand, it's not possible."

The slayer smirked at this and turned towards the red-head she had introduced as Willow Rosenburg,

"Will, a bit of the mojo, if you please."

The redhead smiled and closed her eyes. After a moment, the air around her began to shimmer slightly and her face began to change. Slowly, her delicate pale features morphed into those of another person, this one with distinctive cheekbones and bleached blonde hair. It was an obviously male face. The slayer snorted,

"Very funny Will. But the idea of you with Spike's face is just too wiggy, so cut the mojo now. I do believe we have proved the idiot wrong now."

The redhead smiled a cheeky smile through the blonde's mouth and turned back into her usual self. But the fool Zabini was still not convinced,

" I still don't see why we need this class. We only need magic to defend ourselves. We are vastly superior using it than with physical defence."

This time it was Potter who spoke. His voice was laced with contempt for the idiot Zabini.

"Fool. You have no idea what you are talking about. Buffy said she could have killed you in twenty different ways. A vampire could have killed you in twice that many. Buffy could also do that, but she doesn't slay humans. You don't need magic to kill a person; all you need is the opportunity. And the guts to do it. It's not easy. Even when it's a vampire you're killing. Until they show their true demonic visage they look exactly like the person whose body they are in. They have all that person's memories and no conscience, no soul. They live only for the blood, for the kill. To them, it doesn't matter whether you're a wizard or not, you're simply food."

There was a muted silence as the man spoke,

"A vampire is almost impervious to wand produced magic. The Cruciatus curse does no more than tickle them. Having the Imperius curse on them is rather like being asked for a favour by your mortal enemy. They don't notice most other curses and jinxes at all. When you're fighting a vampire, you don't have anything but yourself. Zabini, how many vampires have you slain?"

The question came out of the blue, abruptly ending the speech. Zabini scowled and answered unhappily,

"None."

Potter smirked,

"I thought as much. Harris, how many vamps and demons have you slain?"

The dark haired boy sitting by the dark haired girl looked up suddenly then answered,

"One too few. But other than that, maybe twenty or twenty-five, that's not including all the preying-mantis lady's eggs."

Then Potter turned back to the slayer,

"Buffy, how many have you done?"

The slayer shrugged,

"Lost count ages ago. At least one hundred within the last year I'd say. Are we counting the blue boy, 'cos I'd have never been able to slay him if it weren't for Xander coming up with the rocket launcher?"

Potter seemed interested now,

"Harris fetched the rocket launcher?"

The slayer nodded,

"Yeah, him and Cordy. They went to the military base and picked it up for me, along with some other stuff. That was a good birthday present. It sure beat Spike's contribution of an arm in a box."

Potter seemed slightly stunned,

"How did Harris get his hands on a machine gun?"

The slayer smirked,

"You remember that Halloween when Xander turned into a soldier and I turned into Miss Vapid idiot from the 18th century. We got the memories of the person that we were. Xander pretty much remembered everything about the military base. He managed to bluff his way onto the base and picked me out a beautiful little rocket launcher. It's one of those presents that really can't be beaten. He got me some other stuff as well, you know; a Remington M32 shotgun, a Beretta M92F, an Ingram M10 sub-machine gun, an AK47, a coupla' machetes, decent stuff. "

Zabini interrupted them then,

"Miss Summer's is the Slayer, it doesn't matter how many she's killed."

Potter smirked,

"That's where you're wrong. Buffy's a muggle, all she has is her strength and herself. Harris is a muggle and he doesn't have slayer skills to rely on, all he has is himself and he's still killed more vamps and demons than you ever will."

There was silence at this and the slayer spoke into it,

"So, does anyone have any more questions?"

Almost everyone in the room shoved their hand into the air. The Slayer groaned and pointed to a random person,

"What was your toughest slay?"

The slayer winced,

"Why does everyone always ask that? First Faith, now you, whoever the hell you are. The Three were pretty tough, weren't they Angel. Then there were those assassins from the Order of Taraka. Then there was the Master, he was tough. Spike's a bit of a challenge as well, but I could probably take him, 'cos he's got his weakness in Dru'. There was one who was my hardest slay, but he's none of your business."

The students seemed bewildered by most of this answer, most of them making a mental note to go to the library as soon as possible and find out who these people were that the slayer was talking about. The Slayer pointed to another hand then,

"Can you give us a display of what we will be learning in this class?"

The slayer sighed,

"Who wants to help me give a display?"

Almost the entire class shoved their hands into the air once again in an attempt to get a chance to fight the Vampire Slayer herself. The slayer smirked and reached under her desk, she brought out a huge metal bar,

"This bar is solid steel. Xander, try and bend it please."

The boy called Xander walked forwards and attempted to bend the bar, with no luck whatsoever. The slayer then lifted the bar with ease and tied it into a knot. She then tossed the knotted steel to the bar and watched him try to unbend it. He had no success. She then took the steel back and un-knotted it with nearly no effort. She then spoke,

"Okay, anyone still want to help me give a demonstration?"

Not a single hand went into the air. The slayer sighed,

"This is pathetic. I should probably give a demonstration. Angel, put on something practical and get out of those ridiculous robes. Are you okay to give a demo yet?"

Potter, or Angel, as she called him, nodded. He closed his eyes in the same manner that the red-haired witch had done earlier and his school uniform soon disappeared to be replaced by leather trousers and a red velvet shirt. The slayer walked over to one of the cabinets and pulled the doors open to display a huge array of weaponry.

"What do you want us to use?"

Malfoy decided to speak now,

"The broadswords."

Both the slayer and Potter winced at this and the slayer seemed to become unbelievably sad for some reason,

"No, no swords, not today."

All the visitors from Sunnydale had sympathy and pity in their eyes as they looked at the two. Draco wondered what had happened with the swords that made the Slayer so averse to using them, but he guessed he had overstepped his bounds,

"My apologies. The staffs, then?"

The slayer nodded and accepted the apology. She removed two heavy wooden staffs from the case and tossed one to Potter with ease, holding the other in a perfect hold. The two combatants circled each other for a time. They made a few practise strikes at each other, warming up for the approaching fight. Then the fight truly began. It was truly amazing. Sometimes it was impossible to watch the fight as the two moved too fast for them to follow. The staffs became mere blurs of dark would between the two fighters. There were thuds occasionally as wood met flesh and after some time, the movement stopped. The slayer stood over Potter, her staff held at his chest, poised as if to pierce his heart.

There was a moment of stunned silence and then the applause began. The Slayer removed her staff from over Potter's heart and reached down to help him up. The slayer was slightly flushed and they were both sweating a little. The slayer spoke as she turned to Potter,

"You're getting better again, you almost had me then."

Potter smiled at her,

"I'm recovering. You're still better than me though."

The slayer had removed her robed before the fight and stood there, wearing only black trousers and a white crop top. The top was drenched in sweat and clung to her chest. The entire class was stunned by the display, all except the four from Sunnydale. They treated it as if it were a normal occurrence. Malfoy had expected that standard from the Slayer, but Potter. Where had he gained that skill and strength? And what was he recovering from that he could occasionally beat the slayer in a fight beforehand? All of these questions needed answering. Before he could frame any of them however, the bell rang to signify the end of class. The slayer spoke then.

"You'd better get gone then. You have potions next and I doubt his greasiness would be please if you were all late."

With that she sent them all out of her room and beckoned the seventh year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs inside.

TBC