DISCLAIMER: The characters aren't mine. I'm borrowing them from the esteemed Joss Whedon and J.K. Rawling.
SPOILERS/BACKGROUND: Everything from BtVS Season 1 to Season 6, AtS Seasons 1 to 3, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Thanks again so much to everyone who reviewed! You guys rock! (And definitely keep me writing, too!)
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CHAPTER 15:
EXPLORING
"Reducto!" Buffy shouted. The innocent wooden box they had brought up onto the roof of Slytherin Tower for target practice splintered.
Willow smiled. They were both learning quickly. "Reparo," she mouthed, flicking her own wand. The box was whole as new. Of course, Willow reflected, if the box had been able to think, it probably would have been quite frustrated, as it had been destroyed thirty times already over the past hour. "You're really doing well with this."
"Go figure," Buffy mouthed. "The only think I can keep up with you in is destroying things."
"Well, you'd think battle magic would come easily to a … to you, all things considered." Willow cursed inwardly. They had been at Hogwarts for more than three weeks already, and she still almost slipped much too often for her own liking.
"I guess it sort of goes with the job description," Buffy admitted. "But you know, it might be nice to be good at something else."
"You're awesome at flying."
"I meant as a school subject. Flying is like gym here, and it's kind of un-nerdly to brag about being better than someone else in gym class."
"Well, you're getting this. Plus, you know, you have other things than magic to work with."
"True, but I'm a ways from being able to …" Buffy seemed to think better of whatever she had been about to say, and threw up her hands. "Want to go look for somewhere else to work?"
Willow thought about it for a while. Except for the one day that Harry had taken her to the Owlery, all she had ever been to here were Slytherin Tower, the Great Hall and Entrance Hall, the library, and the corridors connecting them. She'd always wondered about what could lie in the other parts of the castle, but she'd never had a really good excuse.
"Sure," she said. "Why not?" She gathered up a couple of books and the notebook she'd begun compiling, and they headed out of Slytherin Tower.
"Any ideas?" she asked as soon as they were in the great stairwell.
"Not really," Buffy admitted. "But from the looks of things, when Draco and I were out flying, most of the people live and work in this half of the castle, so I figured we might as well try the far side. Maybe there'll be some big rooms that aren't used in the summer."
"Works for me," Willow answered. "If nothing else, we can find where our classes are going to be this fall."
They explored the upper levels of the castle and found nothing to their liking; there were many empty rooms, but most were either being used for storage or were classrooms with desks and other things that would get in the way. They had worked their way down to the second floor when they heard a sound from a door off to their right that sounded like a girl crying.
"What's that?" Buffy whispered.
"Sounds like someone's in trouble," Willow answered. She knew there would have been no way around going to check it out, even had she wanted to; Buffy would never have left the matter uninvestigated. Sure enough, Buffy was already hurrying over to the door from which the sounds were coming.
"It's a girl's restroom?" the Slayer asked, puzzled.
"Like you've never cried in a bathroom," Willow added. Then again, maybe her friend hadn't. Then again, she thought, reading her friend's reaction, maybe she had. Buffy's shoulders sagged and she went in. She had realized that it was more likely to be a girl depressed than one under attack.
"Hello?" Willow called as she entered the bathroom behind her friend. It didn't look like there was anyone here. The sobbing had stopped the moment they opened the door. Willow backed up a step and stopped in the doorway. An uneasy feeling had suddenly developed in her stomach as she had set foot in the room. "Is anyone here?"
"Who … who is it?" a girl's voice asked.
"We … we just wanted to see if anything was wrong," Buffy said, now several steps into the bathroom. She turned aside, and the uneasy feeling in Willow stomach solidified; it was dark, and dangerous.
"Buffy … I don't think we should be in here," Willow said hesitantly. For some reason, looking at the round pillar of sinks that had come into view when Buffy had moved aside was making her very nervous. She suddenly felt the wand inside her robes begin to pulse and throb, and she put a hand over her heart.
"Of course not!" the girl's voice screamed from nearby. A silver figure streamed out of the sink where Willow had been looking, and both she and Buffy jumped. Willow gave a frightened squeak. The girl continued. "Why should anyone ever want to come and talk to me? Poor, miserable, Moaning Myrtle, stay out of her bathroom! No one should ever need to go in there!" With a last, melodramatic shriek, she floated up and dove back down into the sink.
Buffy looked at Willow. "I don't know how you knew she was there," she said, "but I think you're right. We shouldn't be here." The sink gave an irritated, dirty bubble. Willow was suddenly being herded back out into the hall. Buffy was already moving on down the hall before Willow could mention that she had felt something in the restroom that felt worse than an ordinary ghost; not even the Bloody Baron had had that kind of feeling around him. Her wand had stopped throbbing as soon as they had left the room.
A short distance later, they heard voices in the distance. Willow recognized the sharp, crisp intonation that always accompanied spellcasting, and the hairs on the back of her neck began to prick up. Looking at Buffy, it was fairly obvious that they Slayer felt it, too.
"Hear that?" Willow asked quietly.
"Feel that?" Buffy answered.
"Sounds like fighting," Willow added.
Buffy was already moving forward. Willow rolled her eyes. The worse a situation could be, the more recklessly Buffy always seemed to head into it.
The reached the door from which the voices were coming, a high archway into a large room. High windows and suspended torches provided the light. The centerpiece of the room was a long, blue-surfaced table adorned with a series of diagrams of the different phases of the moon.
Lupin and Moody were dueling on top of it.
Willow had never seen a wizard's duel before, even a practice one, and she found herself wishing fervently that she never had to see a real one if this what was a practice one looked like. Both of the professors were speaking so quickly that it was amazing that they could enunciate at that speed, much less move their wands so dexterously, and sparks and jets of multicolored light flew from the ends of their wands, bouncing off invisible shields or fizzling out as their targets cast their counter-curses.
"Wow," Buffy whispered beside her.
Willow noticed then that there was an hourglass floating in midair a short distance above the center of the table, filled with bright yellow sand. It was almost empty. Willow watched as they fired off a few more spells at each other, trying to pick up some of the charms and curses they were using, then the sand ran out.
Between one heartbeat and the next, the two teachers stopped. Lupin mopped sweat from his face with a smile. "You're looking in good shape with that thing," he said.
"Lots of practice," Moody replied gruffly. He seemed to be much less tired.
"Don't know why you're sparring with me," Lupin added. "Shacklebolt could give you a better workout."
"Shacklebolt's busy enough," Moody answered. "Might as well ask Dumbledore."
"If you think you'd give Dumbledore a workout," Lupin countered soberly, "you're a lot less cautious than your reputation."
"Oh, I'm quite beyond cautious, I'm downright paranoid," he said with grim humor, patting the flask at his side; Willow had heard that he drank from nothing else. "I always think that things could be a trap, or that people could be watching me. Especially," he added, turning to face Buffy and Willow, who were still half-hidden behind the entrance and who had been behind Moody, "because they often are."
"Hi, professor!" Buffy called out, walking into the room.
"Miss Summers," Lupin acknowledged brightly. Then, a moment later, "and Miss Rosenberg, I presume. Not used to seeing you in this part of the castle."
"Yeah, we, uh … well, we were looking for someplace more private than Slytherin Tower to practice," Willow added lamely. Moody's eye on her made her innards squirm, and it came to her mind again that the teachers all knew what she done, and nearly done. Most of them had been surprisingly accepting of her, treating her as any other student, but she couldn't help but wonder what they thought about her privately.
"Practice, eh?" Moody mused. "What kind of practice?"
"Battle magic," Buffy answered immediately. Willow winced. She wished she hadn't said it so casually.
Moody raised the eyebrow above his glass eye. "Really? Not looking for a place to duel, I hope?"
"No, no," Willow and Buffy both said simultaneously.
Moody gave them another questioning look, as though he were suspicious. Then he shrugged. "Very well then. Well, we were finished here, so you can use this room, if you'd like. Don't make too big a mess." With that, he excused himself, his artificial eye following them even as he walked by them; Willow would swear that she saw it turn sideways in its socket as he went by, as though it could see her through the inside of his skull. The clunking footfalls of his wooden leg receded into the distance.
Buffy gave a puzzled look after him. "What's his deal?" he asked.
Lupin, who hadn't even dismounted from the table yet, gave a light laugh. "Moody's generally a suspicious character. He was one of the most successful Aurors ever, before he had to leave the Ministry, but he racked up a lot of enemies. One of Voldemort's servants kidnapped him and disguised himself as Moody two years ago, using Polyjuice Potion—a potion that allows you to take the physical form of someone else. The fake taught Defense Against the Dark Arts here at Hogwarts for a full year, just waiting for a chance to get at Harry, all the while keeping the real Moody alive in his steamer trunk to get pieces of him, so he could keep brewing the potion."
Willow's eyes widened, and she cast a completely different kind glance down the hallway where Moody had gone. No wonder the man was paranoid. Of course, the old cliché about it not being paranoia if they really were after you sprang into her head.
"So the real one got the job, then the fake one kidnapped him and took his place, and now the real one's back?"
Lupin nodded. "He took last year off, doing some other things for Dumbledore, since it wasn't public that Voldemort had come back yet; last year was a rather—interesting—one, even by Hogwarts standards."
Willow nodded. Over the past three weeks, she'd heard bits and pieces of what had happened the previous year, though most of the tales seemed to center more on the Weasley twins' escape than the more important things.
"So what's your story?" Buffy asked.
"Sorry?"
"How'd you end up with a share of the Defense job?"
"Oh. I guess people don't talk about me as much as I thought. Maybe they've got other things to talk about now."
"We're a little new here, you know."
Lupin nodded. He seemed to be deciding how much he wanted to say. "True. Well, I taught the year before Moody was hired. I had to leave once people found out I was a werewolf."
Willow and Buffy's eyes widened together. "You're a werewolf?" Willow asked curiously.
Lupin smiled. "Well, that's not the reaction I expected, but I guess that's a good thing. Most people have certain … notions … about werewolves."
"I guess they didn't tell you everything about me," Willow said. "I dated one for a while." She hadn't thought about Oz in some time.
It Lupin's eyes' turn to widen. "They certainly didn't tell me that. Fascinating. And you knew this when you were seeing each other?"
Willow nodded. "He locked himself up every full moon, and we just lived with it. Living on the Hellmouth kind of plays with your idea of what's an acceptable risk."
Lupin's gaze was thoughtful. "I take a potion for it," he said. "I still transform, but I don't go mad."
Willow was shocked. "Oh my gosh, you're going to have to teach me that! I never knew there was such a thing."
"There wasn't," Lupin admitted. "Professor Snape invented it a few years ago."
Willow thought she was shocked before, but she was even more so now. "He invented it?" She never would have thought Snape the kind to be able to do something like that. She'd always thought of him as just a grumpy middle-aged man.
Lupin's smile was kindly, but serious. "Now, now, Miss Rosenberg, you don't really think he got the position as potions teacher for nothing?" Lupin asked. "I asked him to show me how to make it, so he wouldn't have to himself. It was completely beyond me. Besides Dumbledore, Nicholas Flamel, and Voldemort, Professor Snape is probably the only man in the world skilled enough to make it."
Willow found herself thinking of her Head of House in an entirely new way. She could tell that Buffy was thinking the same thing, too.
"Anyway," Lupin said, continuing, "if you want to practice battle magic, this is probably as good a room as any. It was converted into a dueling club three years ago, and the room was left as it was even though the club fell apart. However, if you're just looking for a more private place to practice, you're welcome to use my office."
Willow looked up at him. "Are you serious?"
Lupin's eyes twinkled. "Of course," he said. "As long as you aren't planning on trying Denblight or House of Ill Omen curses."
"What about the Meteorus charm?"
"I'd rather you not try that one, either."
"I think we'll manage," Willow grinned. She turned to Buffy. "What do you think?"
Buffy looked appraisingly at Lupin for a moment, as though wondering if she were missing something in his offer, then nodded.
Lupin smiled and led them to his office. It wasn't far. It was cozy, but still larger than any professor's office Willow had ever seen at UC-Sunnydale; it sported a large, polished wooden desk and an elegant fireplace, as well as several shelves of books.
"Well, it isn't much, but I doubt you'll be disturbed; students are welcome to come visit me, but no one ever does," Lupin said, with a gesture around the room. "Feel free to use it whenever you want, except on the three days around the full moon." With that, he walked over to his desk, sat down, and began writing out lesson plans.
Willow suddenly understood what had made Buffy suspicious of Lupin's offer, and she was surprised that she hadn't thought of it herself. Lupin would of course be in his office, if not all the time, then at least part of the time. It seemed extremely unlikely that anyone else would use magical eavesdropping on a teacher's office, particularly a Defense Against the Dark Arts one; in addition to being a much more serious offense, the office was probably warded somehow. However, the cost of the privacy from everyone else would be letting Lupin watch what they were doing, at least some of the time.
For some reason, however, Willow found that that didn't bother her overmuch. She made a note to look for a better place, where they could have complete privacy, but she doubted they were going to find that just by walking around, and a better offer was unlikely to present itself. There was also the fact that Lupin was the professor for all the first through fourth year Defense classes, so he would probably be able to help them along with their studies, if he wanted.
"Well," Buffy said behind her. "Where were we?"
"A couple more Reductors," Willow answered reflexively. She thought about her next answer, but realized that all the teachers already knew as much about her as anyone anyway, and Harry had seemed to think highly of Lupin in one of his letters. The only real reason for leaving the Tower had been to find a place where they could say words like 'Slayer' without risking giving anything away. She continued, "then elemental spells and wards. If we can get through earth and water today, we can finish fire and air tomorrow and enjoy the weekend at Hogsmeade." Her textbook had said that learning those normally would have taken a week apiece; Willow was hoping to compress everything into two days. If Lupin was impressed by where they were going, or concerned about any damage that might accidentally come to his office, he did not show it. Indeed, he offered a few very helpful tips now and then when he took a break from writing lesson plans for his first-year classes, and even left them alone in the room while he went to teach for an hour and a half.
It was early to say, and Willow had become a somewhat less trusting person over the years since she had unthinkingly followed a vampire into a graveyard, but Willow left Lupin's office that night believing that she had just made another friend at Hogwarts.
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COMING SOON: Chapter 16, "Hogsmeade." Buffy, Willow, Ron and Hermione have a quiet, sedate, leisurely weekend getaway at Hogsmeade with no excessive drama, surprises, suspense, or violence.
Yeah, right!
SNEAK PREVIEW:
"Finite," Willow said quickly, once again laying a hand on her wand within her robes. "It was the same thing I saw outside Honeydukes. Please don't call me crazy when I say this, all right? It was a big, ugly brown rat, and if I didn't know better, I'd swear it was watching us."