Chapter 7
Buffy stared at the wand blankly, resisting the urge to throw it across the room. Even when she was in a different time and place, she still couldn't escape him. Even though she knew better, it felt like he was taunting her, teasing her from beyond the hell dimension, daring her to forget. She had only just begun to feel almost human, almost normal, and now this was thrown at her.
"How much for the wand, Mr. Ollivander?" Dumbledore asked. Ollivander had been staring at Buffy curiously, and Dumbledore felt the need to draw his attention away.
"Oh, I wouldn't dream of charging you for that," Ollivander replied, waving his hand dismissively before packing up the large stack of wand boxes on the couch. "It was a mere experiment, not meant to see my sale shelves. I'd be happy to gift her with it, as long as she keeps me updated as to how the wand performs."
"I'm sure she'll have no problems with that," Dumbledore said with a smile. He gestured towards the fireplace. "Thank you for everything, Mr. Ollivander. I expect your bill for this house call shortly."
"Oh pish posh, old friend," Ollivander replied, waving his hand dismissively again. "I don't bill my friends because they've invited me for a visit. This little side trip is something I'm more than happy to do, Albus. I should probably be on my way, though; I have a feeling someone might be in with a broken wand today, and I don't want them standing outside my dark shop for too long."
"I'll see you before long, old friend," Dumbledore said with a smile as he gestured towards the fireplace again. Ollivander took a sack of something out of his pocket tossed a handful of powder into the fire and whooshed off in a flash of green flame.
Buffy still stared at her wand, turning it over in her hand and examining every inch of it. It was pretty, and somewhat thicker than the other wands she had handled previously. Could possibly be used as a stake, she thought with a small smile. But then she thought about the core and her smile dropped.
"That wand was meant for you, Miss Summers," Dumbledore said quietly, causing her to jump. She looked up at him curiously, wondering at the back of her head how he had gotten near her without her noticing.
"What makes you think that?" Buffy asked.
"Look at it, think about its composition," Dumbledore replied. "It's durable, which means that in a pinch it could probably be used as a weapon you're more accustomed with. As for the composition, I think it's rather fitting. A Slayer with a vampire blood wand? It's destiny at its finest."
"If you say so," Buffy muttered under her breath. She wondered what Angel would say if he knew she had a wand and would be doing magic with his blood, but quickly quashed that thought as tears sprung to her eyes. She wouldn't be seeing him, ever again, and it was all her fault. At least she had something of his, indirectly; her wand was something she would cherish.
"Something else came for you by emergency owl post early this morning," Dumbledore added. He took a small package from his pocket and tapped it with his wand. He set the enlarged package, now the size of a large box, onto the floor. "I think it might be your school supplies, but I was hoping you would do the honors."
Buffy opened the box and peeked inside; there were books, parchment, quills, more bottles of ink that she could ever need – maybe they were in multiple colors or something – and a book bag to hold all of it. There were also robes with the Gryffindor crest, two more sets of clothes for the uniforms and another pair of shoes.
"Wow, when you said you were going to get my supplies, you went all out," Buffy remarked, sifting through the supplies. She looked up and Dumbledore and smiled. "You didn't have to get me all of this. Thank you."
"It's nothing more than what the other students get when they purchase supplies for the year," Dumbledore replied. "Except for the ink. I think everyone should have a variety to choose from when it comes to ink. Black is so boring, wouldn't you agree?"
"Yeah, sure," Buffy said, a little unsure.
"Here is your schedule," Dumbledore said, handing Buffy a piece of parchment. "I have taken the liberty of picking your classes, but if you don't enjoy them you are free to change them. Unfortunately Miss McGonagall will not be in any of your classes, seeing as she is a seventh year, but I'm sure you'll have no problems."
Buffy chewed her lip nervously; while logical that she wouldn't have any classes with the one person in her house she actually knew, she wasn't sure that she was okay with the idea. As well, there was the prospect of Tom Riddle being in her classes as well because he, like her, was a sixth year.
"Professor Dumbledore, do the houses take classes together?" Buffy asked.
"Yes, they do," Dumbledore replied. "I believe you have Transfiguration with the Ravenclaws, Herbology with the Hufflepuffs and Potions with the Slytherins. I think, as well, the optional classes are integrated."
"I see," Buffy said quietly.
"Are you ready to go to breakfast?" Dumbledore asked. He was growing worried; while Buffy had progressed in the last few days, eating meals with the rest of the school and heading back to her room alone, he wondered if he might be pushing her too far too fast.
"As ready as I'll ever be," Buffy replied with a sigh. She checked her schedule; she had Transfiguration, Potions, Divination and Care of Magical Creatures that day. "Um, Professor Dumbledore… what books do I need for today?"
Dumbledore rummaged through the box and came up with four books, the book bag, some parchment, a couple of quills and two bottles of ink. Buffy had a feeling the ink wasn't going to be black.
"Here are the books you need for today," Dumbledore said, placing the books into the bag for her before packing up the rest of the supplies. He handed her the bag. "I'm sure you'll find them self explanatory. I will be speaking with Miss McGonagall about your tutoring; if she can't help you out, she will be able to suggest someone who can."
"Sounds fair," Buffy said uncertainly. She was unsure if she was able to do this; while she had been excited the night before about the prospect of being a student, it was really beginning to hit her.
"Are you going to be all right, Miss Summers?" Dumbledore asked. "If you really feel the need to, we can postpone the beginning of your classes until you feel you're ready to face the other students."
"I really hate to say this, but if we did that I'd be locked in here for a while," Buffy replied with a sheepish smile. Slinging her bag onto her shoulder, she straightened her back. She was the Slayer; she'd gone up against master vampires, demons and other things that went bump in the night. She'd been kicked out of her house, killed her boyfriend and done other horrible, unimaginable things. She'd died, for Pete's sake.
She could do this.
"Let's do this thing," Buffy said confidently. She strode past Dumbledore to the door, only pausing long enough to make sure he was coming with her.
Buffy walked the corridors with her head held high. It was easy; no one was around because everyone had already made it to breakfast. She walked confidently alongside Dumbledore until they reached the Great Hall where, again, every single pair of eyes watched her enter.
The closer she got to the Gryffindor table, the more uncomfortable she felt. By the time they actually reached the table, Buffy felt like running back to her room and locking the door, not allowing anyone in. However, that wasn't an option, so Buffy took a deep, calming breath before pasting a happy smile on her face.
"Miss Summers, I'd like you to meet your housemates," Dumbledore said, gesturing at the table full of people. "I'm sure you all remember Miss Summers from last night. She has recently been sorted into Gryffindor, and I hope you'll make her feel welcome."
He turned and headed to the staff table, leaving Buffy standing at the table awkwardly. The group of students were staring at her, making her feel uncomfortable.
"Buffy, come and sit with me!" Minerva said, waving her over. Buffy smiled slightly as she walked over and sat next to the taller girl. "So, why didn't you tell me you were going to be a student?"
Buffy looked up at Minerva; while her tone was light, there was something in her eyes. Could she actually be hurt that Buffy didn't reveal everything at their first meeting? It was ludicrous to even think it, but there Minerva was, looking at her with those eyes that made Buffy want to admit everything.
"Leave her alone, Minnie, you just met her," said a boy from across the table from them. "Why don't you introduce her to everyone?"
"She was introduced last night," Minerva replied. "Or were you in detention again?"
"Come on Minnie, don't be like that," the boy pleaded before turning to Buffy. "The name's Terrence Longbottom. Now tell me, is Buffy your real name or is it some cruel joke Dippet's playing on us?"
"It's my real first name," Buffy replied with a sigh. She hoped that Terrence was the only person who would make fun of her name. "My parents were really into making me completely unique and gave me a first name that no one else would have."
"I feel so, so sorry for you," Terrence said, shaking his head. "Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah, introductions! Over there is Augusta Smith, she's a seventh year too. And just down the table is my little brother Algie, he's a fifth year. There's Quentin Trimble, he's a sixth year and a bit of a wimp, if you ask me."
"So, what year are you in?" Augusta asked with a kind smile, interrupting Terrence. He huffed and sulked, but Buffy was glad for the distraction; she wouldn't be able to remember all of those names anyway. "And don't you dare call me Augusta; it's just August, most of the time."
"I'm signed up as a sixth year, but I'm going to need a lot of help," Buffy replied. "I don't know a whole lot of magic."
"Why's that?" Terrence asked. "American schools not up to snuff?"
"Try 'never gone to a magic school' and you might get a little closer," Buffy replied sheepishly.
"Not surprised, you know," Terrence said with a sniff. "Americans have no idea how to identify true magical talent. Say, why are you here instead of there? Not that I'm complaining, mind – we need more pretty decorations around here."
"Oh leave her alone," August said, smacking Terrence on the shoulder. "Great way to make friends there, Terry. I don't know why I hang around you most of the time, you're so insensitive!"
"Men aren't supposed to be sensitive, that's a girl thing," Terrence said with a sniff. "And you hit like a girl, Augusta."
August huffed and crossed her arms. Buffy smiled a little; she had a feeling she would be greatly amused, if anything else, while residing in Gryffindor.
"Well, could you tell me a little bit about the people I might have in my classes?" Buffy asked, spooning some eggs and bacon onto her plate. She didn't see very many healthy choices in front of her, which meant she would have to watch what she ate if she were to keep her figure. Slayer metabolism only went so far, after all.
"The only ones you really have to worry about are the Slytherins," Terrence replied. He glared at something across the room, and Buffy followed his gaze. Not surprisingly, her eyes fell on Tom Riddle, and he was surrounded by a group of rather dark and sinister looking boys who looked about his age. Tom smiled at her and wiggled his fingers in a wave before turning his attention to his breakfast.
"Looks like you've already met Riddle," Terrence said.
"Don't remind me," Buffy said with a roll of her eyes. "Knowing my luck, I'll probably have to sit next to him in any classes I've got with the Slytherins."
"What do you have?" Minerva asked. "We should probably set up a study schedule to get you up to scratch as soon as possible. Thankfully, you don't have any major exams this year, but that doesn't mean you can slack off."
"Here, I'll give you my schedule," Buffy replied. She dug around in her bag and pulled out the folded piece of parchment with her schedule printed on it. She handed it to Minerva, who perused it with her sharp eyes.
"Looks like you've got the basics – Charms, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Potions and Transfiguration," Minerva said as she scanned the piece of paper. "Professor Slughorn will probably be fine with giving you extra lab time and tutoring, but you better let me talk to him about it. I can tutor you on Transfiguration, as it's my best subject. Those two are usually the hardest to learn; the other ones are kind of based off of those two. We should probably see how much you need to learn before we start any major tutoring. I have a prefect's meeting after lessons today, but would you be all right with going over your lessons after dinner tonight?"
"So I'm assuming Professor Dumbledore talked to you about giving me a hand?" Buffy asked. "And yeah, that sounds great. It's not like I'll have anything else to do, anyway."
"Yes, he spoke to me last night, presumably after you got Sorted," Minerva replied, handing Buffy her schedule. "And excellent. I'll see you in the common room after dinner, then. The password for the tower is "fiddlesticks", and I'll meet you after your last class to show you the quickest way to the common room."
"Thanks Minerva," Buffy said gratefully, not quite sure if she was allowed to call her Minnie yet. She took a bite of toast and swallowed before continuing. "Thanks so much for helping me out; I really appreciate it."
"You won't be thanking her after she draws up your study schedule," Terrence interjected. Minerva scowled at him, reaching across the table to smack him on the arm. "Ow, that hurt!"
"Well, if you had a set of brakes between your brain and your mouth, we wouldn't have to beat on you so much," August retorted with a grin.
"It's really no problem at all," Minerva replied with a shrug. "I'm happy to help; even if Dumbledore hadn't asked me to tutor you, if I'd seen you struggling with your work I would have helped, no questions asked."
"Still, thanks," Buffy said with another smile. "I'm still kind of new to the magic thing, so any help I can get is awesome."
"I can help you with Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures," Terrence said with a smile. "And Trimble's good with Defence Against the Dark Arts, at least the theory bit and he can help you with that. And August is brilliant in Charms, so she can help you there."
"Thanks so much for volunteering my services," August said with a roll of her eyes. "Not that I mind or anything, I'd love to help, but I would have appreciated the opportunity to offer up my services on my own."
"Sorry August," Terrence said sheepishly.
Buffy smiled slightly to herself as she watched listened to the people around her. It seemed like the trio she was sitting with had been friends for years, and she felt almost rude for listening in on the affectionate bickering that was obviously a normal occurrence.
Breakfast passed relatively quietly after that and before long everyone was getting up to head to their first classes of the day.
"Come on, I'll introduce you to Quentin," Minerva said as she rose from his seat. "He's a good guy. Hey, Quint!"
A rather short, skinny boy looked up from his breakfast, his face breaking into a shy smile when he saw who was hailing him. He waved at Minerva as she made her way through the growing crowd clamoring to get out of the Great Hall.
"All right, Minnie?" he asked, a flush staining his cheeks. "Who's your friend?"
"Quentin, I'd like you to meet Buffy Summers," Minerva said with a smile. "Would you mind showing her around today? She needs a little help finding her classes."
"Sure, no problem," Quentin said with a smile. Minerva's smile widened into a grin as she waved good-bye to them before turning and rushing back to her friends. Quinton turned his attention to Buffy, his smile shy. "So what's your story? Hogwarts doesn't normally accept transfers, you know."
"I'd figured as much," Buffy replied as she followed Quentin out of the Great Hall. "You know the story… girl is born on a magical convergence and isn't discovered to have magic until she leaves said convergence to go on vacation. Hogwarts was notified of this first and extended the first invitation, which I accepted."
"That sounds fascinating. You have to tell me the full story sometime," Quentin remarked as he navigated them through the masses of students all trying to make their way to their classes. "So, you don't know any magic at all?"
"Only the stuff in fairy tales," Buffy replied. While far from true, she couldn't exactly let on that she did, in fact, know about magic, because that would lead to far too many questions.
"So you're Muggle-born?" Quentin asked. "And why did your parents decide to come here on vacation? Don't the know there's a war going on?"
"Neither of my parents are magical… at least, I don't think they are. It's never been mentioned before," Buffy replied. "And they weren't in Britain at all; we were visiting family out of town, and my name came up on the Hogwarts records. We don't know why, but I think Dippet and Dumbledore decided not to question it."
She made a mental note to let Dumbledore know that she had altered that small detail of her cover story; she'd forgotten that Europe was in the middle of The Second World War, which showed how much she paid attention in history class. She wondered if the war had seeped into the wizarding world as well; it was another question she made a note to ask Dumbledore about.
"Well, here we are, Sixth Year Potions," Quentin said as they entered the dungeon classroom where Potions was held. Buffy shivered; she didn't like the cold, dank feel and she missed the southern California warmth. She had a feeling that she wouldn't ever get used to the northern Scotland dampness.
"Miss Summers, I presume?" asked a voice from the front of the room. Buffy turned her attention away from Quentin to address the teacher.
"Yes, that's right," Buffy replied with a nod.
"Professor Horace Slughorn, a pleasure to meet you my dear," he said jovially. He was a rather round-shaped man with thinning brown hair streaked sparsely with grey. He had a small moustache and beard and he looked like a younger version of Santa Claus. "Mr. Trimble, please find your seat. Yes, that's a good boy, thank you."
"Right back at ya," Buffy replied with a smile, causing Slughorn to chuckle lightly.
"Now, all of us professors have been apprised of the situation, of course," Slughorn continued. "As such, I am going to partner you up with my top student in this class and hope some of his potion making talent rubs off on you."
Slughorn gestured to the back of the room, presumably where his top student sat. Her gaze landed on the one student without a desk partner and her face fell slightly when she saw who it was.
Tom Riddle was Professor Slughorn's best student.
"Thank you, Professor," Buffy said, trying hard not to groan. She didn't want to deal with him on her very first day in her very first class, but it seemed as if it were inevitable. She just hoped that she wouldn't have to take any more classes with him for the rest of the day.
"It's nice to see you again, Summers," Riddle said with a smirk as she plopped down into the seat next to Riddle.
"I wish I could say the feeling's mutual, Riddle," Buffy replied, trying not to scowl too hard as she searched her bag for her potions text, parchment, ink and a quill.
"Now that everyone is here, I would like to commence with the lesson," Slughorn began. "Because we have a new student today, I would like to take this opportunity to recap what we have learned so far. For some this will be a good refresher, for others a tutorial and for a few of you it might be a good idea to take a nap."
He chuckled at his own joke before launching into the lesson. Buffy listened carefully, trying her best to take notes, but was finding it difficult to do so when she could feel Riddle watching her.
"Interesting color of ink you have there," he remarked with a smirk. Buffy had been rather unlucky and had picked a bottle of fluorescent pink ink, and by the time she had realized it, the lesson had already started and trying to find another bottle of ink would have cost her some valuable lecture information.
"Not intentional," Buffy replied with a sigh, making a mental note to test out all of the bottles of ink Dumbledore had gotten for you, and only keeping the ones that were borderline normal.
"How are you finding your first day?" Riddle asked.
"Would be great if someone would shut up and let me get on with my work," Buffy replied testily.
"Yes, I suppose Slughorn does like to hear the sound of his own voice," Riddle said with a smirk.
"I was talking about you," Buffy replied with a glare.
"Ooh, touchy, touchy," Riddle said, holding up his hands in mock surrender. "Although I have a feeling you and I will be spending a lot of time together in the coming weeks."
"Yeah, right," Buffy muttered under her breath.
The rest of the lesson passed uneventfully, with Buffy ending up with copious amount of notes from the lecture. She'd never written that much for a class, ever, because she always had Willow to give her a hand with stuff like that. Now, though, while she had a blossoming friendship with some of the seventh years in her house, she still felt the need to be more self-reliant, especially at first. As of yet, she didn't quite feel comfortable asking to mooch notes off of anyone.
"And I think that's where I'll leave it today," Slughorn said with five minutes to go until the end of the lesson. "Please read chapters eleven and twelve before next class in preparation of the potion we will be brewing next time. Summers, Riddle, a word please."
Quentin elbowed his way over to Buffy as she made her way to the front of the classroom, Riddle unfortunately by her side. All she wanted to do was get to her next class and survive the day, but that obviously wasn't going to happen easily.
"Hey Buffy, I'll wait for you in the hall and we can walk to Charms together," he said with a smile. Buffy nodded in agreement and smiled and turned back to Slughorn as Quentin exited with the rest of the students.
"Miss Summers, I think you might benefit from some tutoring in this class, seeing as you're quite far behind in your studies," Slughorn said. "I have asked Mr. Riddle if he would tutor you, and he has gladly accepted. I trust there will be no objections?"
Buffy remained silent, trusting herself not to speak. Just her luck, she got paired with the one person she wanted to avoid dealing with. She just hoped she picked up on potions quickly enough so that their tutoring sessions wouldn't be too numerous.
"Excellent!" said Slughorn, clapping his hands once exuberantly. "I trust you two can coordinate your own study schedules?"
"Shouldn't be a problem," Riddle said with a grin. Buffy nodded once before turning on her heel and heading out of the classroom.
"What's wrong?" Quentin asked when he caught sight of her face. She must have been wearing her emotions there.
"Riddle's my potions tutor," Buffy replied with a groan.
"Ouch," Quentin said with a sympathetic wince. "Good luck with that. Come on, let's get you to your next class before you get a tardy slip."
"Thanks, I'm probably going to need it," Buffy replied as they hurried to their next class.
Could her day get any worse?
***
Author's Note: Just letting you know, I'm getting a lot of the names I use in this chapter from the Harry Potter Lexicon.