Destiny's Fool
Title: Destiny’s Fool
Author: akat
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG-13 for language (thanks, Sirius)
Disclaimer: I do not own BtVS or Harry Potter.
Spoilers: BtVS through Season 3. HP through Book 3. Takes place during BtVS Season 3, after ‘The Wish’.
Summary: She knew her destiny -- one girl in all the world. But she wasn’t in her world anymore, was she?
Word Count: 2994 (Just made it!)
A/N: This is a sequel of sorts to a FAD entry I made in 2013, called Destiny Unraveled.
+++
Buffy slowly made her way through Miller’s Woods, taking in the natural rhythms of the forest.
The light of the half-moon. The rustle of leaves in the breeze. An owl out on the hunt. A patch of mock orange blossoms. A squirrel out way past its bedtime that needed to watch out for aforementioned owl.
She was becoming a regular Boy Scout, all thanks to a slew of extra patrols and training sessions.
Needless to say, Giles was thrilled. The fact that the idea had been all hers was just the icing on the bland English cake.
But what else was she going to do? Ever since Spike’s little visit, she was doing the whole avoiding thing with Angel, Faith was in the middle of one of her disappearing acts, and Xander and Willow were too busy trying to fix their broken relationships to hang out.
Yep, busy friends and a nonexistent love life make one very focused slayer, she thought with a sigh.
Tonight looked like it was a bust, though. She hadn’t found a single demon, and this was her last round, having already patrolled each and every cemetery in Sunnydale.
With another sigh, Buffy picked up her pace, thinking that she would hook up to the loop trail ahead and call it a night. As she walked, however, the strangest thing happened; the air around her shifted, becoming noticeably cooler and danker with every step she took.
Confused, Buffy stopped and looked around; and in that moment, the trees changed on her, transforming into these huge behemoths that stretched up to the sky, their leaves forming canopy so solid that it blocked out everything, even the moon.
Apparently not wanting to be left out, the noises around her changed, too. Her owl and squirrel were gone, replaced by sounds that were both unfamiliar and infinitely more ominous as they echoed in the night.
Buffy tightened her grip on her stake. Though she obviously didn’t have a clue as to what was going on, she highly doubted the forest went from sleepy to creepy in two seconds flat because something good was about to happen.
Sure enough, before she could even figure out what her next steps should be, her spidey sense started tingling. A second later, a noticeable hush fell over the forest.
Buffy gave a grim smile of anticipation, almost welcoming an attack as she braced herself for the incoming baddie. She was definitely more than ready for a fight -- especially if it brought her one step closer to getting out of the Wicked Witch of the West’s forest.
Of course, she had to find the enemy first, which was proving to be more difficult that it should have been. Though she scoured the perimeter for any sign of movement, there was absolutely nothing, just a sea of inky blackness.
It was not an encouraging sign.
Buffy was far from panic mode, though. Maybe her mysterious attacker could avoid being seen. It was a lot harder to sneak attack without making a sound, however, especially when the rest of the forest had gone silent.
Standing absolutely still, Buffy closed her eyes and listened.
At first, she heard nothing.The entire forest seemed to be holding its breath, even the trees. Buffy simply took a deep breath and tried again, putting her slayer hearing to the test and she strained to find anything, even the smallest sound, that would give her attacker away.
After an excruciatingly long moment, she finally picked something out; the tiniest little plop, like the sound a droplet of rain made when it landed on a leaf.
Which meant that it came from above her.
With a start, Buffy opened her eyes and whipped her head up, only to see a gigantic spider silently descending from the trees, its fangs dripping with venom as it bore down on her.
Realizing it had been spotted, it hissed and made a lunge for her, its enormous body moving faster than she thought possible.
Summoning every ounce of slayer speed she had, Buffy threw herself to the side.
It almost wasn’t enough. As she dove out of the way, she felt the hairs on one of the spider’s legs brush her calf; she felt the rush of air as its pincers snapped at her foot.
A little shaken, Buffy put some distance between her and the spider as she tried to figure out how she was going to take the creature down.
The spider seemed to take a moment to size her up, too, moving restlessly from side to side as it made a strange clicking noise. At least, that was what she thought it was doing. After a moment or two, she realized that it was just trying to distract her as at least two dozen more spiders descended down on her.
They were smaller than the first one, but they still outnumbered her. Knowing she was outmatched, Buffy did what any person would do. She feinted to the left, and then turned to the right and hightailed it out of there.
As she ran, she didn’t spare a glance behind her. She didn’t have to; she could hear a cacophony of clicks behind her, coming at her in waves like a roomful of typewriters on the fritz. A few times, they got close, too close. She even felt one touch her hair, but she simply pumped her legs faster, hurdling over logs and other debris like she was Gail Devers going for the gold.
Eventually, the clicks go
t harder and harder to hear, but Buffy wasn’t taking any chances. She kept running, determined not to stop until she got the hell out of there, especially since she could feel other things in the forest watching her.
Finally, after what seemed like forever and a day, Buffy broke through the treeline into a meadow. She immediately put her hands on her knees as she took huge, gulping breaths of air, feeling a distinct sense of relief when there wasn’t a single click to be heard. It evaporated immediately, however, when she looked up; for there, over to her left, was a castle, one that was as large as it was creepy. Way off to the right, she saw was a small hut, which currently had small wisps of smoke wafting out of its chimney. And there shining above her was a now very full moon.
Her stomach dropped at the sight. She didn’t know where she was; she didn’t care. She just wanted to get out of there ASAP. And if she got her hands on a torch gun along the way so she could do a little exterminating? It would be all the better.
Smiling slightly at the thought of crispy fried spider, Buffy began creeping toward the castle, wanting to assess it and see if there was anything useful inside. She made sure to stick to the treeline, as she wanted to avoid anyone -- or anything -- until she knew what she was dealing with. Soon, however, the edge of the forest began receding, bringing her further away from the castle the further she walked.
Frowning, Buffy stopped moving and scanned the area. Her eyes lit up when she spied a large tree, sitting just about halfway from where she was to the castle, on top of a slight incline.
It would give her the perfect view to scope out the area.
After checking that the coast was clear, Buffy made a break for it. Thankfully, she made it to her destination with relative ease. Before she let herself relax, however, she stopped to listen to her surroundings. She breathed a sigh of relief when she heard nothing but the rustle of the leaves.
It took a moment for her to realize that there wasn’t a breeze in the air. And yet the rustling was getting louder.
With a jerk, Buffy looked up at the tree -- just as it took a swing at her.
“Seriously?!” she exclaimed, half in frustration, half in shock.
Then, before she could mull over the surrealness of the situation anymore, she had to hit the deck.
There was a whoosh of air as the branch passed harmlessly over ahead. Knowing that she would get nailed by the backswing if she stood up then, Buffy began rolling away from the tree as fast as she could.
It was a good thing she did, too. No sooner had the first branch missed than the tree began bringing another one of its heavy limbs down at her. She barely moved in time before the branch smashed into the spot where she had just been lying.
Knowing she wasn’t going to get a better opportunity to escape, Buffy scrambled to her feet and, for the second time that night, ran for all she was worth.
Unfortunately, the tree had a longer reach than the spiders. She might’ve stood a chance, if her brain hadn’t decided to take a detour. Out of nowhere, a guy’s face flashed in her mind, along with the strong urge to protect him. It disappeared almost as quickly had appeared, but the damage had been done. Her stride faltered at the image, and for a split second, she forgot where she was.
The air rushed out of her lungs as a tree branch slammed into her back, sending her flying a good twenty feet, right to the edge of the hill. Instead of falling down the slope like she expected, however, she slammed into something.
Her first thought was that it was an invisible wall. There was definitely nothing there that she could see. It wouldn’t be out of place in this Looney Tune world she had stumbled into, either. As she fell to the ground, however, she realized that she was wrong.
For starters, whatever she had hit was way too soft. It also buckled underneath her weight in a weird way, twisting and bending before it collapsed. Most importantly, though, it talked. Or shouted, to be more exact.
“What the--”
“Ow!”
“Shite!”
“Watch it!”
Buffy gave a jolt of shock at the voices. She wasn’t sure what surprised her more; that there was more than one of them, that they could speak, or that they could speak English. Before she could decide, however, she crashed into the ground. and all her concentration shifted to preventing herself from tumbling down the hill.
Luckily, the collision had absorbed a good amount of her momentum. Buffy only rolled a foot or two before she managed to come to a halt, at which point she immediately pushed herself off the ground. Although the aches and pains were really starting to accumulate now, she knew she had to get on her feet as soon possible. Just because they spoke her language, it didn’t mean they ‘spoke her language’. It didn’t even guarantee they were human.
She really hoped they were, though. She wasn’t sure she could take much more of trees and spiders. Still, she had to be ready either way, especially since they had invisibility on their side.
Except they weren’t invisible anymore. As she looked downhill, stake still miraculously in hand despite her stint as a human bowling ball, she could see them, four people sprawled out on the grass.
To her surprise, she saw that they were human; just teenage boys close to her age, by the looks of it, and completely normal looking, though their clothes were seriously dated.
Buffy quickly lowered her arm, letting it drop to her side so she didn’t seem threatening. At the same time, however, she didn’t put her stake away. Still, they seemed to appreciate the gesture and noticeably relaxed, the two that saw her anyway.
They were like twin guardians, jumping to their feet to stand protectively in front of the other two, who were still struggling to get up. They both were tall with dark hair; though the shorter of the two had glasses. He stood a little bit behind the other, stuffing what looked to be a blanket under his shirt as inconspicuously as he could, even as he kept a wary eye on her.
It was when she finally got a good look at the guy in front that she gasped. It was the guy from her vision.
Inexplicably, she felt drawn to him, and she didn’t like it. She forced herself to look at the two in the back.
Even though they were still on the ground, these guys were noticeably smaller. Before she could look too closely at the one on the left, one of the bodyguards, the one without the glasses, stepped in front of him, purposefully blocking her view with a smirk; it was so good, she had to believe he practiced in the mirror.
Glasses tried to do the same with the other one, but he peeked around his friend to get a glimpse of her. He was a little butterball, with beady looking eyes, that stared at her as if he’d never seen another human being before. Considering they were in the land of homicidal trees, that could have been true, but she didn’t think so, not by the reaction of the two leaders.
Shifting his position so that he stood shoulder to shoulder with Smirky, Glasses stared at her, a stern look on his face.
“What are you doing here? You know students aren’t allowed out here,” he said in a very authoritative, very British voice.
Had she really just warped to a school in another country? It didn’t seem possible, not with what she had already encountered. Then again, Sunnydale wasn’t exactly known for advertising its Hellmouthyness to the tourists, either.
“You’re British?” she asked carefully.
“You’re American!” the smallest one -- Pudgy, she decided to call him -- exclaimed.
“So glad we’ve stated the obvious,” Smirky drawled. Then he turned toward Glasses and spoke in a voice so low, she wouldn’t have been able to hear it if it wasn’t for Slayer hearing. “We don’t have time for this. Moony is in a bad way. We have to get him to the Shack.”
Glasses said something about not being able to just leave her there, but Buffy barely heard. For in that moment, as Glasses and Smirky held a whispered conversation between the two of them, Buffy got her first glimpse of the fourth friend.
She couldn’t help but stare.
Smirky was right. His friend didn’t look so hot. His sandy hair was matted with sweat, and his body was trembling. As she looked closer, she saw his eyes dilate and turn yellow, right before they went back to blue. His hair went through a similar change, lengthening and becoming a coarse gray before going back to normal. While all this was going on, he kept glancing up almost fearfully at the moon. The very full moon.
Suddenly, all the pieces came together, and before she could stop herself, she pointed at the guy and blurted out, “You’re a werewolf!”
Without even realizing it, she pulled out her stake.
Glasses and Smirky attacked less than a heartbeat later.
Suddenly armed with sticks of their own, they both shouted something at her. Before she could figure out what it was they actually said, the stake went flying out of her hand, soaring backward in a giant arc. Almost at the same time, a burst of light erupted from Smirky’s wand and sped right for her.
It looked like the werewolf tried to stop them, but he was too late. The effort cost him, too, and he stumbled to the ground in obvious pain, his eyes turning bright yellow as he fell.
Without any weapon of her own, Buffy did the only thing she could. She ran straight for them.
It was a good idea in theory. By splitting them down the middle, she would make their attacks on her useless, if they didn’t want to risk hitting each other. She also had nowhere to run. The forest was too far away, and the angry tree was behind her -- currently making mincemeat of her stake by the sounds of it. Besides, she had the element of surprise on her hands. All three guys were distracted by their fallen friend.
Unfortunately, Buffy hadn’t counted on them recovering so quickly. Or that they all would have sticks of their own, even the werewolf.
Before she knew what was happening, multiple jets of light screamed toward her. She managed to evade the first few, closing the distance between them along the way. Her luck quickly ran out, though.
She let out a gasp of pain as a few bursts of light slammed into her, lifting her up in the air with the impact as pain exploded throughout her body. Then she hit the ground, hard, and stars appeared behind her eyes, following by a numbing blackness that began creeping into her vision.
She fought against it, willing it away, but it was a losing battle. As she began to slip into unconsciousness, she heard voices around her.
“We killed her! She’s dead!”
“Calm the fuck down, Wormtail! We-”
“We don’t have time for this! Padfoot, you take Moony to the shack. Wormtail and I will help the girl.”
“But--”
There was some shuffling. Then she heard footsteps, some of which came closer to her. Two shadowy figures hovered over her.
“Did- did you see her, charging us like that? She’s mad!”
“Perhaps, but we really bollocksed things up this time. We’ll be lucky if we aren’t expelled.”
They continued to argue, but their voices began to fade, making it difficult for her to hear what they were saying. Before she totally lost consciousness, however, something came to her. A name.
“Sirius,” she mutttered.
The voices around her went quiet.
So she was right. The guy’s name was Sirius. But… what was hers?
That was her last thought before everything faded to black.
+++
Author: akat
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG-13 for language (thanks, Sirius)
Disclaimer: I do not own BtVS or Harry Potter.
Spoilers: BtVS through Season 3. HP through Book 3. Takes place during BtVS Season 3, after ‘The Wish’.
Summary: She knew her destiny -- one girl in all the world. But she wasn’t in her world anymore, was she?
Word Count: 2994 (Just made it!)
A/N: This is a sequel of sorts to a FAD entry I made in 2013, called Destiny Unraveled.
+++
Buffy slowly made her way through Miller’s Woods, taking in the natural rhythms of the forest.
The light of the half-moon. The rustle of leaves in the breeze. An owl out on the hunt. A patch of mock orange blossoms. A squirrel out way past its bedtime that needed to watch out for aforementioned owl.
She was becoming a regular Boy Scout, all thanks to a slew of extra patrols and training sessions.
Needless to say, Giles was thrilled. The fact that the idea had been all hers was just the icing on the bland English cake.
But what else was she going to do? Ever since Spike’s little visit, she was doing the whole avoiding thing with Angel, Faith was in the middle of one of her disappearing acts, and Xander and Willow were too busy trying to fix their broken relationships to hang out.
Yep, busy friends and a nonexistent love life make one very focused slayer, she thought with a sigh.
Tonight looked like it was a bust, though. She hadn’t found a single demon, and this was her last round, having already patrolled each and every cemetery in Sunnydale.
With another sigh, Buffy picked up her pace, thinking that she would hook up to the loop trail ahead and call it a night. As she walked, however, the strangest thing happened; the air around her shifted, becoming noticeably cooler and danker with every step she took.
Confused, Buffy stopped and looked around; and in that moment, the trees changed on her, transforming into these huge behemoths that stretched up to the sky, their leaves forming canopy so solid that it blocked out everything, even the moon.
Apparently not wanting to be left out, the noises around her changed, too. Her owl and squirrel were gone, replaced by sounds that were both unfamiliar and infinitely more ominous as they echoed in the night.
Buffy tightened her grip on her stake. Though she obviously didn’t have a clue as to what was going on, she highly doubted the forest went from sleepy to creepy in two seconds flat because something good was about to happen.
Sure enough, before she could even figure out what her next steps should be, her spidey sense started tingling. A second later, a noticeable hush fell over the forest.
Buffy gave a grim smile of anticipation, almost welcoming an attack as she braced herself for the incoming baddie. She was definitely more than ready for a fight -- especially if it brought her one step closer to getting out of the Wicked Witch of the West’s forest.
Of course, she had to find the enemy first, which was proving to be more difficult that it should have been. Though she scoured the perimeter for any sign of movement, there was absolutely nothing, just a sea of inky blackness.
It was not an encouraging sign.
Buffy was far from panic mode, though. Maybe her mysterious attacker could avoid being seen. It was a lot harder to sneak attack without making a sound, however, especially when the rest of the forest had gone silent.
Standing absolutely still, Buffy closed her eyes and listened.
At first, she heard nothing.The entire forest seemed to be holding its breath, even the trees. Buffy simply took a deep breath and tried again, putting her slayer hearing to the test and she strained to find anything, even the smallest sound, that would give her attacker away.
After an excruciatingly long moment, she finally picked something out; the tiniest little plop, like the sound a droplet of rain made when it landed on a leaf.
Which meant that it came from above her.
With a start, Buffy opened her eyes and whipped her head up, only to see a gigantic spider silently descending from the trees, its fangs dripping with venom as it bore down on her.
Realizing it had been spotted, it hissed and made a lunge for her, its enormous body moving faster than she thought possible.
Summoning every ounce of slayer speed she had, Buffy threw herself to the side.
It almost wasn’t enough. As she dove out of the way, she felt the hairs on one of the spider’s legs brush her calf; she felt the rush of air as its pincers snapped at her foot.
A little shaken, Buffy put some distance between her and the spider as she tried to figure out how she was going to take the creature down.
The spider seemed to take a moment to size her up, too, moving restlessly from side to side as it made a strange clicking noise. At least, that was what she thought it was doing. After a moment or two, she realized that it was just trying to distract her as at least two dozen more spiders descended down on her.
They were smaller than the first one, but they still outnumbered her. Knowing she was outmatched, Buffy did what any person would do. She feinted to the left, and then turned to the right and hightailed it out of there.
As she ran, she didn’t spare a glance behind her. She didn’t have to; she could hear a cacophony of clicks behind her, coming at her in waves like a roomful of typewriters on the fritz. A few times, they got close, too close. She even felt one touch her hair, but she simply pumped her legs faster, hurdling over logs and other debris like she was Gail Devers going for the gold.
Eventually, the clicks go
t harder and harder to hear, but Buffy wasn’t taking any chances. She kept running, determined not to stop until she got the hell out of there, especially since she could feel other things in the forest watching her.
Finally, after what seemed like forever and a day, Buffy broke through the treeline into a meadow. She immediately put her hands on her knees as she took huge, gulping breaths of air, feeling a distinct sense of relief when there wasn’t a single click to be heard. It evaporated immediately, however, when she looked up; for there, over to her left, was a castle, one that was as large as it was creepy. Way off to the right, she saw was a small hut, which currently had small wisps of smoke wafting out of its chimney. And there shining above her was a now very full moon.
Her stomach dropped at the sight. She didn’t know where she was; she didn’t care. She just wanted to get out of there ASAP. And if she got her hands on a torch gun along the way so she could do a little exterminating? It would be all the better.
Smiling slightly at the thought of crispy fried spider, Buffy began creeping toward the castle, wanting to assess it and see if there was anything useful inside. She made sure to stick to the treeline, as she wanted to avoid anyone -- or anything -- until she knew what she was dealing with. Soon, however, the edge of the forest began receding, bringing her further away from the castle the further she walked.
Frowning, Buffy stopped moving and scanned the area. Her eyes lit up when she spied a large tree, sitting just about halfway from where she was to the castle, on top of a slight incline.
It would give her the perfect view to scope out the area.
After checking that the coast was clear, Buffy made a break for it. Thankfully, she made it to her destination with relative ease. Before she let herself relax, however, she stopped to listen to her surroundings. She breathed a sigh of relief when she heard nothing but the rustle of the leaves.
It took a moment for her to realize that there wasn’t a breeze in the air. And yet the rustling was getting louder.
With a jerk, Buffy looked up at the tree -- just as it took a swing at her.
“Seriously?!” she exclaimed, half in frustration, half in shock.
Then, before she could mull over the surrealness of the situation anymore, she had to hit the deck.
There was a whoosh of air as the branch passed harmlessly over ahead. Knowing that she would get nailed by the backswing if she stood up then, Buffy began rolling away from the tree as fast as she could.
It was a good thing she did, too. No sooner had the first branch missed than the tree began bringing another one of its heavy limbs down at her. She barely moved in time before the branch smashed into the spot where she had just been lying.
Knowing she wasn’t going to get a better opportunity to escape, Buffy scrambled to her feet and, for the second time that night, ran for all she was worth.
Unfortunately, the tree had a longer reach than the spiders. She might’ve stood a chance, if her brain hadn’t decided to take a detour. Out of nowhere, a guy’s face flashed in her mind, along with the strong urge to protect him. It disappeared almost as quickly had appeared, but the damage had been done. Her stride faltered at the image, and for a split second, she forgot where she was.
The air rushed out of her lungs as a tree branch slammed into her back, sending her flying a good twenty feet, right to the edge of the hill. Instead of falling down the slope like she expected, however, she slammed into something.
Her first thought was that it was an invisible wall. There was definitely nothing there that she could see. It wouldn’t be out of place in this Looney Tune world she had stumbled into, either. As she fell to the ground, however, she realized that she was wrong.
For starters, whatever she had hit was way too soft. It also buckled underneath her weight in a weird way, twisting and bending before it collapsed. Most importantly, though, it talked. Or shouted, to be more exact.
“What the--”
“Ow!”
“Shite!”
“Watch it!”
Buffy gave a jolt of shock at the voices. She wasn’t sure what surprised her more; that there was more than one of them, that they could speak, or that they could speak English. Before she could decide, however, she crashed into the ground. and all her concentration shifted to preventing herself from tumbling down the hill.
Luckily, the collision had absorbed a good amount of her momentum. Buffy only rolled a foot or two before she managed to come to a halt, at which point she immediately pushed herself off the ground. Although the aches and pains were really starting to accumulate now, she knew she had to get on her feet as soon possible. Just because they spoke her language, it didn’t mean they ‘spoke her language’. It didn’t even guarantee they were human.
She really hoped they were, though. She wasn’t sure she could take much more of trees and spiders. Still, she had to be ready either way, especially since they had invisibility on their side.
Except they weren’t invisible anymore. As she looked downhill, stake still miraculously in hand despite her stint as a human bowling ball, she could see them, four people sprawled out on the grass.
To her surprise, she saw that they were human; just teenage boys close to her age, by the looks of it, and completely normal looking, though their clothes were seriously dated.
Buffy quickly lowered her arm, letting it drop to her side so she didn’t seem threatening. At the same time, however, she didn’t put her stake away. Still, they seemed to appreciate the gesture and noticeably relaxed, the two that saw her anyway.
They were like twin guardians, jumping to their feet to stand protectively in front of the other two, who were still struggling to get up. They both were tall with dark hair; though the shorter of the two had glasses. He stood a little bit behind the other, stuffing what looked to be a blanket under his shirt as inconspicuously as he could, even as he kept a wary eye on her.
It was when she finally got a good look at the guy in front that she gasped. It was the guy from her vision.
Inexplicably, she felt drawn to him, and she didn’t like it. She forced herself to look at the two in the back.
Even though they were still on the ground, these guys were noticeably smaller. Before she could look too closely at the one on the left, one of the bodyguards, the one without the glasses, stepped in front of him, purposefully blocking her view with a smirk; it was so good, she had to believe he practiced in the mirror.
Glasses tried to do the same with the other one, but he peeked around his friend to get a glimpse of her. He was a little butterball, with beady looking eyes, that stared at her as if he’d never seen another human being before. Considering they were in the land of homicidal trees, that could have been true, but she didn’t think so, not by the reaction of the two leaders.
Shifting his position so that he stood shoulder to shoulder with Smirky, Glasses stared at her, a stern look on his face.
“What are you doing here? You know students aren’t allowed out here,” he said in a very authoritative, very British voice.
Had she really just warped to a school in another country? It didn’t seem possible, not with what she had already encountered. Then again, Sunnydale wasn’t exactly known for advertising its Hellmouthyness to the tourists, either.
“You’re British?” she asked carefully.
“You’re American!” the smallest one -- Pudgy, she decided to call him -- exclaimed.
“So glad we’ve stated the obvious,” Smirky drawled. Then he turned toward Glasses and spoke in a voice so low, she wouldn’t have been able to hear it if it wasn’t for Slayer hearing. “We don’t have time for this. Moony is in a bad way. We have to get him to the Shack.”
Glasses said something about not being able to just leave her there, but Buffy barely heard. For in that moment, as Glasses and Smirky held a whispered conversation between the two of them, Buffy got her first glimpse of the fourth friend.
She couldn’t help but stare.
Smirky was right. His friend didn’t look so hot. His sandy hair was matted with sweat, and his body was trembling. As she looked closer, she saw his eyes dilate and turn yellow, right before they went back to blue. His hair went through a similar change, lengthening and becoming a coarse gray before going back to normal. While all this was going on, he kept glancing up almost fearfully at the moon. The very full moon.
Suddenly, all the pieces came together, and before she could stop herself, she pointed at the guy and blurted out, “You’re a werewolf!”
Without even realizing it, she pulled out her stake.
Glasses and Smirky attacked less than a heartbeat later.
Suddenly armed with sticks of their own, they both shouted something at her. Before she could figure out what it was they actually said, the stake went flying out of her hand, soaring backward in a giant arc. Almost at the same time, a burst of light erupted from Smirky’s wand and sped right for her.
It looked like the werewolf tried to stop them, but he was too late. The effort cost him, too, and he stumbled to the ground in obvious pain, his eyes turning bright yellow as he fell.
Without any weapon of her own, Buffy did the only thing she could. She ran straight for them.
It was a good idea in theory. By splitting them down the middle, she would make their attacks on her useless, if they didn’t want to risk hitting each other. She also had nowhere to run. The forest was too far away, and the angry tree was behind her -- currently making mincemeat of her stake by the sounds of it. Besides, she had the element of surprise on her hands. All three guys were distracted by their fallen friend.
Unfortunately, Buffy hadn’t counted on them recovering so quickly. Or that they all would have sticks of their own, even the werewolf.
Before she knew what was happening, multiple jets of light screamed toward her. She managed to evade the first few, closing the distance between them along the way. Her luck quickly ran out, though.
She let out a gasp of pain as a few bursts of light slammed into her, lifting her up in the air with the impact as pain exploded throughout her body. Then she hit the ground, hard, and stars appeared behind her eyes, following by a numbing blackness that began creeping into her vision.
She fought against it, willing it away, but it was a losing battle. As she began to slip into unconsciousness, she heard voices around her.
“We killed her! She’s dead!”
“Calm the fuck down, Wormtail! We-”
“We don’t have time for this! Padfoot, you take Moony to the shack. Wormtail and I will help the girl.”
“But--”
There was some shuffling. Then she heard footsteps, some of which came closer to her. Two shadowy figures hovered over her.
“Did- did you see her, charging us like that? She’s mad!”
“Perhaps, but we really bollocksed things up this time. We’ll be lucky if we aren’t expelled.”
They continued to argue, but their voices began to fade, making it difficult for her to hear what they were saying. Before she totally lost consciousness, however, something came to her. A name.
“Sirius,” she mutttered.
The voices around her went quiet.
So she was right. The guy’s name was Sirius. But… what was hers?
That was her last thought before everything faded to black.
+++