Mother Knows Best

Chapter 10

The Scoobies

Quidditch practise had started up once again and Marcia Remington, a fifth-year student who had been recruited as a reserve Chaser the year before last, took over as Gryffindor team captain. A lot of people had wanted Harry to take the position (many, if only to spite Doris Umbridge's lifetime ban), but he had refused, saying he had too much else to worry about to give the position the time it needed. Marcia seemed to be channelling Wood even more than Angelina had; she held practices no less than three days a week, rain or shine, and the sessions frequently ran until the players couldn't see each other a foot apart. Marcia was NOT pleased when Harry told her he was starting up the D.A. again.

"I ought to keep Ginny Weasley on as Seeker!" Marcia growled angrily, even after Harry assured her that the DA only met once a week, and accommodated not only the Gryffindor Quidditch team's practice schedule, but Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw's, as well. But Harry knew that it was an idle threat; Marcia was having a hard enough time finding replacement Chasers, as it was.

Harry did indeed have his hands full. He had never expected the DA to be so popular; even Slytherin students wanted to join. The Room of Requirement was nowhere near large enough to hold everyone; even classrooms were too small. Lucy had finally stepped in and booked the Great Hall. She had also gotten professors McGonagall and Flitwick to help supervise, and it turned out to be a very good move, because Neville Longbottom wasn't the only accident-prone member of the DA anymore. The professors did little besides supervise and intervene when accidents occurred because Lucy was very insistent that the students run the club. When word got out that the DA was having Hogwarts' American guests come for open discussion, it seemed the whole school wanted to come hear them. Anticipating mayhem, Lucy had posted announcements all over the school, instructing students to write down any questions they wanted to ask one of "the Scoobies," as Lucy called them, and hand said questions over to her. She repeated this in class, explaining that this way, the students' most common questions could be asked, and the most students would be satisfied. She also added that she would choose twenty students at random to speak with the Scoobies personally. The whole affair had gotten so large and complicated that it had to be postponed a few weeks, to allow all the other clubs and societies to arrange themselves around it.

In the meantime, life at Hogwarts went on. Snape got so exasperated with the constant gossiping about the aforementioned DA forum that he began giving out detentions to anyone who so much as breathed too loudly in class -particularily to Gryffindor students, which was to no one's surpirse. Harry ended up having three more Defence Against the Dark Arts classes before the big DA meeting. This worked out well, because it meant that Harry got to hear from the rest of 'The Scoobies' before the meeting, and he had a chance to ask them questions in class, and not have to worry about his questions being picked at the meeting. Harry really enjoyed Xander's lecture. Xander Harris was the only one of Buffy's friends that didn't seem to have any special powers or abilities. He wore an eye patch because his eye had been put out by an evil, excommunicated priest who did The First's bidding. The First, Lucy had explained earlier, was the origin of all evil; it was apparently sapient though non-corporeal, and still caused a lot of mayhem whenever it intervened. Proof positive that Lord Voldemort was 'small potatoes,' as it had never contacted him, Lucy said. Xander, being 'normal,' had an incredible insight into his friends' activities and motivations. Harry actually overheard some Slytherins talking about Xander later that week, saying that maybe Muggles weren't all bad, after all.

But Harry's favourite lecture had been Mr. Rupert Giles'. Giles was a very proper soft-spoken Englishman, but he had obviously seen a lot of action. He was very knowledgeable about magic, slayers, demons, and practically anything else supernatural/preternatural in origin. Mr. Giles said he had had a rebellious streak in youth, and had practised some questionable magic with a group of friends. He said one of those friends, Ethan Rayne, still practised the Dark Arts, and gave Mr. Giles trouble every now and then, though Ethan was little more than a nuisance in the grand scheme of things. Mr. Giles had, evidently, been to see professor Dumbledore, and he had provided Dumbledore with a very substantial list of potential allies Voldemort might seek in America. Harry overheard Dumbledore speaking with Giles and Buffy about the possibility of vampires and demons joining up with Voldemort, but they seemed unconcerned, and were confident the Slayers could handle the threat. Dumbledore had complimented Buffy on her 'brilliant idea,' (Harry had no idea what that meant), and said that the sudden explosion of slayers couldn't be better timed. In any case, it seemed to Harry that if Voldemort tried to drum up supporters overseas, he would quickly find his supporters slain.

The day of the big DA meeting arrived on a Saturday, as it was the only way to have enough time for everyone's questions, while at the same time ensuring that no one missed any of their classes. Harry was fairly certain the whole school was attending; he even saw Snape and Malfoy scowling disapprovingly from the audience. The whole audience went abuzz as Lucy arrived with the Scoobies. They walked up to the front of the Great Hall, where the Staff table had been replaced by a dais. As they sat down, everyone clapped. Lucy raised her hands for silence.

"OK," Lucy said once everyone had settled down, "Thank you, all, for coming to our little Q and A period. And let's give a big hand to our speakers for coming out here and talking with you," everyone applauded enthusiastically once again. "Well, let's get straight to it, shall we?" Lucy turned to Willow. "The first question is for you, Willow (looks like it's from the Slytherin students)," Lucy muttered as an aside, "anyway, 'has anyone else in your family shown magical abilities?'"

"My family? Heck no! The Rosenburgs are VERY Jewish. I had a hard enough time explaining to my dad why I had to put up crucifixes in the house after Angel went evil -long story. I -er...never told my dad about my being a witch..." Harry heard the Slytherin students muttering disapprovingly, but he didn't blame her. If Harry could have hid his magical abilities from the Dursleys, he would have done it gladly.

"Ok, moving right along," Lucy said before the Slytherins walked out of the hall, "our next question is for Buffy, 'exactly how strong are you?"

In answer to this, Buffy said nothing, but hopped off the dais, went into the audience and lifted up a bench packed with twenty students above her head with one hand. She then put the bench, students et al, back down on the floor very gently without the slightest sign of effort. Buffy then hopped back upon the dais and took her seat. "Pretty damn strong," she answered.

Harry found that most of the questions were rather stupid, like 'how many vampires have you slain, Buffy?' ('You expect me to count them all?'), or 'what is the closest you've ever come to dying?' (Willow had been bitten by a vampire, and, of course, they'd all faced more demons, vampires and general doom than any of them could remember, but Buffy had been bitten byvampires three times, died three times, been inches from a gigantic full-fledged demon, etc... etc...). Others were more informative, like 'how did you learn magic, Mr. Giles?' ('the Watchers' Academy provided extensive classes on magical theory, as well as advanced defensive spells and pan-dimensional demon-banishing spells, plus, I practised some magic in my youth outside of school'). Yet other questions Lucy answered for the answerees, like 'do you have a boyfriend/ girlfriend?' to this question,Willow laughed, Buffy looked at the floor with an odd expression, and Lucy answered frankly, "They're too old for any of you to date, anyhow." Harry noticed that Malfoy looked rather crestfallen at this proclamation, as it almost certainly included Lucy, as well.

Harry wasn't much happier about the students who got chosen to talk to the Scoobies one-on-one; Malfoy somehow got selected as one of the twenty, much to Harry's disgust. Lucy had already told Harry that she was not going to select any DA members, because she would have the Scoobies back for a members-only session. Still, Harry was sure that Malfoy had used magic to both get into the session and get his name selected. Harry noted that all the students that got selected were deliriously happy, and very few people in the audience were bitterly disappointed. Lucy called up the selected students in groups of four to speak with the Scoobies. Much of the students' conversation carried over to the audience, but the questions were usually more of the same. Harry was rather bored by the time the session had finished. When it did end, most of the students stayed in the Great Hall, for it was now time for supper.

After supper, the DA had a members-only meeting; this was the time allotted to the DA to 'hang out' with the Scoobies. The atmosphere was much more informal than the GeneralQ&A session; the DA members were mostly just talking with the Scoobies casually. To Harry's surprise, Buffy excused herself from her group, and went straight up to Harry."Hi," she said,"you're Harry, right?"

"What, doesn't my scar give it away?" Harry said a bit frostily,"sorry, no autographed pictures today."

Buffy looked at Harry quizzically for a moment."Uh, pictures? Am I supposed to be giving or getting here?"

Harry reddened. "Sorry, I hate it when people fawn over me because I'm famous. Everyone's always staring at my scar, and new students point and whisper when I walk by."

"Well, to tell you the truth, until Lucy mentioned you the other day, I had never heard of you."

Harry gaped, but was pleasantly surprised. "Hey, speaking of scars, check this out," Buffy rubbed at the base of her neck, and soon revealed two jagged scars.

"Fangmarks?"

"Yep. Vamp who did it is dead, of course. -Killed me before I could get him, but I finished him off in the end."

"I wish I could say the same thing about this," Harry said, rubbing his scar.

Buffy's face fell a bit at this. "This guy... he's human, right?"

"I suppose... barely..."

Buffy turned her head a bit and had a 'far-away' look on her face. "I've only killed a human once. I thought it would be so hard, but he was so evil, and he did so many horrible things, that I didn't hesitate to do it, and I've never regretted it."

Harry stared at Buffy in shock. "I'm not sure if I find that comforting or unsettling." Buffy shrugged. "Tell me," Harry said, "those scars; how-exactly did you get them?"

"Well," Buffy began, taking a deep breath, "there was this local Kingpin Vampire who had been some psycho boss in Sunnydale for as long as anyone could remember. Vampires sometimes join these really idiotic cults. Anyway, I think this guy was like a religious leader to the Sunnydale vampires. Thing is, this huge earthquake hit Sunnydale about a hundred years ago, and it trapped him underground in some inter-dimensional prison. Now here's where things get complicated. See, there was this prophecy that he would kill the Slayer, and her blood would free him. The slayer being me, of course." Buffy laughed dryly, Harry was thunderstruck.

"The prophecy said he would kill you?"

"Oh yeah! I can tell you, I was less than thrilled to find out I was going to die; I was only sixteen at the time! Here most kids my age were worrying about getting zits and who they were taking to the prom, and I was getting ready to die..." Buffy looked off sadly.

"But you didn't die, right? I mean, you're still here..." Harry was shaking a bit.

"Oh, I died all right; I'm not here from lack of trying. The thing is, the prophecy had a loophole: by 'dying' it meant my heart stopped beating, but CPR can save someone like that." Buffy smiled and looked over at Xander. "That's exactly what Xander did for me that night. That's the thing about prophecies, they're actually really flimsy: they only tell you little bits, and those bits are usually all the gloom and doom bits." Buffy smiled. Chuckling, she said "if everything that was ever prophesised came true, the world would have ended a hundred times over by now." Harry beamed at Buffy. "Whoa, looks like I made your day! You know, I was a sort of a guidance counsellor at Dawn's school...that is, before everyone spontaneously evacuated Sunnydale. I know... stuff. So if you ever want to talk about...stuff, non-magic stuff, I mean, gimme a shout, okay?" Harry nodded.

Harry felt as if a massive weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He wasn't alone: he wasn't the only person who had been handed the task of saving the world. He wasn't the only person who had to kill or be killed by someone evil. Best of all, there was a chance the prophecy about Harry and Voldemort wasn't so dire after all! Harry rejoined the DA in good spirits. For now, he had only one mission; he was going to get Lucy to teach himself and everyone else how to do CPR.