The Eighth Weasley

Notes: This chapter only has a few prerequisite scenes, so its *hopefully* not going to be too long, although - knowing my luck - it'll overshoot drastically and go straight into the multipages. Herein, we see what the results of Snape & Buffy's little... ah... meeting were. Poor Snapey. I really can be evil. You'd never know I love the guy, would you?

_________________________

The door behind the staff table opened on the crowded Great Hall, hardly noticed by the students, who were chattering over breakfast, a single figure easing into the hall clearly trying to avoid being noticed.

Unfortunately, when a person tries to be ignored, it usually has the opposite affect.

Sure enough, one by one, a face at a time, every head turned towards the Potions Professor who had slid silently into his seat at the table, his expression blacker and more frightening than anyone could ever recall seeing it.

The whole hall rapidly fell into a deathly silence.

A pin could have been dropped and heard.

Black eyes directed an equally dark look in the direction of the petite, blonde Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts, who was smiling amiably and munching on a slice of toast.

Suddenly, what they were seeing made sense.

At the middle of the Gryffindor table, a brown-haired, blue-eyed Scottish boy by the name of Duncan Cameron released a loud snort of laughter that rang off the walls of the Great Hall.

It was like a pebble dropped in a pool, the ripples of mirth spreading.

Snape's face twisted bitterly, his nostrils flaring, his lips pressed into a thin line, his eyes glittering with malevolence. All in all, he would have looked as terrifying as he always did, if not more so than usual.

Except for one thing.

Clean and beautifully groomed hair hung around his face.

Professor Summers looked exceptionally proud of herself, raising a hairbrush - which seemed like a natural thing for a glamorous young Professor such as herself to carry - in salute to the Potions Master, which got a roar of laughter from the pupils.

Professor Snape glared at her.

"Oh, don't worry, Snapey," Summers called across the table to him, where he was infuriated to notice Minerva McGonagall chuckling behind a hand and Dumbledore shooting twinkling looks at him. "Once they get used to it, you'll be fine!"

All eyes went from the blonde to the clearly fuming Potions professor.

The dark glare he was giving the likable little blonde woman seemed to be building in a centre of loathing and dislike, which was surrounding him in an almost palpable black aura.

Had Summers been absent, every pupil knew without a doubt that they would have been cowering silently on their benches, had Snape looked so deadly.

Even just seeing Snape that angry from a distance was bad enough and a few of the classes who knew they were having him later in the day visibly started shaking as his glare flashed to them.

"Oh, come on, Snapey! Its not that bad!"

Black eyes turned back to her and every person in the Hall saw Snape's hand locked around the handle of the sharpest implement he had available on the table: a serrated bread knife.

"Summers," he said, his voice almost deathly quiet, his expression not openly-hostile, but coldly raging. "Your mouth is open. Sounds are coming out of it. Neither of these actions is productive. Desist."

Summers smirked at him and returned to munching on her toast.

Giles looked like he was having trouble smothering his laughter, one hand resting against his mouth, as subtly as it could without him looking like he had clapped his hands over his mouth.

Leaning slightly forward to study Snape, Professor McGonagall arched an eyebrow at him, then at the hair. Shaking her head, she returned to her breakfast, although there was a glint in her eye that hadn't been there before.

Dumbledore's muffled giggles were clearly grating on Snape, who looked like he was thinking very seriously about rescinding the oath of loyalty he had given the old man and belatedly offering Voldemort the wizard's head on a platter.

However, it was the younger Summers woman that had actually caused the worst possible reaction, when she stuck two fingers of each hand in her mouth and released a piercing wolf-whistle.

Scarlet patches flared on Professor Snape's sallow cheeks and Dumbledore's merry, full-force belly laugh rang up to the rafters, instigating further bouts of giggles among the pupils.

***

"Omigod..."

"Seconded." Outside the Great Hall, after breakfast, Dawn and Duncan were leaning against one another, gasping for breath, tears of mirth streaming down their faces at what they had just seen.

"I didn't think she would..."

"I dinnae think he thought it either," Duncan agreed, shaking his head.

They both started laughing again, recalling what they had seen the previous night, on their way back to Gryffindor tower, and comparing it with what they had seen in the Hall that morning.

Snape.

With clean hair.

"What on earth are you two laughing about?" another voice interrupted.

"You mean you kinda missed out on seeing Professor Snape with washed and brushed and non-greasified hair, at the high table?" Dawn snickered, her blue eyes glinting with amusement as she turned to the girl.

Like the other pupils around her, Dawn had started wearing a Gryffindor uniform, which was very becoming on her, even though she only sat in on most classes because of her lack in magical abilities.

Except Potions.

Much to everyone's surprise, including her sister - who claimed she couldn't mix any given substances to save her life - she had proved to have a natural aptitude for the subject and Snape had let her join in the potion brewing, although he complained loudly about it.

She knew for a fact, though, that he actually appreciated someone who could brew a decent potion, unlike most of her classmates, who were too busy being utterly terrified of the Potions master.

As far as she could tell, she was the only person in her whole class - even among the Slytherins - who was not afraid of the sinister teacher. He just reminded her far too much of Spike in his attitude to her, for her to really be afraid of him.

"I thought it was funny like everyone else in the Hall did, but you don't remember, do you?" Nicola Ledger, another of the Gryffindor fourth years moaned, looking very pale in the face, almost washed with grey under her curly black hair. "Haven't you forgotten what we have first thing?"

Dawn and Duncan exchanged looks, then looked at Nicola.

"Potions," Nicola whispered. "Twenty minutes..."

"Oh," Dawn said. "Oh!"

Duncan's face had gone a funny shade of green. "I...I think," he said, in a shakier voice than usual, "now would probably be a good time to tell Dumbledore I want tae leave the school..."

***

"And today, we're going to be talking to you about...Giles?"

Standing behind the desk in the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, Giles motioned to the covered tank in front of him. "Grindylows," he answered, pulling the cover off, revealing a small, slimy-looking demon pressing against the glass of a tank that looked like it should have goldfish in it.

"Ewww!"

Several third year pupils giggled at their Professor's exclamation.

Defence Against the Dark Arts classes had certainly become very interesting since the blonde and her older companion had taken the helm, with Professor Summers' blunt and to the point descriptions of what they were facing and Mr. Giles' lessons in magical defences.

They seemed an odd counter-point for one another. On occasion, they would fire snippy comments back and forth at one another, but every pupil could tell there was a deep-rooted affection behind it.

"As you can see," Professor Summers said, turning back to her class, a twisted look on her face. "we're going to be discussing the slimy gross thing in the tank, that Mr. Giles was so kind as to bring in."

"I thought you would appreciate it," he chuckled.

There were a few more laughs from the class when Professor Summers made a face at him, then turned back to the class.

"Now," she looked around at them. "Can anyone tell me what a Grindylow does and why it is considered a dark creature?" Half a dozen hands shot up, a sign that at least a few of them had done the assigned reading. "Sharn?"

Behind her, Buffy Summers didn't notice the proud expression on Rupert Giles' face, as she took answers, comparing them to the notes he knew she had made on the subject and started to teach the group of teenagers, who hung on her every word.

Like Summers, Giles had been somewhat dubious about her teaching credentials, but after a chat with Professor Dumbledore on the day she had arrived, her confidence had rapidly built.

Every day, when she wasn't thinking up new ways to humiliate Professor Snape, she was poring over Defence Against the Dark Arts books, making pages of notes about the creatures she was teaching on.

It had been a source of great amusement in the staff room, when the staff body had first walked in on her, bogged down with even more books than Hermione usually carried and exclaiming about how exciting the 'Mnumfar Report on Dark Creatures and their origins' was.

While she had never been the most studious of people, she was fascinated by the whole new range of dark creatures that she had never faced before. She had taken to appearing at his room in the middle of the night with excited exclamations about some kind of new beastie that she had found in some book or other.

She was taking her job seriously, determined to teach the children as much as she possibly could, while being unable to teach them any actual spells and magic and she was getting very good at it.

Somehow, she knew how to lecture about dark creatures without being dull, holding the attention of the attention-deficient teenagers, steering them back to focus when it became clear that their minds were wandering.

Perhaps, Giles mused, it was because she had the experience.

After all, she had had to deal with him lecturing her in ways that he could now see were incredibly boring for a teenager to sit through. She had taken the minor flaws in his old Watcher style and developed it into a new style.

Using anecdotes about her own confrontations with similar creatures, she had caught their interest.

Walking around the classroom as she taught, instead of being a read-from-the-notes lecturer, and actually listening to what the pupils had to say, chatting with them, willing to give them her free time, she had won their affections.

Giles had never been prouder of any Slayer, but he had also never been prouder of the girl, who was like a daughter to him.

She had flourished from a dizzy, rebellious and awkward with her position in the world teenager into a young woman, who had wisdom and strength beyond her years and was now, for the first time, able to share it.

It was truly a privilege to see her at work.

And in conflict with Snape too, his mental voice added with amusement.

Giles couldn't help snickering at the thought. What had he done in pushing the two oppositions together? Would they kill each other before the year was out? Judging by the look on Snape's face at breakfast...

Even Angel hadn't been as different from Buffy as Snape was.

The biggest difference was that Angel had been a vampire. That wasn't a factor in the Buffy-Snape conflict, but everything else...

They were just complete contradictions of one another: blonde versus dark; female versus male; American versus British; cynical versus optimistic; happy versus grim; cheerful versus gloomy; physically strong versus mentally strong.

And Giles had taught them both to some extent.

It really was going to be interesting to see who emerged the victor in the battle of wits and power that he had instigated.

He smirked.

Very interesting.

***

"So you're coping are you, Mister...er...The Bloody?"

Lounging in the shadowy alcove that looked out over the bustling Entrance Hall, watching pupils milling about, Spike raised his light blue eyes to the Professor of Muggle Studies.

"Well, I finally got my boxers back, if that's what you mean," he answered. Out of sunlight, the blond-haired vampire had taken to sitting in the deep niche, which had a cushioned ledge, where he could watch the comings and goings of the student body and usually avoid detection. He liked it that way, being able to just watch, instead of being goggled at all the time. "Top of the North tower... very amusing."

After the strip poker game and after Hermione had absconded with Spike's clothing, a battle had ensued in the girls' tower room, involving a pouncing and very naked vampire trying to retrieve all his clothing.

Sadly, Spike had ended up having to run around the grounds to find everything, while Minerva McGonagall had leaned out of one of the tower windows and made biting remarks in a magically magnified voice about him and his card-playing abilities.

The vampire and former vengeance demon had lost the game hands down, thanks to Hermione sneaking their tactics notebooks to Dumbledore, Flitwick and McGonagall, leaving Xander trying to hide his embarrassment as his girlfriend strolled around, quite comfortable in her underwear.

Spike, though, had been the only one unfortunate enough to have his clothing filched by a seemingly respectable and professional Professor and her esteemed and equally intelligent red-haired roommate.

The clothing which had ended up strewn all over the school and grounds.

Spike had been mildly amused by it all, but had covered it with bitter growls and proficient cursing.

"Don't blame me," Hermione grinned at the vampire, sitting down on the lip of the ledge he was occupying. The pair got on strangely well, although Hermione was one of the few members of staff that actually knew what Spike was. "Willow tried to banish them, but she still hadn't quite got the knack with that wand of hers yet."

"So I noticed," he replied dryly, leaning against the side wall of the deep ledge that was cut into the thick wall. He stared at the wall opposite him for several moments, then looked at Hermione. "How is she?"

"Genuine interest or fishing for possible ammunition?" Hermione asked, raising her eyebrows questioningly.

Spike gave her an offended look. "Luv, I like Red as much as the next person," he said, giving her a measured look. "Although obviously not quite as much as someone hereabouts, am I right?"

"Willow's a friend of mine, Spike. I don't want you hurting her," the witch said, her voice low and quiet, but laced with threat.

"As much as it would thrill me, I'm afraid I'll have to say I'm not up for breaking the broken hearted," the vampire answered, looking away from her and studying the grey stone in front of him. "I've seen how much the wolf leaving damaged her. She was good to me, little Red."

"She doesn't cry in the night anymore, which is a start," Hermione volunteered the information in a low voice. "Quite a few nights, she's just needed someone to hug her and keep her company. Like a comfort blanket or something."

There was a melancholy note in the young woman's voice that made Spike shift his eyes to her again.

"And you, luv?" he asked, studying her intently. "What do you need?"

Brown eyes avoided him for a moment. "Not a horny vampire, of that I'm more than certain," she smiled faintly at him. "It doesn't matter what I need. Willow...she's unhappy and needs someone to lean on at the moment. Nothing more."

"Maybe she needs someone to make her happy again," Spike suggested, his voice neutral, his eyes returning to the wall in front of him, swinging his toes from side to side against the stone and watching them move. "Like she did last time..."

Hermione, who had risen to her feet after the first statement, looked back down at him in surprise. "What do you mean 'like the last time'?" she asked a little sharply, a glow in her cheeks.

Blue eyes met brown. "She found a friend a lot like you, Granger," he said in a low voice. "Not as confident or gobby, that's true," Hermione glared, making him grin at her. "But someone who wanted to make her happy again."

"O-oh."

Spike smiled.

It wasn't a smirk that she was used to seeing, the smirk that reminded her an awful lot of Draco Malfoy, but it was a genuine smile that made his blue eyes twinkle in a way similar to Dumbledore's.

"Ask her about Tara, when you have time," he suggested.

"Tara?" Hermione blinked. "A girl? That was her...her..."

The smirk returned. "And when I said friend, I don't mean the 'let's sit together and make daisy-chains kind of friend', Granger," he said dryly. "She didn't think anyone knew about it, but..." he tapped the side of his nose. "A man can tell."

"A vampire can tell, you mean."

Spike nodded. "That too."

Standing over him, the Professor of Muggle Studies gazed down, a suspicious, hard expression creeping onto her face. "And is there any reason you're making these revelations to me, Spike?"

"Like I said, luv, I like Red. She was better to me than any of the rest of that rag tag band and if you're the one to make her smile again..." The genuine smile returned, making his eyes seem so much warmer. "Well, I won't hold it against you."

"You really like her?"

"After what I put the little bint through, I'm amazed she didn't stake me right off. I almost bumped her off at least three times and she still treated me well. Snuck me cookies and extra blood when no one was looking," A reminiscent look crossed his face. "If I didn't have this chip, she would have been my undead Princess."

Hermione was blinking down at him. "You...you would have turned her?"

"Wouldn't you, luv?" He gave her a wicked little grin. "You have to admit there's something about a dainty little thing like her that's intoxicating. The red hair, the pale skin, the shyness and yet...the power."

"Er..."

"I'll take that as a yes," Swinging his legs out of his cubbyhole, Spike straightened up and looked down at the woman in front of him. "Trust me on this, Prof, Red needs to be loved. It's her big weakness." Hermione opened her mouth to pose a question, but a cool fingertip touched her lips. "This isn't anything books or spells can help you solve. Red has to be loved and to be loving someone or else she just goes utterly to pieces. Believe me, I know from past experience...an engagement to the Slayer isn't something I want to repeat."

"Eh?"

"Trust me when I say you're safer not knowing," he said, his expression serious.

"And you're doing this why?"

The half-smirk lifted the vampire's pale lips up. "Can you imagine the look on old Minnie's face?" he replied, his eyes twinkling with mirth. "I mean, she's always been dubious about...well...everything but this..."

"Old Minnie?" Spike clearly realised he'd made a slip. "Spike, why on earth do you call her Minnie? And how do you know she's always been dubious about..." A deep blush suffused Hermione's cheeks, but she pressed on. "How do you know?"

The vampire cleared his throat. "Ah...well...y'see, it's a kind of funny story...we met fifty years back, got pissed, chatted about everything...kind of lost touch...met up here and got to reminiscing..." He cleared his throat again. "And anyway, bollocks to that! This is about you and Red! You get your arse in gear and comfort her!"

"I can't believe you're encouraging this..."

Spike chuckled. "Well, you've been moping around with a face like a wet weekend, because you're worrying about her. It kills two birds with one...er...well," A dirty grin crossed his lips. "I don't think you'll use a stone, but you get the idea..."

"Spike!"

The vampire just grinned.

***

"Enter!"

"Still a little testy, I see."

The Potions Master turned from the cauldron he was bent over to the door, where Giles was standing with a suggestion of a grin on his face. Black eyes flickered with anger. "How the devil do you tolerate that...that...little hussy?" he burst out.

"Several years of practise, Sev," Rupert Giles closed the door of the classroom behind him with a small smile. "Am I right in assuming that she is responsible for your...ah...new coif?" Black eyes narrowed. "Ah..."

"Do you know what that...that..."

"Woman?" Giles offered, smiling.

"Dammit, man!" Snape exploded angrily. "She is no woman! She has to be a demon of some kind! Sent to torment me!"

Giles' hand came quickly to his mouth, smothering a chuckle. "Judging by your obvious affection for the girl," Severus actually growled at him at those words, making the Watcher chuckle even more. "I'm lead to assume that you were an unwilling participant in this makeover."

"You did not deign to inform me of how strong she is," Snape muttered.

"I did warn you that she was strong," Giles answered, still grinning. "Sev, she can kick a demon double her size across a graveyard. Surely you didn't think I meant she was just strong enough to remove a stubborn lid from a jar..."

"I didn't imagine she would have the nerve to carry me," the Potions Professor's voice was so low, Giles could barely hear it. "The bloody trollop carried me around like a sack of potatoes..."

Giles couldn't help it.

He laughed.

He really laughed.

The image of Snape, who was taller than him, clad entirely in black and slung over the shoulder of the tiny, blonde and immaculately dressed Buffy Summers was just far too funny to contemplate.

"I don't find this at all amusing," Severus' cool voice cut in.

"You might not," Giles choked out, shaking his head. "But I do!"