Runaway Witch

Chapter 1: The New Girl.

Another morning, over six months later. It was early February and, while at Hogwarts the snow would be worse than ever, in Southern California it was looking to be a nice day.

Willow locked her bike up and headed towards the school building. She could see Xander ahead of her, on his skateboard, going too fast to stop. She knew he was going to -

There it was. Right into a pole. She walked and stood beside where he lay on the ground.

"Willow! You're so very much the person I wanted to see," he said.

"Really?" Willow asked, shocked. Although he was one of her best friends, and had been every since she had started school, he hadn't realised her feelings for him until now. But now, he'd noticed and he was going to ask her -

"You know, I kind of had a problem with the math."

Oh. Well, maybe he was going to ask her for homework help. That sometimes led to smoochies. Willow followed Xander into the school building, telling him which book to get from the library. Jesse, the third member of their trio, joined them as they went inside. They talked about the new girl, Jesse and Xander obviously with only one thing on their mind, seeing as though she was "pretty much a hottie" according to Xander.

But for now, it was off to Chemistry with the three of them.

*~*~*~*

At lunch, a most unexpected thing happened. Willow was sitting on her own, contemplating how to get Xander to notice her and getting her lunch out of her bag, when the new girl came and sat next to her. Willow had seen her earlier by the drink fountain, hanging around with Cordelia, so she was obviously one of those girls. She began to pack up her stuff.

"Did you want me to move?" Willow asked, assuming a response in the affirmative.

Amazingly, the girl, Buffy, didn't want her to move. Even more amazingly, she wanted a favour and, not so amazingly, it had to do with homework.

Then Jesse and Xander came by, and Xander gave Buffy a stake. An actual wooden stake that he said she had dropped.

But what was most bizarre, in Willow's book, was the way Buffy reacted when Cordelia came by and said that a dead boy had been found in some girl's locker. Buffy wasn't freaked out or scared by the fact that a body had been found on campus, like most students, but she was interested, and asked if there were any marks.

And then she ran off, for some reason.

*~*~*~*

That night at the Bronze, Willow was hoping Xander would show up. And then Buffy showed up. They got onto the topic of dating, and Willow's lack thereof.

"Well, when I'm with a boy I like, it's hard for me to say anything cool, or witty, or at all. I can make a few vowel sounds, then I have to go away," Willow said. Or I end up putting my elbow in the butter dish in front of them and getting butter all over my robes, like with Harry, she thought.

Then Willow paused. What butter dish? Robes? Who was Harry?

Luckily, Buffy didn't notice her pause. She had gone on to explain her philosophy in life.

"Life is short. Seize the moment, 'cause tomorrow, you might be dead," Buffy had said. Then she saw someone and had to go.

'Hmm, seize the moment. Okay, seizing happening. Forget Xander and get with the seizing,' Willow thought.

She seized the moment, and started actually talking to a guy.

"Do you want to go get some air?" the guy asked. She'd forgotten his name, or maybe he hadn't told her. Oh well, she thought, I'm seizing the moment. They walked out of the Bronze.

*~*~*~*

Jesse was dead. Buffy was the Slayer. Vampires were real and they had tried to end the world last night. It was all so surreal.

And, added to the all too bizarre world she had been dropped in, with rain of toads and all, she was having some weird thoughts. They seemed almost like memories, of roosters being killed, and talking diaries.

Something was happening, and Willow was afraid that it had something to do with her.

*~*~*~*