Of Guitars and Girls’ Clubs

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Hermione was bored. While she was thankful to have Ginny’s company, along with Seamus, Dean and Neville’s, she missed Ron, Harry, Evelyn and Torianna.

But, as to be expected, mostly Ron. He would be back by evening, but it wasn’t soon enough for Hermione.

And she was worried. What if his parents refused to let him become a half-demon? What if he… died?

She shook out her head, and decided not think on it anymore. No thinking about visions, or red hair, or freckles, or big blue eyes, or cute smiles, or silly flirting, or warm hands, or-

Damn.

“Hermione, you haven’t even touched your breakfast,” Ginny pointed out. “Either you’re thinking about homework or you’re thinking about Ron. And if it’s Ron, I don’t want to know.”

Hermione smirked. “Sorry, Ginny… why didn’t you go with them?”

“Well, I wasn’t the one what threw mud at Professor MacGonagall, was I?” Ginny asked. “And… I don’t think I could deal with… y’know, that situation.”

Hermione nodded. “I hope he’s alright.”

Ginny nodded. “Me, too.”

“Hey!” Dean cried. “Look!”

He had two straws shoved up his nose.

“I don’t know what I am!” he told them. “But I look funny, don’t I?”

Hermione blinked. “Dean how much sleep did you get last night?”

“Two hours.”

Hermione groaned.

Ginny sighed. “I do hope Harry’s alright. I can’t believe he went to Azkaban.”

Hermione sighed. “Me, neither. Those boys really are crazy, aren’t they?”

“It’s the red hair for Ron,” Ginny explained. “And I think he’s been rubbing off on Harry.”

Hermione smirked. “Maybe I’ll get some real work done, while Ron’s away. He’s a real distraction, lately.”

“So, what?” Seamus asked, chiming in. “You’re grades only get up to 110 percent instead of 120?”

Hermione glared. “Don’t push it, Seamus Finnighan. My boyfriend’s away for the weekend. I’m irritable.”

Seamus paled a little, and shut up.

Across the hall, at the Slytherin table, six owls carried an oddly shaped package and set them down on the floor behind Draco Malfoy. He smiled wildly, as if it were Christmas and his birthday all at once. He got up from his table, to bewildered looks from his house-mates, and carried the package out of the great hall as best he could.

He didn’t pay much attention to the two teacher he passed in the halls until he heard what they were talking about.

“Buffy-”

“Why do you want to know, Angel?” she asked him. “Why? What should it matter to you?!”

“Buffy-”

“It’s not like you ever tell me anything! I’m in the dark about your whole life. That’s a long life.”

Angel snorted. “You’re telling me.”

“Why does this matter to you so much?” Buffy asked. “Why do you absolutely have to know my exact relationship with Spike? Why? So you can be angry about something? So you can be angry at me?”

“I’m not angry at you!” Angel cried. “No one’s angry at you!”

She stopped walking and turned to him. “I was in a really bad place in my life. I know you know what that’s like. Please, let’s just leave it at that.”

He sighed and nodded. “Fine.”

“Are you angry at me?” she asked.

“No,” Angel replied. “I just hate that there’s so much… stuff to talk out still… and I hate that we’re being watched, too.”

Buffy turned around to see Draco leaning against the wall.

“What are you doing?” she asked him.

Draco smirked. “Watching the floor show. What’s it look like?”

Buffy glared, and Draco snickered, and carried his package away.

“Wonder what he’s got there,” Angel mused.

“Probably something really, really disturbing,” Buffy muttered. “Let’s get breakfast.

Draco opened the package, and unpacked a full-sized acoustic guitar. He had an electric and an amplifier at home, but they wouldn‘t work at Hogwarts, seeing as there was no electricity.

He sat in the Slytherin common room, the guitar on his knee, tuning it the best he could. The only thing he envied Ron Weasley for was perfect pitch. If he had that, he’d have no problem tuning.

“What are you doing?” asked a low, confused voice.

Draco looked up at Crabbe and Goyle. “Tuning. Or… trying to.”

They looked at him in more confusion.

Draco blinked, and got to his feet. “I’ll be around.”

With that, he left.

He walked through the halls with his acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder by the strap and headed for the great hall, which was, hopefully by this time, empty.

He walked in to find one person sitting at one of the Gryffindor tables.

He sighed and shook his head. He walked over and sat down across from her. “Shouldn’t you be in the library, or something?”

Hermione sighed and looked up from one of her books. “Shouldn’t you be jumping off the roof, or something?”

“Oh. I’m scared now,” he muttered.

“I’m not in the mood,” she told him, slamming her book down on the table. “Go away.”

There was a long pause.

“I was only kidding. I didn’t mean to insult you,” he told her.

She looked shocked, but picked her book back up. “That’s… a very interesting statement. Maybe you should go the hospital wing.”

He rolled his eyes, and started to tune his guitar again. “What are you doing, anyways?”

“Reading.”

Draco shook his head. “Fine. Be that way.”

Hermione growled. “You’re the one who doesn’t like me, remember? The dirty Mudblood? Why should I even give you the time of day after the way you’ve treated Harry, Ron and I for the past five years?!”

“Well, I’m trying to be nice, now!”

She’d resorted to ignoring him, burying her head in her book.

‘What the hell am I doing?’ he asked himself. ‘Why am I fighting to be nice to her?’

Deciding he wasn’t going to get any peace in the great hall, he got up and stormed off. He strode down the halls, and finally came to knock on Professor Maclay’s and Willow’s office door.

It flung open, and Willow stood there, looking a bit panicked. “Oh. Hey, Draco.”

“Hi,” he replied. “What’s going on in there?”

Willow sighed and opened the door fully. Muggle portable CD players were flying all over the office, and Tara was doing her best with her wand to get them under control.

Draco raised an eyebrow and stepped in, dodging a disc-man. “What the hell happened?”

Willow sighed. “Tara wanted to give each Chorister a disc-man to play music on, but they don’t work at Hogwarts, so… we… tried to enchant them…”

“And?”

“And… well… t-they’re enchant-y… only… a little too enchant-y.”

“Any suggestions?” Tara asked. She’d resorted to standing on her desk, and grabbing as many floating disc-mans as she could.

Draco shrugged. “Get Dumbledore?”

“Dumbledore is out right now,” Tara told him. “He w-went to St. Mungo’s. Something urgent came up. Maybe if I c-call them like I do Miss Kitty Fantastico, they’ll listen?”

Draco raised an eyebrow but didn‘t ask.

“OH!” Willow cried. “He can borrow a cage from Hagrid! A-and put them in there until we figure out how to reverse the spell!”

“Assuming we can catch them all,” Draco replied.

“We?” Tara asked him.

Draco nodded and stepped up on the desk next to Tara, trying to catch a few disc-mans.

Willow smiled. “I’ll go talk to Hagrid!” she rushed out.

“So… nice guitar,” Tara smiled. “Professor Giles would be jealous. His is s-still in Sunnydale.”

“He plays?”

Tara nodded, catching another disc-man. “He’s g-good, too.”

Draco smirked, and hopped up to catch another one. “Hey, Professor Maclay?”

“Yeah?”

“Why do you suppose Ron came after me the other night?”

Tara sighed. “I know you guys don’t really get along real w-well. But you’re a human, a-and I think if you were the one with the v-visions, you would have g-gone after him.”

Draco sighed. “I’m not so sure of that…I’m a product of my upbringing.”

“Y-you don’t have to be,” Tara told him. “You c-can change. Anyone can. I h-heard about the Death Eater mentality about M-Mudbloods… I don’t think y-you’re that way… you only act l-like it.”

“I shouldn’t, should I?”

“N-no, you shouldn’t.”

“You think… maybe I should apologize to someone if they’re really not all that bad except for being a bitch occasionally?” Draco asked.

“Don’t call someone a bitch unless they take it as a complement,” Willow scolded, reentering, dragging a cage with her.

Draco smirked. “Can you guys handle this from here?”

Tara smiled brilliantly as she almost dropped her pile of disc-mans. “Go ahead.”

Draco got down from the desk and dropped his own stack of disc-mans into the cage. “Bye.”

As he left, he heard a yell of “No! Tara! Don’t drop them!”


Once in a blue moon did Quinton Travers travel to Hogwarts. It didn’t matter that all his future watchers attended. He didn’t like it. It
was large, it was eerie, and the people could seem rather eccentric to a Muggle like himself.

But there was a job to be done. A slayer to be called. Normally, he’d be sending the watcher who would take on the slayer as an apprentice, but this was different. This was a special case.

Not only special, but also quite insane.

He was led through the halls of the castle by Professor Minerva MacGonagall. She was a tall woman in teaching robes.

“Now… you’re saying you’re looking for a young man?” She asked. “I thought slayers could only be girls.”

Travers sighed. “Professor, it’s a long story.”

“And which young man are you looking for?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I just hope his mind isn’t too poisoned.”

MacGonagall raised an eyebrow, but walked on and knocked on Dumbledore’s office door. She knew he’d just gotten back, and had looked so tired when he’d arrived, but this was important.

“Come in!”

She led Travers in.

Dumbledore stared. “Mr. Travers. What brings you here?”

“A slayer to be called.”

“Here?”

“Yes.”

Dumbledore sighed and sat down behind his desk. “Who is she?”

“She’s… She’s a he.”

Dumbledore looked surprised. “Well, I can’t say I’ve ever heard of a student with that name.”

“No, Dumbledore!” Travers cried. “A male! A boy!”

“Oh… oh, dear. Is it-”

“It’s not the Potter boy. Please. These things are never that predictable, look at the two slayers you’ve got here already!”

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow, obviously annoyed. “I will thank you not to speak ill of anyone on my teaching staff, Mr. Travers.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“Oh, good god,” MacGonagall said worriedly. “Please tell me it’s not a Weasley.”

Travers sighed. “No. Not a Weasley.”

“…It isn’t Neville Longbottom… is it?” Dumbledore asked slowly.

“No. Not quite that unbelievable, but fairly wild.”

At that moment, Wesley came bolting in.

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. “I thought you-”

“I did,” Wesley replied. “Got an owl from Travers. Have I missed much?”


It was after dinner when he finally got his guitar nice and tuned, and decided to venture back into the great hall.

She was still sitting there.

“I’m an arsehole. Wanna play chess?”

Hermione looked up from her book at the lunch table. “If I play chess with you, will you leave me alone after that?”

“Fine.”

An hour later…

“I want a rematch!”

“Not again!”

“Come on, Granger, I wanna win against you just once!”

“You wont’, y’know,” she told him. “I’m dating the reining champion of Wizard’s Chess. I pick things up.”

Draco snickered.

Hermione glared. “That wasn’t dirty.”

“No, but it could have been.”

She glared harder. “No rematch for you, Malfoy.”

He laughed harder, nearly breaking a string on the guitar which sat on his lap.

She kicked him under the table.

“Oh, playing footsy now, are we? I may have to tell your Ronniekins.”

They laughed, but sat in silence for a moment.

“Malfoy?”

“What, Granger?”

“Why are you being nice to me?”

He stared at her. “Well, I reckon I owe the Weasel fer saving my life… least I can do is be nice to his Mudb- girlfriend.”

She smiled at him. “Ready for that rematch?”

“Yeah.”

“Mr. Malfoy.”

He swung around to see Dumbledore and Wyndham-Pryce staring at him seriously.

“Uh-oh,” he muttered. “Trouble.”

“Uncle Wesley?” Hermione asked. “When did you get back? Are Harry, Evelyn and Torianna with you?”

Wesley sighed. “I’m afraid they’re still there,” Wesley replied. “I was called back early. A word, please, Mr. Malfoy?”

Hermione smirked. “Have fun.”

Draco got to his feet. “You owe me a rematch, you horrible twit.”

“Can’t wait to get your bum handed to you again, aye?” she snickered.

“Sod off.”


“…One girl in all the world. She alone will stand against the vampires, demons and the forces of darkness.”

“That’s very nice. What does this have to do with me?”

Quinton Travers cleared his throat. “You’re that girl.”

Draco Malfoy blinked. “Do I have to drop my trousers to prove you wrong?”

“We don’t know how this happened, Draco,” Dumbledore explained.

“How could I be a slayer? I’m male! And I’m weak, for Merlin’s sake! Why not Potter? Or Weasley? Or even Granger?!”

“Harry’s a Warrior,” Giles pointed out. “Can’t be both.”

Draco got to his feet. “Not doing it. No way.”

“Unfortunately, you don’t get a choice,” Travers told him. “It’s your destiny.”

“Piss off,” Draco snapped. He didn’t give a second glance before storming out.

He’d stormed out of the headmaster’s office, through halls, and across the grounds.

He had no idea where he was headed. Not only because it was dark, but because he just didn’t really care. He stopped half-way to the forbidden forest. “SHIT!” he screamed. “I can’t do this! I can’t change this much all at once! I can’t be all these things!”

“Draco?”

He snapped around to find Remus, Evelyn, Torianna and Harry standing there with their luggage.

“Jesus,” Torianna muttered. “We got away for a few days and the whole world goes to hell.”

Evelyn rushed away from the group, and threw her arms around Draco.

Remus cleared his throat and led the Torianna and Harry inside the castle. Standing in the front hall was Dumbledore.

“Remus? A word?”

Remus sighed, weary, but nodded. “Yes. Of course. Are you two alright?”

They nodded.

Remus nodded once back to them and followed Dumbledore.

:: On To Chapter Thirteen ::

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