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4. Chapter Three
Disclaimers, etc, see part one.

Chapter three

Hermione and Ron had gone home to their respective families for the Christmas break and Harry was looking forward to a quiet Christmas day. The only other sixth year at the Christmas dinner table was Neville, and they took seats together at the end, away from Snape. The handful of other students also seemed keen to avoid their potions teacher.

The table was laid with usual sumptuous care; gold plates, cutlery and Christmas crackers. The sheer quantity of Christmas trees, taking up the rest of the Great Hall, made Harry wonder if Hagrid had in fact deforested an entire island. And also how Professor Flitwick had managed to charm the tops of the trees gold, given how much taller than him they were. He had to stifle a laugh at the thought of Flitwick on a broom.

The time came and went when Dumbledore would normally have stood to say his few words, and Harry looked around, trying to see who they were waiting for. All the teachers (except for Trelawney) were there, and the only spare seat was next to Snape, so they weren't waiting for a student.

Before the table became too impatient, and Dumbledore had to summon the food, one of the side doors into the hall was pushed open. A head, obscured by a deep hood peered around the door. A figure followed, and walked briskly towards the table, shedding cloak and gloves as it came.

"Sorry you had to wait for me," Buffy said, smiling brightly. "But the staircases weren't cooperating. I gave them a solid talking to; I don't think they're going to try that on me again any time soon."

"So you took your bags to your rooms yourself, I take it?" Dumbledore asked, smiling.

"Yeah," Buffy said. "Those house-elves kind of freak me out. I keep thinking they're going to send me to detention."

Buffy dropped into the only free seat, next to Snape, and grinned at him. He did not smile back.

"Now that we are all gathered together here, in the spirit of the season, we can eat."

The serving plates filled with food, and Harry and Neville served themselves a large amount of roast beef and few vegetables. Harry would have been more than happy to eat ignoring everyone else at the table. Until he heard Hagrid's voice asking:

"So, Buffy, how's Fluffy, doin'?"

"He's really good," Buffy said. "I brought you a picture of him with all the girls," she took an envelope out of her robes and passed it across the table. "It's great having a pet I can't kill," Buffy went on. "I don't have to feed him, or walk him. Beside, whatever Giles and Willow say about our security systems, nothing says 'Keep the hell away' like a giant three headed dog."

Hagrid nodded effusively. He took the photos out of the envelope and arranged them carefully around his dinner. He also took a tea-towel out of his coat and noisily blew his nose.

"He's looking happy. I always knew he'd be great with kiddies."

Buffy nodded, although Harry almost chocked on a potato. Snape glared at Buffy as though encouraging Hagrid were a criminal act.

"The younger girls think he's fun. And it's good practice for the older ones to fight something they don't want to kill. Still, I wish he wouldn't drool in my shoes."

The look of disgust Snape gave Buffy was more eloquent than any words he could have used, but she simply ignored him.

"Surely your students are up to greater challenges than facing an overgrown puppy, which will fall asleep at the slightest tuneless warble. I suppose that's all one can expect of a group of teenage girls."

The two experts on the many glares of Snape turned to look at each other.

"Poor Buffy," Harry said, "He usually works his way up to comments like that."

Neville shrugged. "It's only Snape," he said.

"Wow, Neville. I didn't know you could say 'only Snape.'"

"Just because I'm terrified of him, doesn't mean I think everyone else should be. Besides, Buffy's the Slayer; she can hold her own."

Harry shrugged and nodded, and turned his attention back to his plate, taking seconds of food he knew Dudley wouldn't be allowed to eat, despite his newfound physical prowess.

He kept an eye on Buffy and Snape over his stuffing and goose skin. He was sure he was the only one at the table who thought that Snape was actually having fun sitting beside the "little American nitwit." Buffy certainly held her own, ignoring him in favour of making rather pointed comments to Professor McGonagall and Professor Sinistra.

The one time he tried to defend himself she said, "Do try to keep you oversized beak out of conversation. Not everything is about you."

Just once, Harry looked up and saw Dumbledore grinning at the pair of them. This did not make Harry anymore comfortable. If someone else was aware of the possible undertones of their conversation, they would be much more difficult to ignore; and infinitely harder to pass off as some form of torture devised by Voldemort.

To put them out of his mind Harry started paying more attention to Neville and Professor Sprout's lively discussion about the beneficial uses of deadly plants. Harry had never seen Neville so animated. And, while he wasn't particularly interested in the useful things one could do with Devil's Snare, it was more interesting that whatever furtive glances Buffy and Snape were shooting at each other.

All in all, Harry enjoyed his meal. He was feeling rather full after indulging in Christmas pudding and Treacle Tart for dessert. Though even he had to admit that the Mince Pie was pushing it a bit, but the thought of Dudley's diet pushed him through the test of his endurance. He had though to approach Buffy after dinner, but she was currently actually talking to Snape, and he dared not interrupt. He decided, instead, to meet her on the way to supper that evening, ignoring for the moment how he knew that she would be coming from the Dungeons. Neville and Professor Sprout barely stopped talking about the effect of drying charms on the potency of dried herbs to bid him farewell; and Harry walked back through the castle to the Gryffindor tower.

Hermione had given Harry a book of myths for Christmas and he sat down in front of the fire to read it, glad Hermione wasn't there to comment. Neville arrived not too much later, distracting him from the stories quite readily. It wasn't that they were boring, but just that, in true Hermione style, they were well researched and thought that absolutely everything was interesting.

"Hey, Neville, are you up for a game of chess?" Harry asked.

Neville shrugged. "Sure," he said.

Neville wasn't a brilliant chess player, but he had been taught rather obsessively by Ron, and was now up to beating Harry on a regular basis. Harry disappeared for a moment to collect his and Neville's chessmen from the dormitory and they set the game up in front of the fire.

Harry won the first match fairly quickly, managing to pull one of the moves Ron frequently humiliated him with. But Neville managed to take the next match with a surprise attack with a knight and a bishop. At the end of the fourth game Harry looked at the clock and immediately stood up. Neville looked up at him enquiringly.

"Have you had enough of chess?" Neville asked.

"I just wanted to catch up with Buffy before supper. I have some things I wanted to ask her."

Neville quickly stood up. "Could I come with you? Just to say hello."

Harry looked a little surprised. "I didn't know you knew her."

"I met her at Gran's," Neville explained. "She didn't ignore me like most of Gran's visitors tend to."

"Sure thing then. The company will be nice."

Neville looked a little confused at this comment, but let it slide, and followed Harry out of the Common Room into the corridor.

Harry led Neville through the empty hallways, while they discussed, in depth, the recent decline in the variety and quality of Bertie Bott's Every Flavoured Beans. As they got to the reduction in the frequency and potency of the more disgusting flavours, and their hopes that the company would restore the standards to which they had previously adhered, they heard raised voices.

Both Neville and Harry froze. Neville glanced around the corridor.

"Ah, Harry? This is the dungeons," he said.

"Yeah," Harry said, waving for Neville to be quiet.

Snape was speaking, his voice the same familiar low menacing tone.

"If you don't cease and desist that now, I will have to matters into my own hands," Snape said.

Neville quivered a little and looked anxiously at Harry, who was inching closer very carefully.

"As much as I enjoyed that last time," another, definitely female voice said. Buffy. "I'm hungry. I need to refuel."

"I'm flattered, really," Snape replied. "I didn't think a Slayer could be worn out by a middle aged Potions master."

"You're not middle aged," Buffy said. "Giles is middle aged. And you're well below average age for my boyfriends. And it takes different muscles," she added defensively.

"Well then, I suppose I will simply have to feed you," Snape said. "How tedious."

Harry backed quickly down the hallway, dragging Neville behind a corner on the way.

"What...?" Neville began to say, before Harry shushed him again. "Do you want Snape to know that we know?"

Neville meeped and backed away a bit further.

"We have to meet them coming," Harry said, thinking quietly out loud. "So we have to walk more loudly, get their attention or something."

Neville could only nod, wide eyed. He trusted Buffy not to let Snape actually kill them, but drawing Snape's attention was not something that he was ever going to do voluntarily.

Harry started walking back towards the dungeons from the outer corridor and Neville really had no choice to follow.

"Come one, Neville, I'm sure Buffy is going to come to supper; it's always very good. Maybe they'll have more treacle tart. I don't think anyone else ate any."

"Potter!" Snape spat. He came around the corner and had to pull himself up sharply to avoid running over Harry.

"Hi Harry, hi Neville," Buffy said from behind him.

"Hello Buffy," Harry said. "Ah, I wanted to come and talk to you. About, well, things."

"Potter, I hardly think..." Snape began.

"Severus, the boy was talking to me," Buffy said, smiling at Harry and ignoring Snape's glare.

Snape's glare was pretty powerful, though, and Neville had to expend more energy to overcome the desire to run away.

Buffy brushed past Severus and collected Neville and Harry on her way to the Great Hall. Harry could feel Snape's glare on the back of his neck. He glanced back to see that Snape had turned back to his quarters and sighed with relief.

"How's your Gran, Neville?" Buffy asked.

Harry quickly turned back to focus on the conversation.

"Well," Neville said. "She's a little tired, but I'm glad that she has other people to boss now."

"Yeah," Buffy said. "She's very good at railroading. I think we could have used her against the Mayor. She hasn't mentioned any particular problems with the girls? Some of them can a bit of the handful."

"I think Gran would just prefer it if they dressed in a hat and gloves. And she finds their hair annoying sometimes."

Buffy nodded. "Oh, have you gotten a letter from Melissa recently?" Buffy asked. "She's been trying to convince me that we need your help on the Council gardens."

To Harry's amazement, and Buffy's obvious delight, Neville blushed. He managed to stammer something which sounded like a denial. Buffy clapped him on back and turned to Harry.

"You came to see me?" she began.

"Ah yeah. About what you said about prophecies?"

"I'll catch you guys up," Neville said, not looking at them.

He turned into a corridor which would eventually lead him to the astronomy tower and was gone.

"You can't do anything about them," Buffy said.

"Huh?"

"Not a thing," Buffy said. "Prophecies are simply a statement of facts. This will happen, this has happened. Yours is a relationship one, isn't it? it tells you about your big-bad."

"Yeah," Harry said.

"Prophecies are always true and they always happen. But there's no point worrying about them, because you're bound to get something wrong, and that could just make the rest of it harder."

"It says I have to kill him."

"Or what?" Buffy asked.

"Or what what?"

"What happens if you don't kill him?"

"Well, he kills me, I guess," Harry said, scuffing his shoes on the stones. That part was fairly explicit he thought; there was no it was going to happen accidentally.

"And you don't think that you could do it, that you couldn't kill someone in a moment when it is their life or yours and the lives of everyone you love. Death is very quick, Harry. You only have to decide once that they deserve it because of what they have done, what they will, and for the lives of everyone else."

Harry thought back to the Third Task, and to Sirius, and to the moment when he had tried to cast the Crucius curse on Bellatrix. He would only have to mean it for a flash, just the flash that he cast the spell. He shivered.

"I don't think I can do it," he said.

"Good," Buffy said. "Because there's no way we want you to be able to kill anyone while walking through Hogwarts on Christmas day with a beautiful young woman. That would be worrying."

Harry chuckled.

"Plus, they're always open to interpretation. You can be sure they'll come true, but you can't be sure of how. It will happen whether you worry about it not; so it's better not worry about it. Worry about when you're going to get your next serve of treacle tart."

Harry laughed again. Buffy nodded approvingly.

"Rule One: Don't die," Buffy repeated.

"Is there a rule two?" Harry asked.

Buffy thought about for a moment.

"Always have ice-cream in the freezer," she said.