Title: Wishes and Magic
Author: Shannon
Email: angels_soul_1@yahoo.com
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: W/Snape
Disclaimer: BtVS stuff belongs to Joss Whedon, ME, UPN, WB, FOX; Harry Potter Stuff belongs to J.K. Rowling
Distribution: My site http://dr.shadesofgrey.us/ NHA, WLS, TtH
Spoilers: Through Season 4 “Something Blue” of BtVS, and OoTP of Harry Potter
Summary: Willow makes a wish, which we all know never goes well.
Author’s Notes: Don’t know when exactly Willow’s birthday is so we’re going to assume she is 18 during season 4.
Thanks to Emmy, Zoe, and Kris for beta-ing.

Part 4


Willow was standing outside the doors to the Great Hall waiting for Severus to show up. She wanted to ask him about a few of the things she found in the books he recommended. Lily didn’t know, neither did Remus, and she was pretty sure that both Sirius and James would be no help at all, they had openly admitted to not liking Potions. That left Severus, hopefully he would be in a better mood than he had been in class.

She glanced into the hall to see if lunch was being served yet, it wasn’t so she still had a few minutes. She could see Sirius straining his neck to see if she was still standing there. She had insisted that he not wait with her, she needed the Slytherin’s help and it wasn’t going to happen if the other man picked a fight. She was just about ready to give up when she spotted the dark haired boy, head in a book, moving quickly toward the hall.

“Severus,” Willow said when he approached the doors. “Severus?”

He stopped walking and looked up at her with a scowl on his face. Willow wondered for a moment what he would look like if he ever smiled.

“I have a question?”

“I’m busy,” he snapped and started to walk again.

“Give me a minute okay? That’s all I’m asking,” Willow reached out and grabbed his arm; she had done nothing to deserve being treated this way.

“Fine, one minute,” he closed his book and folded his arms across his chest.

“I read the books you recommended last night,” she said quickly, holding up a parchment she continued, “I made these notes but there are a few things that I found vague references for but couldn’t find anything more on them. They may be useful but…”

Severus reached out and grabbed the notes from her hand. He scanned it quickly then handed it back to her, his scowl not quite as deep as it was a few seconds before. She had done a very complete job of listing ingredients and possible brewing methods. The few items she was questioning were rare and he wasn’t surprised she hadn’t found anything about them.

“Well, do you know anything about them?” Willow asked impatiently.

“Yes, of course I do.”

“So can you help me with it?” Willow asked, “I really would like to learn more about it.”

“I’m busy,” he responded and started to walk away, he would never admit to being impressed. She was a Gryffindor, a mud-blood, and a friend of Black’s after all.

“You know it’s not just me that will suffer if I don’t get this right?” She was quickly becoming angry, “It’s your grade too, unless you prefer to do all the work and we both get the credit.”

Willow resisted the urge to scream as he just continued to walk toward the Slytherin table. He was the most difficult…

“Bloody arrogant git,” Willow muttered as he took his seat and reopened his book. She turned her attention to the blonde girl laughing next to her.

“Sorry didn’t think an American would use that phrase,” Narcissa smiled in sympathy.

“Americans who spend too much time at the British librarian’s house, with the chained up British vampire do,” Willow shrugged.

“Oh right, you’re going to have to tell me that story one day, the vampire not the librarian,” she answered as she walked with Willow into the hall, “You should probably know that you need a better insult than arrogant for a Slytherin. What did he do anyway?”

Willow quickly explained her problem, and Narcissa sighed, glancing back at her house table.

“I would help, but I doubt I’d do much good. What I can do is talk to Severus for you. Are you free to work with him today?”

“Um, I have to study with Sirius until dinner but after dinner I’m free.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” The other girl smiled again and headed off toward her own table.

“Wow,” Sirius said as Willow took a seat next to him, “I can’t believe Narcissa even speaks to you.”

“You know her?”

“She’s my cousin,” he responded, piling food on his plate, “But she doesn’t usually lower herself to talk to muggle borns.”

“Mmm, she seems really nice,” Willow frowned watching the other girl obviously arguing with Severus, “Maybe it’s because I know you?”

“That would just be another reason not to talk to you,” Remus responded.

They spent the remainder of lunch discussing their classes. Lily offered to help Willow with charms. She hadn’t been as behind in Defense Against the Dark Arts as she had been with the other classes. The years on the Hellmouth had finally paid off. Just as they were finishing their meal, and Willow and Sirius were getting ready to head to Herbology Severus was sweeping across the hall, the scowl on his face even deeper than before.

“I’ll meet you in the library after dinner,” he snapped as soon as he neared them.

“She’s busy,” Sirius responded moving in front of Willow.

“No I’m not,” Willow pushed him aside and looked at Severus, “I’ll be there, though you could ask nicer.”

“You should not go through Narcissa to get what you want.”

“She offered to help,” Willow snapped, “If you weren’t being a jerk she wouldn’t have had to.”

Willow scowled at him as he raised an eyebrow and walked away without another comment.

Willow was watching quietly as Severus pulled books from the shelves, inspected them and returned them. Occasionally he would bring one to the table for her to look at. It hadn’t taken long to find the information on the ingredients she had questioned; at least once he had shown up with a pass for the restricted section.

They had moved on to brainstorming ideas for creating the potion. The books he was looking for now were on brewing methods and side effects. There was no way to avoid all side effects with this type of potion but they wanted to make them as minimal as possible. Willow was pulled out of her thoughts when Severus slammed down several books at the table before sitting in the chair across from hers.

“Do you want side effects or brewing methods?” He asked.

“I’ll take side effects,” she grabbed a book and opened it. “This is just like home, only no internet to make it faster.”

“Internet?”

“Muggle thing sorry. So want to tell me why you hate Sirius and James so much?”

“It’d take too long and I have other homework,” he scowled at the mention of their names.

Willow shrugged and started taking notes. He had been relatively pleasant since they arrived in the library and she wasn’t going to push her luck by forcing a conversation he didn’t want to have.

Severus watched her for several minutes. She wasn’t as bad as he had assumed, although, he was sure there must be some flaws or she wouldn’t be friends with the Gryffindors. Narcissa insisted that for a mud-blood she seemed nice and he should at least try to get along, if for no other reason than his grade. She had also told him that Lucius was interested in her, or more importantly the Dark Lord was interested. He didn’t know why, she didn’t seem particularly powerful but if he planned on joining the Dark Lord’s followers after he left Hogwarts he would have to cooperate now. He was supposed to find out what he could about her, where she came from, and how being raised muggle she was allowed to attend Hogwarts as a seventh year. He would have to report to Lucius within a week, it didn’t give him much time, nor did he feel comfortable turning this girl over to the older man. He had been raised to believe in the superiority of pure blood but he had never been as vicious as Malfoy.

“Severus is something wrong?” Willow asked looking up when he continued to stare.

“No sorry,” he turned his attention back to his book.

“If you want to ask me something ask.”

“Well, I was wondering how you came to be here?”

“Excuse me?” Willow asked misunderstanding, “How did you know I don’t belong here?”

“I thought you were accepted,” now he was confused, “I meant how did you get into Hogwarts at such a late age? But what did you mean don’t belong?”

“Um, well, if I tell you you’ll think I’m crazy,” Willow muttered blushing.

“Why?” He asked raising a dark eyebrow.

“I told you I’m from a Hellmouth right?” Willow began, and then at his nod, “Well odd things happen there and…you know what I can’t do this, you’ll get all cranky again.”

“Fine,” he said, then glanced at his watch, “How are your notes coming? I have another appointment in a few minutes.”

“Should we call it a night then?” Willow suggested, “It seems like we have enough to start writing the paper in class tomorrow.”

He quickly agreed and they returned the books to the shelves and left the library. Willow noticed he didn’t head to toward the dungeons and the Slytherin dormitory when they left, but toward one of the unused towers. Shrugging she made her way back to the Gryffindor common room.

“Have fun with Snivellus?” James asked when she appeared through the portal.

“He’s not that bad,” Willow insisted dropping her books, “You guys could try to be nice to him.”

“Not likely,” Sirius responded.

Willow pulled a chair closer to the table where the other two were playing Wizard Chess. She still couldn’t get over how different even simple board games were here. She watched until the finished the game they had been playing and then decided to use the time to work on homework from her other classes, and moved to sit on the couch, pulling a book out of her bag she began reading.

“Still working on the potions project?” Sirius asked.

“No, Dark Arts.”

“That papers not due for a week,” James pointed out.

“I know but I’m already behind, you guys have six years of training that I don’t have,” Willow insisted.

Willow’s attention returned to her book as her classmates returned to their game. It was actually going to be a relatively easy paper for her, they had to write a two foot essay on vampires, but she was interested in seeing what the wizarding population knew of them. Reading about vampires, was reminding her of how much she missed her friends, and that she did need to find a way back to them.

Finding a way back was a problem, it wasn’t like she could catch a plane. She wasn’t even sure how she had gotten here, she vaguely remembered wishing she could take a magic class before she went to sleep, and she knew wishing was bad, god knew she had heard enough horror stories from Anya, but she had been alone. She also was over the vengeance thing, she had even met with D’Hoffryn, and she hadn’t summoned anyone to her.

There was also the issue of whether she had simply traveled back in time, or if this was another dimension. If she had went back in time, did that mean she wasn’t in her own time anymore? If that was the case, Buffy and Xander had to be worried sick. She loved being here, and she loved her knew friends and this school, but she couldn’t stay here and let her other friends worry.

She needed to find someone who could help her find her way home. Of course, the people she would normally go to for help with this kind of thing hadn’t been born yet. Giles was alive, but after seeing what he was like as a teen-ager she wasn’t sure he would be much help. She could try to find out how to contact the Watcher’s Council but she wasn’t confident of their stand on witches. There had to be someone here who could help her with this. Glancing up at James and Sirius who were finishing their game she decided to try and ask for advice.

“Guys, can I ask you a question?”

“What’s up?” Sirius asked as James began placing the chess pieces back in their box. “It can’t be homework help, you must know more about vampires than we do.”

“Not homework,” Willow assured him, setting the book down. “If you had a problem, something big and you didn’t know what to do, who would you ask for help?”

“Moony,” both answered in unison.

“Remus?” Willow questioned, she wasn’t sure they had understood the question. “This is something that most people would think is crazy.”

“Moony,” They both repeated.

“He’s a werewolf Willow, he considers very little to be completely mad,” James added.

Willow shrugged, it couldn’t hurt to ask him, and at the very least he would report her to a professor. Either way she stood a chance of getting some help.

“Where is he?”

“Full moon,” Sirius answered, and then glancing at the clock he turned to James, “You ready?”

“Let’s go,” James replied, “He’ll be back in the morning Willow.”

“Thanks guys.” Willow smiled.

Willow watched them leave before picking up her book and returning to the vampire essay. She stayed in the common room studying until the room began to fill with Gryffindors and became too noisy. Finally deciding she wasn’t going to get anymore done that night she gathered her books and went to the girl’s dormitory to get ready for bed. She would talk to Remus in the morning.




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