Call of the Wildthing
Lavender was looking around with wide eyes. Oz had brought her to the Watcher’s Council. He’d explained what they were, and Lavender had been amazed. There were so many, and some of them were so young.
“Daisy,” Oz said. “This is Lavender Brown. She’s-”
“Supposed to be dead.”
Lavender looked at her. She looked vaguely familiar.
“Daisy Penshaw. Hufflepuff, the year under you. My cousin Darby Penshaw was a Ravenclaw that was two years ahead of you.”
Lavender nodded her head. The Penshaws were good people. In fact, they had been some of the ones to show up with the Order for the battle of Hogwarts. If she was recalling correctly, three of the Penshaws were listed among the dead. David, Bonnie and Felicity - Lavender had a thing for recalling names and faces. It went with being a gossip.
“I’m a werewolf,” Lavender announced.
Daisy blinked in surprise.
“Well, that’s one way to tell people,” Oz said.
Lavender turned and looked at him. “You think I should take out an ad in the Prophet?”
Buffy walked past, moving through the foyer to reach the other part of the council. She was almost into the hallway when she paused. There was an itch, right between her shoulder blades. It screamed that a werewolf was nearby, which, hello. Oz. But it was much stronger.
“Uh, Oz?” She looked at the woman standing next to him. Either he just got a major power boost or his new friend was of the howling variety. Buffy turned on her heel and walked back to the front desk. “Who’s your friend?”
“Lavender Brown. I went to Hogwarts.” Lavender sniffed the air. “Wow. You’re.... different, stronger.”
“She’s, um, like me, Buffy. She’s friends with Lyra and Roman.”
Buffy didn’t relax, but was a bit less tense. Because if Oz vouched for her, then she knew it was safe, and she did feel less wary. But still - werewolf of the female variety. Not good experiences there involving Oz.
“Nice to meet you. Buffy Summers.” She held out her hand.
Lavender made sure her handshake was firm, but she had nothing on Buffy Summers. Lavender winced.
“Buffy, “ Oz said.
“What?” she asked, before pulling back quickly. “Sorry. My head is in training mode. That’s where I’m heading. Didn’t mean to shake so hard.”
Theo came walking down the stairs. “Hey, Buffy, I...”
He had spotted Lavender.
Theo pointed. “I didn’t do it!”
Oz leaned over to Lavender. “Maybe that ad isn’t the worst idea ever.”
“I’m getting that.”
Buffy turned wide eyes to Theo. “What the hell is your damage? What are you screeching about?”
“I did not do it,” Theo said.
“He think I’m dead,” Lavender said. “Though what would you have to do with me not being dead, Nott?”
“Necromancer.”
“Really,” Lavender considered this. “Well, no, you didn’t do it. It was the lycanthropy that brought me back. Well, healed me enough so that I didn’t die of my wounds.”
“Really?”
Lavender shrugged. “So who else is working here that I might know? Super beings, teen werewolves, former classmates. I might have to visit more often.”
“Uh,” Buffy looked upwards, trying to remember who all went to school together. “There’s Hannah, Mac, Draco...” she turned to Theo. “Anyone else?”
“Draco? Malfoy? He... works?”
“Yeah,” Oz said. “He’s one of my drinking buddies too, so don’t start.”
Lavender grinned. This she absolutely had to see. “This place is getting better and better. I’m really excited to be here.”
Theo groaned. He recalled what Lavender Brown was like in school. Word already traveled quickly here. The last thing they needed was a gossipmonger in the Council to bring it up in speed.
Buffy looked between Theo, Oz, and Lavender. “Uh, I have a training session to get to.” She turned to Theo and gave him a kiss. “Don’t let Draco set anyone on fire.”
“Dinner later?” Theo called after her.
Buffy nodded yes.
“Theodore Nott,” Lavender said in a mock scandalized tone. “Are you dating the head slayer in charge?”
“Shut up, Brown.”
Then Theo groaned again because Zabini was walking in. He so was not in the mood for this.
“There’s someone else you know,” Theo said, pointing.
“Nott, what are you...” Blaise trailed off, stopping in the middle of the foyer. He had just come by to see Hannah and didn’t want to floo. He was not expecting one of his ex-girlfriends, who he thought was dead, to be standing there. “Fuck my life.”
Then he glared at Nott. “Seriously? I thought they put you on a leash.”
“He knows you’re a necromancer?” Then she looked at Blaise. “You must be so jealous, dearie.” Then she looked back at Theo. “He always wanted to have dominion over the dead. Or he used to, but maybe he grew out of that?”
“I didn’t raise her.” He leaned over to Lavender. “He never grew out of a lot of things, I’ll have you know.”
She snickered. Once upon a time she and Theo Nott’d had an interesting conversation. She was pleased to see his dry humor was still in place.
“Apparently she was never really dead,” Daisy added.
Lavender let a low growl resonate in her chest. “Just a werewolf.”
Oz turned to look at her in surprise. She sure did announce her status a lot, but then again, she knew everyone they’d encountered except Buffy, and perhaps she just wanted to be up front with ‘the head slayer’ and didn’t care that old friends knew.
“Fuck my life,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “Can none of my ex-girlfriends stay human? At all?” Blaise didn’t know whether he needed to run in the other direction or continue on to Hannah’s office. He glared at Nott. “If she kills me, you better bring me back.”
Lavender glared. “I’ve never killed anyone as a werewolf.”
“But you’ve killed someone?” Theo asked, always interested in things like that.
“I fought in the Battle of Hogwarts. They were trying to kill us, so I wasn’t exactly throwing out tickling charms, Nott. I don’t kill people unless they give me no choice.”
“You and Malfoy both,” Theo muttered. “Say... did you know Zabini here is seeing Hannah Abbott?”
“How would I know that since I’ve been in Ireland running with a wildling pack for the last several years?” Then she looked at Blaise. “Really?”
“What?” he asked loudly at the incredulous glare he was getting. Blaise turned to Nott. “Why the hell would you blurt that out all of a sudden?”
“Seemed like the right time,” Theo said.
“Naughty,” Lavender said.
“Slytherin,” Theo replied before smirking at Blaise in a way that sarcastically said have fun with this then he headed off. Theo had always ended up having at least one conversation with all of Blaise’s exes in school. he didn’t know why, but it had just happened that way.
“Well,” Lavender said. “He’s way more interesting than I thought he was.”
Oz was just watching the play. It was telling him a lot about Miss Lavender Brown.
“So... do you work here too, Zabini? Also... you? Work? I mean, it’s almost as wild as Malfoy working. Oh my goddess, you’re not the house’s kept man are you?”
“Sod off,” he snapped, aiming to walk past and keep going to Hannah’s office. “I thought we agreed to simply exist close to each other but never actually interact.”
Oz raised a brow at Lavender.
“What? He was my boyfriend for two seconds in sixth year. He’s pretty. I was weak.”
Lavender followed Blaise. Oz hurried after her - just in case.
“That was another Lavender Brown in another life. That girl is dead. So... how does this Abbott thing work if you’re the houseboy?”
Blaise wanted to close his eyes and will the woman away, but he actually needed to look where he was going. Wouldn’t do to knock into a slayer and get tossed into a wall. “I have a job, Brown. Now sod off.”
Lavender spun around and walked backwards so she could see him and Oz. “He’s really the houseboy? Oh my goddess, I was so kidding. You have so much more potential than that, you stupid berk.”
Oz blinked in surprise.
He actually stopped, mid-step. “What the bloody hell are you nattering on about? I have a job. Not here. In Italy.” Blaise tossed his hands in the air and started walking again, muttering to himself. “And why am I explaining this?”
Lavender fell back into step next to him. “You’re a kept man in Italy? Blaise, you are more than your body. Don’t sell yourself short. You weren’t head boy because you’re cute.”
“You were head boy?” Oz said. “How come you never told me this?”
Now Blaise remembered why he and Lavender never lasted. She talked too damn much. So he was going to do the same thing he did in school to get her to go away. He was going to ignore her.
“Forgive me for not shouting my school achievements for the entire council to hear,” he told Oz sarcastically.
“Now he’s going to ignore me,” Lavender said. “It’s what always happened when I’d start saying things he didn’t like.”
Oz saw Hannah walking towards them with Meredith. He sighed. This might be awkward or not, depending upon how Hannah reacted.
“Because you talk too fucking much!” Blaise said loudly, glaring at her after he stopped in the middle of the hallway. “My job is in Italy at a charm company run by my family. I am not a damned houseboy and I don’t sell my body for money, like I would even need it. I’m actually quite rich, or have you forgotten all the presents I shoved at you when we dated?”
How was this his life? “Did I do something in a previous life to warrant this torture? Could this get any worse?”
“Am I interrupting?” Hannah asked, then she spotted Lavender. “Oh! Did Theo...”
“No, “ Oz said. “She was never dead.”
Meredith looked at the blonde woman that Blaise had been shouting at. “She’s not human.”
“You gave her presents?” Hannah asked.
Blaise glared up at the ceiling. “That was rhetorical!” With a huff, he looked down at Hannah. “Sixth year fling. I can’t stand her. Don’t even worry about it.”
“I’m not. Will you calm down? You get entirely too worked up about things, darling.”
Lavender was looking from one to the other. “No way.”
Blaise looked at Hannah warily. “Really? I get too worked up about things? Can we recall the last time my father visited and you hexed me while he was in the kitchen?”
Lavender was smiling widely. This was fabulous.
“You completely deserved that,” Hannah said, then leaned up to kiss him.
“A Hufflepuff,” Lavender said. “Who would have thought? This is so unexpected. I like it. It’s just the sort of juicy bit of gossip I would have loved back in the day.”
Hannah glared at Lavender Brown.
That surprised Lavender. “Well, would you look at that. I like it too. This is a better look for you, Abbott.”
“Because I live for your good opinion,” Hannah said.
Lavender clapped her hands together in excitement and laughed. “Strike that. I don’t just like it - I love it! Now you two are beginning to make sense to me.”
His fingers were twitching to do something, throw a knife, hex her...something. “How is it that you are more annoying now than you were in school? How? I can stand Astoria Greengrass better than you, and I would gladly toss her off a cliff on a good day.”
Oz grabbed Lavender’s hand. “Let’s go. Later, Han, Blaise.”
Lavender started laughing. “I definitely approve, Zabini.”
Hannah looked at Blaise. “You dated her?”
He rolled his eyes. “I was sixteen and deeply stupid.”
Hannah giggled and kissed him again. “Shall we go out or have lunch brought into my office?”
“Daisy,” Oz said. “This is Lavender Brown. She’s-”
“Supposed to be dead.”
Lavender looked at her. She looked vaguely familiar.
“Daisy Penshaw. Hufflepuff, the year under you. My cousin Darby Penshaw was a Ravenclaw that was two years ahead of you.”
Lavender nodded her head. The Penshaws were good people. In fact, they had been some of the ones to show up with the Order for the battle of Hogwarts. If she was recalling correctly, three of the Penshaws were listed among the dead. David, Bonnie and Felicity - Lavender had a thing for recalling names and faces. It went with being a gossip.
“I’m a werewolf,” Lavender announced.
Daisy blinked in surprise.
“Well, that’s one way to tell people,” Oz said.
Lavender turned and looked at him. “You think I should take out an ad in the Prophet?”
Buffy walked past, moving through the foyer to reach the other part of the council. She was almost into the hallway when she paused. There was an itch, right between her shoulder blades. It screamed that a werewolf was nearby, which, hello. Oz. But it was much stronger.
“Uh, Oz?” She looked at the woman standing next to him. Either he just got a major power boost or his new friend was of the howling variety. Buffy turned on her heel and walked back to the front desk. “Who’s your friend?”
“Lavender Brown. I went to Hogwarts.” Lavender sniffed the air. “Wow. You’re.... different, stronger.”
“She’s, um, like me, Buffy. She’s friends with Lyra and Roman.”
Buffy didn’t relax, but was a bit less tense. Because if Oz vouched for her, then she knew it was safe, and she did feel less wary. But still - werewolf of the female variety. Not good experiences there involving Oz.
“Nice to meet you. Buffy Summers.” She held out her hand.
Lavender made sure her handshake was firm, but she had nothing on Buffy Summers. Lavender winced.
“Buffy, “ Oz said.
“What?” she asked, before pulling back quickly. “Sorry. My head is in training mode. That’s where I’m heading. Didn’t mean to shake so hard.”
Theo came walking down the stairs. “Hey, Buffy, I...”
He had spotted Lavender.
Theo pointed. “I didn’t do it!”
Oz leaned over to Lavender. “Maybe that ad isn’t the worst idea ever.”
“I’m getting that.”
Buffy turned wide eyes to Theo. “What the hell is your damage? What are you screeching about?”
“I did not do it,” Theo said.
“He think I’m dead,” Lavender said. “Though what would you have to do with me not being dead, Nott?”
“Necromancer.”
“Really,” Lavender considered this. “Well, no, you didn’t do it. It was the lycanthropy that brought me back. Well, healed me enough so that I didn’t die of my wounds.”
“Really?”
Lavender shrugged. “So who else is working here that I might know? Super beings, teen werewolves, former classmates. I might have to visit more often.”
“Uh,” Buffy looked upwards, trying to remember who all went to school together. “There’s Hannah, Mac, Draco...” she turned to Theo. “Anyone else?”
“Draco? Malfoy? He... works?”
“Yeah,” Oz said. “He’s one of my drinking buddies too, so don’t start.”
Lavender grinned. This she absolutely had to see. “This place is getting better and better. I’m really excited to be here.”
Theo groaned. He recalled what Lavender Brown was like in school. Word already traveled quickly here. The last thing they needed was a gossipmonger in the Council to bring it up in speed.
Buffy looked between Theo, Oz, and Lavender. “Uh, I have a training session to get to.” She turned to Theo and gave him a kiss. “Don’t let Draco set anyone on fire.”
“Dinner later?” Theo called after her.
Buffy nodded yes.
“Theodore Nott,” Lavender said in a mock scandalized tone. “Are you dating the head slayer in charge?”
“Shut up, Brown.”
Then Theo groaned again because Zabini was walking in. He so was not in the mood for this.
“There’s someone else you know,” Theo said, pointing.
“Nott, what are you...” Blaise trailed off, stopping in the middle of the foyer. He had just come by to see Hannah and didn’t want to floo. He was not expecting one of his ex-girlfriends, who he thought was dead, to be standing there. “Fuck my life.”
Then he glared at Nott. “Seriously? I thought they put you on a leash.”
“He knows you’re a necromancer?” Then she looked at Blaise. “You must be so jealous, dearie.” Then she looked back at Theo. “He always wanted to have dominion over the dead. Or he used to, but maybe he grew out of that?”
“I didn’t raise her.” He leaned over to Lavender. “He never grew out of a lot of things, I’ll have you know.”
She snickered. Once upon a time she and Theo Nott’d had an interesting conversation. She was pleased to see his dry humor was still in place.
“Apparently she was never really dead,” Daisy added.
Lavender let a low growl resonate in her chest. “Just a werewolf.”
Oz turned to look at her in surprise. She sure did announce her status a lot, but then again, she knew everyone they’d encountered except Buffy, and perhaps she just wanted to be up front with ‘the head slayer’ and didn’t care that old friends knew.
“Fuck my life,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “Can none of my ex-girlfriends stay human? At all?” Blaise didn’t know whether he needed to run in the other direction or continue on to Hannah’s office. He glared at Nott. “If she kills me, you better bring me back.”
Lavender glared. “I’ve never killed anyone as a werewolf.”
“But you’ve killed someone?” Theo asked, always interested in things like that.
“I fought in the Battle of Hogwarts. They were trying to kill us, so I wasn’t exactly throwing out tickling charms, Nott. I don’t kill people unless they give me no choice.”
“You and Malfoy both,” Theo muttered. “Say... did you know Zabini here is seeing Hannah Abbott?”
“How would I know that since I’ve been in Ireland running with a wildling pack for the last several years?” Then she looked at Blaise. “Really?”
“What?” he asked loudly at the incredulous glare he was getting. Blaise turned to Nott. “Why the hell would you blurt that out all of a sudden?”
“Seemed like the right time,” Theo said.
“Naughty,” Lavender said.
“Slytherin,” Theo replied before smirking at Blaise in a way that sarcastically said have fun with this then he headed off. Theo had always ended up having at least one conversation with all of Blaise’s exes in school. he didn’t know why, but it had just happened that way.
“Well,” Lavender said. “He’s way more interesting than I thought he was.”
Oz was just watching the play. It was telling him a lot about Miss Lavender Brown.
“So... do you work here too, Zabini? Also... you? Work? I mean, it’s almost as wild as Malfoy working. Oh my goddess, you’re not the house’s kept man are you?”
“Sod off,” he snapped, aiming to walk past and keep going to Hannah’s office. “I thought we agreed to simply exist close to each other but never actually interact.”
Oz raised a brow at Lavender.
“What? He was my boyfriend for two seconds in sixth year. He’s pretty. I was weak.”
Lavender followed Blaise. Oz hurried after her - just in case.
“That was another Lavender Brown in another life. That girl is dead. So... how does this Abbott thing work if you’re the houseboy?”
Blaise wanted to close his eyes and will the woman away, but he actually needed to look where he was going. Wouldn’t do to knock into a slayer and get tossed into a wall. “I have a job, Brown. Now sod off.”
Lavender spun around and walked backwards so she could see him and Oz. “He’s really the houseboy? Oh my goddess, I was so kidding. You have so much more potential than that, you stupid berk.”
Oz blinked in surprise.
He actually stopped, mid-step. “What the bloody hell are you nattering on about? I have a job. Not here. In Italy.” Blaise tossed his hands in the air and started walking again, muttering to himself. “And why am I explaining this?”
Lavender fell back into step next to him. “You’re a kept man in Italy? Blaise, you are more than your body. Don’t sell yourself short. You weren’t head boy because you’re cute.”
“You were head boy?” Oz said. “How come you never told me this?”
Now Blaise remembered why he and Lavender never lasted. She talked too damn much. So he was going to do the same thing he did in school to get her to go away. He was going to ignore her.
“Forgive me for not shouting my school achievements for the entire council to hear,” he told Oz sarcastically.
“Now he’s going to ignore me,” Lavender said. “It’s what always happened when I’d start saying things he didn’t like.”
Oz saw Hannah walking towards them with Meredith. He sighed. This might be awkward or not, depending upon how Hannah reacted.
“Because you talk too fucking much!” Blaise said loudly, glaring at her after he stopped in the middle of the hallway. “My job is in Italy at a charm company run by my family. I am not a damned houseboy and I don’t sell my body for money, like I would even need it. I’m actually quite rich, or have you forgotten all the presents I shoved at you when we dated?”
How was this his life? “Did I do something in a previous life to warrant this torture? Could this get any worse?”
“Am I interrupting?” Hannah asked, then she spotted Lavender. “Oh! Did Theo...”
“No, “ Oz said. “She was never dead.”
Meredith looked at the blonde woman that Blaise had been shouting at. “She’s not human.”
“You gave her presents?” Hannah asked.
Blaise glared up at the ceiling. “That was rhetorical!” With a huff, he looked down at Hannah. “Sixth year fling. I can’t stand her. Don’t even worry about it.”
“I’m not. Will you calm down? You get entirely too worked up about things, darling.”
Lavender was looking from one to the other. “No way.”
Blaise looked at Hannah warily. “Really? I get too worked up about things? Can we recall the last time my father visited and you hexed me while he was in the kitchen?”
Lavender was smiling widely. This was fabulous.
“You completely deserved that,” Hannah said, then leaned up to kiss him.
“A Hufflepuff,” Lavender said. “Who would have thought? This is so unexpected. I like it. It’s just the sort of juicy bit of gossip I would have loved back in the day.”
Hannah glared at Lavender Brown.
That surprised Lavender. “Well, would you look at that. I like it too. This is a better look for you, Abbott.”
“Because I live for your good opinion,” Hannah said.
Lavender clapped her hands together in excitement and laughed. “Strike that. I don’t just like it - I love it! Now you two are beginning to make sense to me.”
His fingers were twitching to do something, throw a knife, hex her...something. “How is it that you are more annoying now than you were in school? How? I can stand Astoria Greengrass better than you, and I would gladly toss her off a cliff on a good day.”
Oz grabbed Lavender’s hand. “Let’s go. Later, Han, Blaise.”
Lavender started laughing. “I definitely approve, Zabini.”
Hannah looked at Blaise. “You dated her?”
He rolled his eyes. “I was sixteen and deeply stupid.”
Hannah giggled and kissed him again. “Shall we go out or have lunch brought into my office?”