A/N: Okay, this is the end of Strike up the Band. Next few chapters will be penpal letters. And maybe a short chapter from Harry or Ron's POV.

Thanks to dejadthisvu for reviewing. Yes, Giles will be appearing. I'd never leave him out!

Reviews would be greatly appreciated! I really like them! :)

I dozed through History of Magic. History was never really my thing to begin with; having Professor Binns just killed the subject for me.

In transfiguration, I met up with Fred and George again. They were wearing suspicious (more suspicious than usual) grins and I waited until McGonagall had turned around to ask them about it.

“What’s the what?”

They looked at me in confusion and I remembered that they didn’t know American slang. I missed Willow and Xander sometimes.

“What are you up to?” I asked again and their faces split into grins.

“We have just completed one of our greatest creations.”

George pulled out a blue, taffy like candy out of a paper bag in his bag. It looked just like a piece of candy, but I suspected it was something much worse.

“Will that kill you?” I asked and George patted me on the back as if to calm me.

“No, of course not. This, dear Buffy, is called the Meltdown. Why is it called that you ask? George, would you like to answer?”

“Why certainly, Fred. It’s called the Meltdown because it will give you the single greatest migraine ever in the history of mankind. You’ll see spots in your vision, your sensitivity to light and sound will be worse than that of a vampire's, not to mention the tears.”

“Ah, yes, the tears. I was crying buckets just last period.”

I looked at them skeptically and then back at the little piece of taffy. Note to self, never take any candy from Fred and George.

“Well, I’m very proud of you two, but you’d better put it away. McGonagall’s coming.”

With that said, the rest of the period went by quickly. Soon, it was lunch and I said a quick goodbye before heading back to my dorm. I wasn’t really hungry and I wanted to write a letter to Xander and Willow.

I was in the common room working on my letter when Angel walked in. I hadn’t seen him all day and I was hoping to avoid seeing him before I had to. I doubted I had enough self-control to stop myself from picking a fight with him.

He walked right by me without saying a word and I confirmed my suspicions when I couldn’t stop myself from commenting on the fact.

“Way to be rude. Can’t even say hello to girl you live with?”

He turned back around and leaned in the doorway.

“I was trying to avoid a fight, but since you seem to want the opposite, Hello Buffy, how are you?”

I felt my face get hot but I didn’t want to lose face. “I’m good except for this one little thing. Not only do I have to live with this really annoying vampire, I have to see him three times today. Doesn’t that suck?”

“It really does. But it’s not as bad as my day, at least you’re really annoying vampire shows some semblance of maturity when confronted with a bad situation.”

I glared at him. Who’s he to say that I’m not mature? I’m plenty mature. Sometimes at least.

“He’s not acting very mature right now, is he?” I snapped. Angel only smiled and turned away again. I returned to my letter, but was too worked up to write anything else so I was still sitting in the same position when he returned five minutes later.

“I already have the lesson plan for Hand to Hand written up for the next month so you should look it over. And our detention will start at seven, so I expect you to be at my office.”

“What if I don’t like your lesson plan?” I quipped at him as I glanced at the book he’d thrown my way. The lessons looked…good. Damn him for being good at this.

“Deal with it, Buff.”

He slammed the door behind him and I glared at the lesson plans in my hand. He was so infuriating. And it was even more annoying that I thought I knew the reason why he was so infuriating. He was right: I am immature. It was the reason why I acted this why around him. I liked him and when I liked someone it was either a teasing relationship, like the one I had with Cedric, or a full blown nerve-grating relationship of biting remarks and ceaseless arguments. Huh, I used ceaseless correctly in a sentence. Xander would love that.

Finishing up my letter, I ran through my mental list of other things to do. I had Potions reading, a Transfiguration paper, and my penpal letters. I decided to do the easiest one first: the penpal letters.

I had to write two letters, one to an anonymous Hogwarts student and one to Malfoy. They should be easy. I soon discovered that they were, in fact, not as easy as I first assumed. I’d been staring at the same piece of parchment for the last five minutes. Stuffing the paper away, I got up to leave. I didn’t need this frustration.

On my way to Charms, I ran into Hermione. I hadn’t realized I was wearing my frustration on my face until she pointed it out to me. I would’ve talked with her longer, but I was gonna be late for class.

In Charms, Oz claimed the seat next to me. I was beginning to notice I really liked Oz. He had this “I’m in a band” kind of coolness about him. Not to mention that he understood me; he’d lived in America before coming to Hogwarts.

“Did you write your letter to Willow?” I asked him when I had the chance.

“Yeah, thanks for the advice,” he said. As if to himself, he continued, “I hope she likes animal crackers.”

I looked at him skeptically but before I could ask Flitwick came by to see our progress. We were supposed to be practicing non-verbal spells, which I always sucked at. Talking always kept me balanced during a fight, but I guess not having the other person know what you were up to would be helpful.

After Charms, Oz and I made our way to Herbology. I was happy because Cedric was in this class. On my way there a girl ran into me. She didn’t bother to apologize, but she looked like she was crying so I didn’t bother her about it.

When I entered the class, I looked for Cedric immediately. He looked a little upset when I first caught sight of him, but I couldn’t be sure because moments later he walked up to me with a big smile on his face.

“Hey,” I greeted.

“Hello, Buffy. Would you like to be partners today?” he asked.

I pretended to consider it for a moment. “I don’t know. Do you think the fan girls will allow it?”

“Oh, they’re on lunch break now so I think you’re fine.”

“Well if that’s the case,” I said, walking with him towards his bench.

The rest of the class was spent changing pots for gnarled tree nymphs and talking with Cedric. When the class was over, he offered to walk me to DADA.

I groaned when he mentioned it. “I really don’t want to go.”

He smiled at me, “Well, think of it this way. It’ll bring you one step closer to the end of the day.”

“And another step closer to my detention with Angel. I see too much of him.”

He smiled at me. “I can’t fix that, but I can at least give you this.”

He handed me a small notebook. It was about the size of my palm.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“You can hide it in your real notebook. Whatever you draw in it becomes a flip book.”

“This is awesome,” I said, “You are awesome.”

“It’s really nothing.”

Another voice cut in to our conversation. “Didn’t I tell you to stop coming by here when you’re class is over.”

Cedric blanched and said a quick goodbye.

“Bye, Cedric,” I called after his retreating form, before turning back to Angel. Seriously, what was his problem?

“Geez, you act like he’s stalking you. He was here to see me, not you,” I snapped and Angel didn’t reply, choosing to enter the classroom. I took a seat in the back and began to doodle graphic images of me killing him in the flip book. It was cool how the pages doubled to make it flippable.

I zoned out most of the class, but when Angel mentioned music I perked up.

“Music is one of the major vices for a vampire. They cannot resist the sound of music, and are thus drawn to it. From musicals to performances by musicians, you would be hard pressed not to find a vampire in the crowd. Plus, those places are usually crowded so they make good feeding grounds for vampires.”

I zoned back out at that point, silently and grudgingly thanking Angel. I now had an idea for my penpal letter. Now I just had to write it.

The class ended without him having to speak to me once and I took that as a good sign. I didn’t have to change for Hand-to-Hand as I was wearing my work out clothes under my robes so I arrived at the room early. I stood outside the door because it was a little chilly inside the classroom so I noticed when Snape walked by the classroom in a hurry. I was tempted to ask him what meeting was so important that he couldn’t do a detention but thought better of it when I saw his expression. He wouldn’t look so evil if he smiled once in a while. He wasn’t that bad looking.

Hermione, Harry, and Ron were the first ones to arrive so I chatted with them for a while.

“Have you had any progress on our special project?” I asked Harry and Ron, looking at Hermione speculatively. I wasn’t sure whether she knew about the prank or not. She didn’t strike me as the type to approve of those things.

“A bit. We’ve been honing our transfiguration skills and have found a supplier for our other needs,” Harry replied, looking proud.

I didn’t have a chance to say any more as the rest of the class began to arrive. Angel showed up soon after and I let him take the lead in the class. He was better at teaching than me.

When the class was over, I headed up to my dorm to take a shower. I was feeling pretty gross from the class. After my shower, I glanced at the time. 6:30. I had half an hour for dinner. I was starving.

I ran downstairs to the Great Hall. Hermione was sitting by herself so I decided to join her.

“Hey,” I said, grabbing the plate beside her.

“Hello,” she said. I glanced at her face. She looked as frustrated as I felt earlier.

“Having trouble?” I asked as loaded my plate with food.

She looked at me with narrowed eyes before sighing. “Yeah, it’s the penpal letters. Buffy, do you think I’m boring?”

“No, trust me you are anything but boring,” I said. She, Ron, and Harry were some of the least boring people I’d ever met.

“So if I’m not boring, why is it that whenever I start to write about myself I come out sounding like I am?”

“Maybe you just haven’t found the right way to express yourself. Me, I’m not going to write an actual letter, I’m going to send them a playlist of my favorite songs. If they can’t figure out something about me from that, then they’re too dumb to know me.”

She seemed to consider that for a moment. “That sounds like a good idea. I think I might just do that.”

I smiled at her before digging into my food. I only had twenty minutes until my detention.

Ten minutes later, I was rushing out of the Great Hall. I arrived at his office five minutes early and didn’t bother to knock before entering.

“Hey Angel, can we get this started? I wanna get this over with,” I said upon seeing him. He looked up at me from whatever he was doing at his desk.

“I want you to sweep and mop,” he said, indicating the mop and broom in the corner of the room. I rolled my eyes.

“What, no lines?”

He smiled at me. “I was saving that for tomorrow.”

“I’m so excited.”

I grabbed the broom and began to sweep the room. It wasn’t like my arms weren’t already tired from sparring with him. I wasn’t going to be able to do any work tonight. I was wiped already.

When I was halfway done sweeping, Angel called me over.

“Hey, Buffy, come here a moment.”

I walked over to him, wary of what he was going to ask me. “Yeah?”

“What does this say?”

I looked at what he was referring to. Oh, my paper. My messy paper. “Um, I’m not sure. I could say demonic or lozenge. Geez, when did I write this?”

“I’m thinking it says demonic. Lozenge aura just doesn’t really evoke the same feeling as demonic aura.”

I smiled at him. “No, it really doesn’t.”

I went back to my sweeping in a better mood. Angel and I had a civil conversation. It was amazing. I glanced up at him from my sweeping. He looked like he was in a good mood. He wasn’t frowning. Much. He looked handsome.

Really handsome.

I went back to my sweeping. I didn’t need the voices in my head to start talking; they’d never shut up.

I finished sweeping and began to mop. Okay, so if detention consisted of just cleaning and lines, I could probably get through it. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be. Maybe having these detentions could improve my relationship with Angel. I pushed away the thoughts of what a better relationship with Angel could lead to. It was no use dwelling on schoolgirl fantasies. They never got anybody anywhere.

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