"Help Wanted" – Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Summary: **For the 2014 LiveJournal's Twisted Shorts FaD** challenge. After the war ends, Hogwarts gets a makeover…and a lot of new teachers.

Challenge: for the livejournal 2014 August Fic-a-Day Challenge.

Timeline: set a few years after Sunnydale (consider everything past season 4 as AU) for BtVS; starts with the fateful Halloween when the Potters were killed (and goes AU from there) for HP…the years are shifted forward to match up.

Warning: certainly some craziness and stuff but the Wizarding World seemed to be written with a very small amount of common sense so this shouldn't be too strange.

A/N: While all of these chapters are related, I'm hoping to make them work as standalones (kind of).

Disclaimer: BtVS/AtS characters belong to Joss Whedon/Mutant Enemy. HP characters belong to JK Rowling. I claim no rights to any copyrighted material. Please do not copy or take this story without my permission.

Chapter 1: August 1, 2014 – Headmistress Buffy

Hogwarts

Buffy's mind was racing a mile a minute as she wondered how the hell she ended up in this position. How had a simple Halloween patrol in a tiny village land her the job of Headmistress for a school of magic? She didn't even do magic herself, for crying out loud!

Well, Willow and Tara were trying to teach her a few Wiccan spells, but she certainly didn't know enough to teach anyone else – especially since wand magic seemed to work differently than Earth magic. She thought about it for a few seconds and then decided that since she was administration, her lack of talent wasn't necessarily an issue. Her focus was on the overall school, not the classes…apart from making sure she had good instructors.

That's why she was grateful for the training Robin gave her since he arrived in Sunnydale several years ago. Granted, a school on a Hellmouth had different challenges than a normal school, but maybe some of those challenges would show up in a magic school. She hoped there wouldn't be too many Hellmouthy issues here, though.

Speaking of principals – in a roundabout way – why the heck was it taking so long to get to her new office? Shouldn't it be near the front of the school so she could be more accessible to staff, students and parents? If it was possible, she'd be making that one of her first changes.

As her journey continued, she thought back to the night Dumbledore died, she killed a baddie and found herself in charge of a school as thanks for ending a war.

It was so strange…she was just patrolling with the gang and they came across a couple guys attacking a house with magic.

When they started fighting the pair, Dumbledore showed up right at the unfortunate moment that Voldemort – the head baddie as they were told later – threw a killing curse at Willow or Tara. During Voldemort's gloating about defeating Dumbledore, Buffy took the opportunity to use the Scythe to behead him.

The freaky moment came afterwards when a misty sort of spirit thing came out of the guy's body and tried to zoom away. Working on her reflexes, Buffy took another swipe with the Scythe and cut the spirit thing in half, waking up the village when it screamed horribly as it died.

Luckily, the people who lived in the house were all fine. A little frightened by the attack, but thrilled beyond words that Voldemort was dead. The way they were glaring at the second man – Peter Pettigrew – had the Scoobies wondering if there would be a third death that night.

Before that could happen, some magical policemen – Aurors – showed up because Dumbledore's phoenix flashed into the office of the Head of the DMLE and signaled for him to bring some backup to Godric's Hollow.

By the end of the night there was an emergency meeting of the Wizengamot to discuss Voldemort's defeat and Dumbledore's death. Somebody suggested that the victors against You-Know-Who should be given Dumbledore's positions…or at least the ones in Magical Britain. The ICW would have to make their own choice about that position.

The neutral purebloods accepted the proposal only because these 'muggles' clearly were more than ordinary muggles. At least two of them could perform wandless magic and the woman who killed You-Know-Who wielded a magical artifact as powerful as the legendary Excalibur. Plus, she was the Slayer…whatever that was. It apparently meant something to the muggles and they weren't about to argue with somebody who was able to beat You-Know-Who.

At first the Sunnydale survivors were going to just walk away from the insanity, but then Dawn pointed out that if they weren't there to keep an eye on things, another Voldie guy would just pop up and cause trouble later. Between that and Giles' obsessive desire to learn more about a world that lived side-by-side with the Council without the Council's knowledge had them changing their minds.

The selection committee for the Wizengamot spoke to all of them and decided that Willow would be the best fit for Chief Witch and Buffy should be the Headmistress of Hogwarts. They would also recommend to the ICW that they should consider either Tara or Giles for Supreme Mugwump…or at least a membership in the Confederation.

It was totally ridiculous to choose Dumbledore's successors that way, but apparently it was considered normal to the Wizengamot. That made the Scoobies shudder in fear a little.

"Chocolate Frogs," McGonagall said, breaking Buffy out of her musings.

To Buffy's amazement, the gargoyle in front of them began twisting around, causing a stairway to appear. Totally cool, but kind of impractical, wasn't it? "What about chocolate frogs?" she asked the stern woman walking ahead of her.

"That was Albus' final password for his office," McGonagall replied curtly. It wasn't that she was angry at the young woman, but she was upset by her mentor's death. She only hoped that Miss Summers would prove to be an acceptable replacement Headmistress.

"You need a password to see the Headmaster?" Buffy asked in surprise. "Isn't that a little inconvenient?"

McGonagall paused inside the office door for a moment as she considered the question. How many times had she been annoyed by the various passwords over the years? "Perhaps," she allowed.

Buffy found a couch and went to sit down, motioning McGonagall to sit as well so they could talk. "How are the students and staff doing?" she inquired with genuine concern.

"It is a mixture of shock and excitement," McGonagall answered. "One moment, they are grief-stricken at the Headmaster's death, the next they remember that the Dark Lord is also gone, so they want to cheer."

"As dorky as it might sound, are they talking to grief counselors?" Buffy wanted to know.

"Grief counselor? What is a grief counselor?"

Buffy figured – hoped – that it was a cultural thing; that they called it something else here. "That's a counselor that specializes in talking to people after a tragedy. They usually come to schools after somebody dies – especially if it was a violent death like Headmaster Dumbledore's." At the last second, she remembered to add the man's title as a sign of respect. That was a piece of advice from Robin. "Does your school counselor have any training in that area?"

"We do not have a counselor here at Hogwarts," Minerva said. It would have been a good thing during the last few years, however, with all the deaths from the war.

"Wow! Umm, okay…well, I think that's a good place to start then. I'll see about getting some people in to talk to the kids – as well as staff members who want to talk about things. For other changes, I think I just want to leave things as they are for the time being and just make some notes about issues that concern me…if there are any. Just one question, though: do you know how much wiggle room I have in making changes? For example, if I wanted to move my office closer to the front doors and get a secretary instead of a password-protected gargoyle, could I do that?" Buffy asked.

McGonagall's face pinched at the idea of changes being made to the school, but was grateful the young lady wasn't planning to do it overnight. Hopefully she would listen to reason before she destroyed any traditions of Hogwarts. "As Headmistress, you can request structural changes be made to the castle. If those changes are not contrary to the Founders' vision, the changes will be taken care of by the house elves."

"Alright then," Buffy nodded with a relieved smile. "Can I meet one of these house elves? It might be easier to have them take me on a tour so you can get back to teaching or your paperwork or whatever you'd normally be doing right now. If I have any questions, I'll write them down for us to talk about later."

"As you wish," McGonagall replied, confused when Miss Summers smiled even more at her answer. She had never seen 'The Princess Bride' so she wouldn't understand the pop culture reference. To make matters worse, the house elf she called for was named, "Buttercup!"

Buffy coughed to cover her chuckle.

A quick introduction to the house elf and Professor McGonagall made her way to the staff lounge to discuss her first impression of the new Headmistress with her fellow co-workers.

As for Buffy, the longer the tour went on, the more overwhelmed she felt at the task ahead of her. Hogwarts needed some serious updating!

Tomorrow…Originally I was planning on doing the Deputy Headmaster/mistress, but then the point about counselor(s) made me realize that was the more urgent need for Hogwarts. If you have any suggestions for this or other teachers/support staff, drop me a line.