By Natalie
They were all staring at her. They all knew that she was a witch. They all looked at her, and she just knew they were judging her. They all hated her. Maybe wanted her dead. At the very least, they didn’t want her anywhere around them.She knew that Amy and Michael were in the same situation, and who knew how many other witches were in this school. They knew where she was coming from.
And then there was Oz. He was right there with her, his hand on her shoulder. They hadn’t even called him, and yet he didn’t leave her side. He was even risking ridicule by everyone else to stay with her, to not let her go through this alone. She had never been so grateful for him before in her life.
Willow walked behind Principal Snyder, trying to avert her eyes from the people watching her. But she did see one girl. April McAleer, who she had known since preschool. The only person she had known longer than Xander. They had been best friends when they were four, and now April looked at her with such a hatred that Willow finally understood the phrase “if looks could kill.” They hadn’t been close in a long time, but there had always been a mutual respect.
She’d known most of these people her whole life. And yet all those years that they had spent together no longer mattered. She was a witch. She was the enemy. And they thought she had something to do with the deaths of those kids.
Even Buffy had thought so! But at least she listened when Willow explained what was really going on, and she believed her. These people didn’t even care. They blamed her.
She had nothing to do with those children’s deaths, either. They didn’t want an explanation. They wanted an answer, and it was simple. Blame the witches. When Willow had never practiced black magic. As far as she knew, Amy and Michael were also innocent of that. Whatever symbol they found, it had nothing to do with them.
Yes, they were witches. They cast spells. But they were not murderers. This was not their cult sacrifice. They had done nothing wrong.
She heard someone way in back of the mob yell, “Murderers!” and Willow wanted to cry out, “I didn’t do anything!” But she held back, knowing they wouldn’t listen to her anyway. They wouldn’t care. They had their scapegoats.
Instead she set her jaw, biting her lip to keep from screaming at them. Oz tightened his grip on her shoulder, and Willow put her hand over his.
God, this couldn’t be happening. Why was this happening? This was insane, and no one even saw how wrong this was! Why couldn’t they even try to see- No, she knew that answer. This was Sunnydale. That was answer enough for anything, and she had known it since she first found out about Buffy and vampires and the Hellmouth...
When they got to the principal’s office, crowd still gathered everywhere you looked, Snyder turned around and looked straight at Oz. “You have to leave now,” he said. Willow thought he was taking almost a perverse pleasure in this. He couldn’t get Buffy, but he had one of her friends, and he was going to enjoy this way too much.
Oz let his hand drift from her shoulder to her hand, clasping it in his. “I’ll be waiting right here,” he said.
“You’ll be in class,” Snyder snapped.
“I’ll be right here,” Oz shot back. It wasn’t often that Willow saw Oz get angry, or upset or show really any emotion whatsoever, but he was ready to go head to head with Snyder just to be allowed to wait for her.
“Mr. Palmer, take him to class,” the troll said.
Mr. Palmer, Willow’s calculus teacher, now looked at her in complete disdain despite being his favorite student only yesterday. He came from his spot at the front of the crowd and grabbed Oz roughly by his arm, pulling him away from her. But Willow knew Oz. If he said he was going to be there when she got out, he was going to find some way to be there.
She watched him being pulled away, not fighting. He would just cause more trouble by fighting, and Willow silently thanked God for him. What would she have done if she’d lost him because of what she had done? Without him there, Willow knew she probably would have fallen apart.
“Miss Rosenberg,” Snyder said, that creepy smile crawling across his face as he pushed open the door to his office.
Without saying a word, Willow walked in, feeling somewhere inside of her like she was walking off to her doom.
The End.
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