Author's Note: In order to make this story work the timelines of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Harry Potter need to be finagled a little bit. So I'm putting Harry and the gang's Sixth Year in 2003 to make it match up with the series finale of Buffy.
Another change is that the Harry Potter gang is spending the summer at Grimmauld Place, not the Burrow.
I hope you all like it and that I didn't forget anything important. Mixing Harry Potter and Buffy was fun but kind of stressful!
"From now on, every girl in the world who might be a Slayer will be a Slayer. Every girl who could have the power will have the power."- Buffy Summers, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," Season Seven, "Chosen"
The first hint Hermione had that anything was different was during a morning Ancient Runes class in May. She'd been deep in thought doing a translation when she'd felt a jolt, like someone had danced cold fingers along her spine. She hadn't known what had happened but suddenly she'd felt like she could do anything. And the quill that had been in her hand had snapped in half.
Plenty of little things had happened in the weeks after that but nothing stuck out as much as a moment during the battle at the Department of Mysteries where she'd been half tempted to drop her wand and fight with her fists.
And then summer hit and within a week of Hogwarts letting out she found herself holed up at Grimmauld Place with none other than Draco Malfoy, a guest placed there for his protection.
Hermione paced the library floor, frustrated as hell. She'd been at Grimmauld Place for ten out of fourteen days of the summer holiday (she'd spent the first four at home) and she hadn't slept a full night since. She kept waking up at all hours with the feeling that there was something she needed to be doing. Only there couldn't be because her "to do" lists were written and meticulously completed every day.
"But it has to be something!" she muttered to herself.
A low chuckle behind her had her spinning around, one hand flying forward in a punch while the other rose to protect her face from retaliation.
The chuckler ducked just fast enough that her knuckles brushed his jaw but didn't hit directly. The force behind the move combined with the shock (since when did she try to hit people and what was he doing in the library?) had her falling forward.
Her brain nearly short circuited when he reached out as though to prevent her fall and she spun away only to land in a crouch, one leg poised to sweep his out from under him.
Draco Malfoy just crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at her. "Suddenly I'm rethinking my decision to help you."
Hermione slid up from her crouch, not half as gracefully as she'd fallen into it. Malfoy had been at the safe house longer than she had that summer, and on Dumbledore's invitation, but this was only the second time she'd actually seen the blonde. "Help me with what?" she asked.
"You haven't been sleeping at night, you're increasingly violent, you've broken a few things here and there," Malfoy checked off on his fingers. "Sound about right to you?"
"You've been watching me."
Malfoy shrugged and threw himself onto one of the armchairs Mrs. Weasley had magically cleaned and reupholstered the summer before. "Yes and no. I've been observing and comparing."
Hermione felt her heart stop and then race forward again. Was it possible that Malfoy knew what was wrong with her or was he just messing around? "What do you know about it?" she nearly growled.
Malfoy idly traced the patterns on the chair with his fingertips. "The library at Malfoy Manor is so much larger than the one Sirius maintained here but he has a few things we did not. Namely the personal effects of some of the family members my parents would never actually claim as family."
"Squibs and blood traitors," Hermione murmured, thinking of the tapestry she'd seen in one of the other rooms. The family tree had been extensively and brutally pruned but Sirius had made a point to collect as many items as he could from the relatives his mother had tried to obliterate.
"Exactly," Draco nodded. "And my favorite item so far is the diary of a long dead uncle named Aurelius Black."
Hermione was intrigued despite herself. "Why is he so important? And what does this diary have to do with me?" she asked as she perched on the edge of a chair right across from the one Malfoy was seated in.
"Aurelius Black wasn't just an ordinary Squib. He was a Watcher."
Hermione frowned. "I don't want to know about the voyeuristic tendencies of your ancestors."
"Not what I meant Granger," Malfoy huffed then smiled. "So I take it that even with all the time you spend in libraries you haven't come across the legend of the Vampire Slayer?"
"Obviously not," Hermione said with a roll of her eyes. "Get on with it then if you're so smart."
"In every generation…"
Draco had spent hours telling Hermione the stories and showing her the diary of his many times great uncle and yet she still didn't believe him.
"There's just no way Malfoy, that out of all of the girls in the world, anyone would choose me to protect it."
Malfoy sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "First of all, the Slayer isn't chosen because she's a kick-ass martial artist or something, she's just picked, oftentimes with no warning. And secondly, you've been helping Potter save the world for years. You're actually more qualified than many other females."
"That's the biggest fault I find in this legend of yours," Hermione said. "It's not logical that there are so many vampires and demons and evil entities threatening to take over the world but there's only one girl to fight said evil. And that one girl may be thirteen years old and scared of her own shadow! Not the brightest plan, is it?"
"I never said it made sense," Malfoy pointed out. "But it explains why you're all antsy and trying to hit me."
"Not like it's the first time I've smacked you across the face," she shot back.
"You got me there," Malfoy admitted. "But this time you barely touched me and yet it hurt like a bitch."
Hermione allowed herself a little smile when she looked at Malfoy a little closer and saw the bruise blossoming along his jaw line. "Why are you even telling me any of this?"
The look on Malfoy's face soured and he sneered. "I'm a Malfoy," he spat. "I was raised to be my father's son, dark and uncaring. Everyone assumes I want to, and will be, just like him. That's why I'm here and offering to help you. I don't want to be a Death Eater."
Hermione gave him an appraising look. "You want to redeem yourself by helping me."
Malfoy stared right back. "But I can only do that if you'll let me."
Hermione broke eye contact first. "What about guidelines for the Treatment of Non-Wizard Part Humans? Even if I believed you I couldn't legally slay a vampire anyways."
Malfoy started shaking his head before she'd even finished posing the question. "Not the same. There are vampires with souls and those without. Those with a conscience and those without. You slay the bad ones."
"And I'm supposed to know the difference how?"
Malfoy's eyebrows rose. "Isn't it obvious? The good ones won't try to kill you."
