Chapter Two: Meeting the family

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"Let's get this straight boy" said Vernon as he drove Harry and Dudley home from Kings Cross station after picking them both up. "Dawn is my niece and she's not a freak like you. She's a nice girl and I don't want her bothered by your differences. You will tell her that you attend St Brutus' Secure Centre for Incurable Criminal Boys. But that's only if she asks you, on the whole you don't talk to her at all.

"How long is she staying for?" asked Harry.

"She's no staying with us. She's living with us" replied Vernon. "Now then, do you understand? You're not to tell her about your school, you're not to let her see any of you're weird stuff, you're to appear as normal as you can"

"If she's actually living there won't she work it out eventually?" said Harry, wondering if this girl was such an idiot that she wouldn't notice anything was wrong, or if Uncle Vernon was the idiot for thinking she wouldn't notice.

"Not everybody's mind works like that" snapped Vernon. "Dawn doesn't know anything about your world. She will think that everything is perfectly normal, because you will give her no reason to think anything else. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes Uncle Vernon" said Harry through clenched teeth. He thought about what Dawn must be like. He imagined a Dudley with longer hair and an American accent. Somebody big loud and annoying. She would almost certainly have the same attitude that the other Dursleys had; she would think she was better than him even if she didn't know he was a freak.

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"We've just had a lot of problems with Harry in the past" Petunia had told Dawn earlier as she sat next to her in the living room. "We've been raising him since he was a baby and we love him like he was our own son, but he's always refused to be a part of the family, convinced we rejected him because he was an orphan. He used to tell lies about us locking him in the cupboard under the stairs and not feeding him. He's at this school for his own good.

"Yes" Vernon continued. "We're strict with him because that's the only way to get through to him. On the whole we think you should stay away from him" he continued seeing the look on Dawn's face "Don't worry he's not dangerous or anything, but he's a compulsive liar and it's hard to get the truth out of him most of the time. You just don't want to get in with him too much"

'That's good to know' thought Dawn. 'I'm living with a maniac; well at least I have a lock on my bedroom door'. It was then that the padlock on what must be Harry's bedroom door began to make sense and scare her slightly at the same time.

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Dawn sat in silence eating her dinner that night. She would rather not have to sit here awkwardly but she was hungry and didn't feel comfortable enough here to sneak down in the middle of the night and take food like she might have back home. She also thought skipping dinner three nights in a row might raise suspicions.

"Of course we'll have to get you enrolled into a school for next year" Petunia was saying. "Dudley goes to Smeltings, but that's an all boy's school, and I don't think they have a counterpart for girls. I suppose the local comprehensive isn't too bad academically, but I've heard it's a bit rough.

"Ah, I'm sure Dawn can handle a little bit or rough. She lived with my brother for long enough, he must have taught her a thing or two" said Vernon in a joking manner.

"Not that long" said Dawn quietly.

"Yes, I suppose your parents split up a while before he died, but you still saw a lot of him though didn't you?" said Vernon.

"I haven't seen him in at least a year; actually I think quite a bit more than that. He never answered the phone, never replied to messages. He didn't even come to my mum's funeral or acknowledge her death. He left me and Buffy to deal with that all by ourselves. I didn't get to go to his funeral because nobody realised until a few days after that even he had daughters"

Harry choked on his food but quickly took a drink, not that anybody noticed anyway, they were all back in the ever familiar 'ignore Harry' mode. Even Dawn who had hardly looked at him since he had arrived. What amazed Harry more than the way Dawn had delivered this little speech completely devoid of any emotion, was the way that her uncle and aunt, who were treating her like a female e Dudley, completely ignored it.

"So what school did you go to before?" asked Petunia.

"I was still at Sunnydale Junior High, but that was only because there isn't actually a Sunnydale High at the moment. I think they're going to start rebuilding it soon, it's been planned for a while"

"What happened to the old one?" asked Harry before he could stop himself.

Dawn looked at him. 'My sister blew it up to kill the recently ascended Giant Snake Mayor' she thought. Somehow she couldn't see that going down too well. "Gas Leak" she said, giving the official story. "The whole school blew up just after my sister's graduation"

They never understood how the people of Sunnydale accounted a spontaneous eclipse, watching the mayor grow into a giant snake, and an attack by vampires to a gas leak. People don't have little holes in their necks and die from blood loss due to gas leaks. Oh and principals don't get eaten either.

Harry noticed Dawn looked sadder than normal when she mentioned her sister. He also got the feeling that thee was a longer story there than she was letting one, but how much do you have to hide about a gas leak? Maybe it was just something about her sister and she wasn't ready to talk about it yet.

"So you're sister graduated then?" asked Vernon. Harry gave him a lock of amazement, even he could see this was not what Dawn wanted to talk about. "I wasn't sure, after all it was touch and go there for a while, especially after that incident back in LA"

"What happened in LA?" asked Dudley.

"Buffy showed her arsonist side" said Vernon as if it was a joke.

"Actually" said Dawn, getting pissed off at the way Vernon was talking about the woman who had saved his and millions of other lives over an over again. "She burned down her High School gym because it was full of vampires"

Harry did a repeat of the choking act as Vernon and Petunia started laughing. "Oh yes, Hank said that was her story. She, well she was in a hospital for a while after that though wasn't she?"

"Can I please be excused from the table?" asked Dawn, standing up without waiting for the answer.

"Strange girl" muttered Vernon. He noticed the look Harry was giving him and looked at him sharply. "What are you looking at boy?"

"It never occurred to you that her 'strange' behaviour might have something to do with the fact that she's grieving for her whole family right now? And you just keep parading them in front of her, making jokes of the bad points, when she doesn't want to talk about it" said Harry.

How do you know that?" asked Vernon in suspicion. "I thought I told you not to talk to her"

"I didn't, but any idiot can see that.

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Dawn grabbed her jacket and decided to go for a walk to clear her head after dinner. She could feel somebody's eyes on her as she walked. It took her a few minutes but she eventually figured out who it was when he accidentally got a little too close. She could smell that unique mix of leather, cigarettes, alcohol and blood.

The whole sensing people following her thing was new. She wished she had Giles to help her research it more. A long time ago they had worked out that she was part slayer as a result of being made from Buffy. It generally didn't make any difference, her 'slayer powers' were such a tiny fraction of that of an actual slayer that they hardly showed at all.

The weird part was that when Buffy died Dawn got stronger. It wasn't that she was called when Buffy died. Giles had explained earlier that when Buffy died the first time and Kendra was called, that was it. It wasn't like you could hold he under water and then resuscitate her over and over and create an army of slayers. To get a new slayer Buffy had to die.

What had happened was more of a power transferral, she couldn't confirm her theory, but she guessed that when Buffy died closing the portal she was channelling the power of the key, Dawn's power. So to balance that out Dawn had received some of Buffy's power, that of a slayer. She didn't have the full power of one though, she guessed she was stronger than your average person, but she wasn't about to go out patrolling any day soon.

Dawn listened as somebody else approached the swing she was sitting on in the abandoned children's play area. She was practising with her slightly enhanced senses. The person wasn't that heavy, that was about all she could work out. He kind of smelt like, roast beef?

"Harry" she said without looking up. It was an easyish guess, they had just had roast beef, Vernon and Dudley were both heavy and Petunia wore heels.

"Hi" he said, sitting next to her.

She looked up at him, and stiffened slightly as she remembered what she had been old about him. "I don't think we're meant to be talking to each other" she said.

"You're not scared of me are you?"

She snorted "A teen offender? There are worse things in this world"

"Like vampires?" he asked. She didn't reply, "What do you know about vampires then?"

"Well, they suck blood, they're evil, you can kill them by a stake through the heart or decapitation and they don't like sunlight" she said, listing off the normal fairytale versions. "Most famous one would probably be Dracula"

"So why would you burn down a gym to kill them?" he asked. He had seen some things about real vampires in a DADA text book, being the only subject he enjoyed he sometimes flicked through those books. Fire was another way of killing vampires, but she obviously knew that.

"Who knows? Didn't you hear my sister was crazy?"

"So what is worse in this world?" he asked. Seeing how upset she got again by saying sister.

"My stalker?" she suggested quietly. Then she focussed on her surroundings. "I can guess at why I'm being followed, but why are you?"

"What?" he asked he was about to stand up and look around when Dawn caught his hand.

"Subtlety a new concept to you?" she asked. "Any idea why you may be being followed?"

"We have to go" he said quietly. He stood up and started leading her back to the house. The only people who he could think of that would follow him were Death Eaters, followers of the recently restored Voldemort.

"I'll take that as a yes" she said seeing his reaction. "So what's going on?"

"I can't tell you" he said.

"Like hell you can't" she said standing still. "I'm not a big fan of being left in the dark you know. It's happened too much before"

"Dawn, we have to go back now. This isn't some game"

"Let me guess, life and death kind of issues. Been there done that, I'll start running when we reach apocalypse standard, now tell me what the hell is going on"

"Fine, I will, just as soon as we get back"

She looked into his eyes, checking to see if he was telling the truth. She decided that she was going to have to trust him so she nodded and began to walk again.

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Let me know if the stuff about Dawns all new slayer powers confuse you. They'll probably come up more later.