Sorry for removing it, I just managed to figure out how to put it in chapters. Thanks to my anonymous reviewer for pointing out my spelling mistake.

Pretty maids all in a row

Buffy waved as the last of the slayers departed. Many had chosen to leave, and get on with their old lives. In fact the only ones to stay were Faith, Vi and Annabel. Willow was upset over the loss of Kennedy, but, truth be told the couple had been drifting apart for a while, and they weren't very much when they had been together anyway.

"Bye!" Buffy heard Willow yell as the slayers disappeared off into the distance.

In the months since the destruction of the hellmouth and Sunnydale the scoobies had been incredibly busy. They had come over to England, to the new building procured for the watcher's council, and immersed themselves in the search for new slayers. Willow had done some more mojo to take the powers from any potentials under 16, and to take them from any with evil intentions. Strangely Kennedy had stopped patrolling since then. Buffy had her suspicions about that.

"Buffy, Buffy, look at this!" Giles came running in, looking very flustered, and exited. Buffy took the piece of paper from his hand, very intrigued.

Hermione lay by the pool in her garden. The sun shone very brightly, tanning her pale skin a nut brown. Her father had recently had a promotion at work, and they had been provided with this beautiful house, no, not house, mansion. It was a big step up from the 3 bedroomed semi-detached they had owned before. Though she missed her old house Hermione loved it here. She screamed as cold water splashed her midriff. 'Damn cousins' she thought, sitting up and leaning over to yell at Cameron, only he wasn't there. With a whoop of joy he pushed her over, into the freezing pool.

Hermione rose to the surface spluttering, and automatically reached for her wand. Just in time she stopped herself, and pulled on his leg, dragging him in too.

"Hey!" he yelled, Hermione snickered.

She stepped back, and took a good look at her cousin. He was 18, with shoulder-length black hair, brown eyes, and buck teeth, like she had until about 4 years ago, when an 'incident' with Malfoy had fixed that. He was like a brother to her, and it hurt her that she couldn't tell him about her school, friends, and her world in anything but the broadest terms.

"What're you looking at?" He asked

"Nothing" she replied and dunked him.

He came up, and was about to dunk her back when an ear-splitting scream came from the house, Hermione recognised it at once as her mothers'. Without thinking she leapt out the pool, and grabbed her wand from her discarded jumpers' pocket.

"What's that, where are you going?" Cameron demanded.

"I'll explain later" Hermione yelled "Stick with me"

They charged through the back door to find a small group of masked men stood over the cowering forms of Hermione's mother and aunt. Hermione pushed Cameron behind her, putting up her wand.

"Stupefy!" She yelled, and one of the death-eaters fell. The remaining death-eaters wrenched off their masks to reveal sharp fangs, and horrifically disfigured faces with yellow cat's eyes, the like of which Hermione had only ever seen in text books. With a blood curdling yell Hermione launched herself at them, shifting her grip on her wand so she grasped it like a stake. She plunged it into the heart of the first unsuspecting one, and he stiffened, and then disappeared in a cloud of dust. She turned to the other two, to find them ready. Hermione snarled and punched out at one. He flew backward across the room, where he hit the wall with a sickening crack, then slumped on the floor like a rag doll. Cameron gasped. Marvelling at her newfound strength Hermione turned to the last vampire, who was backing away. She narrowed her eyes and yelled

"Solero!" He promptly burst into flames.

Hermione turned to find the first death-eater, to find him stirring and groaning

"Petrificus totalus" She said, then rolled him over onto his back, and carefully peeled off the mask, he was human. With a sigh she tried to lift him, and almost fell over as he came up into the air, as light as a doll.

Hermione turned around with the body in her arms to find her mother unconscious, and her aunt and Cameron cowering away from her, look s of shock and terror masking their faces.

"W-what is going on?" Cameron asked shakily, with none of his usual bravado.

"What do you want to know?" Hermione asked, setting the frozen body, whom she recognised, but couldn't put a name to down.

"Everything" Cameron said, regaining his confidence.

"…And that's about it." Hermione lamely concluded her story of the past five or six years. Cameron looked slightly disbelieving, and if it was possible even more shocked than before.

"But what about the super-strength thing?" He asked, "Is that part of becoming a witch?"

"No" Hermione replied with a frown "I have no idea where that came from. It just appeared out of nowhere."

"What do we do with the…the…bodies?" Cameron asked

"We write to my headmaster to get here as quickly as possible"

"How?"

"Pet owls named Sunset do have their uses you know." Hermione replied and walked off before Cameron could ask any more questions.

Albus Dumbledore sat in his office, sorting through the tedious, yet supremely satisfying work of sorting through next year's new students, and signing their letters. He was remotely startled when a strange owl flew in through the window, but not as startled as he recognised the writing of one Hermione Granger addressing the envelope. He tore open the letter calmly, and read it, a look of growing surprise and puzzlement on his face, it read:

Dear Professor

I am very sorry to disturb you, but this is very urgent. A group of death-eaters attacked my house. I have managed to stupefy one, and the other isn't moving. Something very strange happened also, which is part of what happened to the rest of them. Please come immediately, try to be as muggle as possible, because my cousin and aunt were present at the attack, and they are very upset. Please come quickly.

Hermione Granger.

After re-reading the letter Dumbledore picked up his wand and walked hurriedly to the school gates, where he apparated out.