Disclaimer on the first page. Spoilers are through all of Buffy & Angel and the first five HP books.
Incidentally, Stretham rectory is a real place, though I have no idea what it ooks like on the inside. Artistic license, how I adore thee!

Dawn Summer was proud of being a normal well-adjusted teenaged girl. She took even more pride in this fact as she was realistically speaking around four years old and had not always been human. "Really," she often thought, "considering the circumstances, I could have turned out to be a complete whack job."

Well-adjusted or not, however, her grasp on the events taken place in the last five minutes was rapidly spiralling out of control.

"Ok," she thought to herself, "I was in tidying my room and cleaning out the dust bunnies from under my bed, when I found my favourite bra which I thought I'd left in Rome. Oh, look...here it is still in my hand, I bet I'm blushing now...anyhow, then the doorbell rings and I go to answer it, knowing that the mini slay-brigade is in the back garden doing their trainy stuff. Cool, so far so good. So I go to answer the door to these two guys and squiggle my John Thomas on some form for Buffy and the next thing I know, I've signed us up to be the proud owners of Blondie McScowl-a-lot. Just what in the name of hell is going on?"

Draco was rapidly losing what little patience he had for Muggles who stared.

The girl was alternately blushing or frowning, and he felt an urge to shake her or something, if it were not for the fact that this would involve touching a Muggle, and everyone knew they bred disease. He could feel himself starting to panic again at the thought of having to stay here, but viciously reigned it in. A Malfoy did not panic, and he'd be damned if he broke the silence first.

"Oh shit," thought Dawn, "I can't believe I signed those papers without reading them first. What if there was small print? Maybe there's something wrong with this kid and that's why they're giving him away? He must be faulty and I bet there isn't even a warranty and…oh crap, I may have just signed away my immortal soul! Adieu cruel world, Buffy's gonna kick my ass for sure when she finds out."

Draco was cautiously observing the Muggle girl with growing interest. Sure, she was still staring, but the way in which she was rapidly going red, then white, then red again was really quite impressive. Did all Muggles do this? Was it perhaps some sort of bizarre greeting ritual?

"Argh," thought Dawn, "this is that whole musical extravaganza thing all over again, except for the singing and the dancing and the blobby creepy looking demons…ok, so not that much like the musical…why is it that when you really need her, Buffy is off boning some old guy in Rome? Crap, crap, crap what do I do now? Oh well, there really is just one thing for it."

Draco was vaguely disappointed that the girl had stopped turning colours and was instead just staring again. He was about to stick his tongue out at her and see if it would make her faint, when she opened her mouth and let loose a tooth-rattling screech that nearly made him jump out of his own skin.

"XAAAANDEEEEEEER!"

He pondered the possibility of this being some sort of war-cry meant to call a horde of feral Muggles who would no doubt come and club him to death with his own shoes. The Ministry would never find his body and Fudge would cackle with glee that his plan had worked.

He was therefore, not overly surprised when a large dark shape wielding some sort of scarily authentic looking battle axe came hurtling out of the hallway beyond the Muggle girl.

"Dawnie, you ok?" gasped the shape, which turned out to be a tall, dark-haired young man sporting Muggle clothes and an eye-patch. He looked from Dawn to Draco and lowered his axe slowly, "why'd you scream?"

The girl merely gibbered meaninglessly and pointed first at Draco and then the letter in her hand.

"What?" the man asked, scratching his furrowed brow, "Dawnie, you're speaking gibberish."

The girl continued waffling insanely while gesticulating madly at Draco, causing the young man to look at him as if for explanation.

"Oh for Merlin's sake," Draco snapped, angry with himself at breaking his vow of silence, "My name is Draco Malfoy and I am supposed to be staying with a Buffy Summers until I come of age, as one of my relatives apparently knew her and passed me on in his will." He scowled as he said this, feeling more than a little bitter at being passed around like a piece of furniture.

"Oh," came the reply and had Draco known Xander Harris, he would no doubt have been quite chuffed at rendering him almost speechless, "okay…so…okay."

Draco rolled his eyes at this particular display of eloquence and waited for the inevitable.

"You're related to Buffy and Dawn?" came the question he'd been waiting for.

"No," he replied, sneering disdainfully, "Absolutely not."

The dark-haired man frowned, "Then why did they send you here?

"I told you, a relative of mine apparently knew her and mentioned her in his will, which is why I'm here," he sniffed, adding, "trust me; I wouldn't be here if I had a choice."

"The other guy gave me a letter for Buffy," the girl addressed as Dawn added weakly. "And he said something about sending someone over to explain everything tomorrow."

"Okay," the other Muggle added once more, nodding weakly, "in that case, you'd better come in so we can sort all of this out. I'm Xander by the way and I don't know if Dawn told you but Buffy's out of the country at the moment and we're not sure when she'll be back."

Draco snorted something that might have been affirmative and picking up his bags, entered the house and followed Dawn and Xander as they walked down a hallway which led to a large oval room, furnished with comfortable looking couches and chairs. Normally, he would never have carried his luggage himself, but he had been informed that Muggles did not possess house elves. He really didn't want any of these people pawing at his belongings with their grubby hands.

A young brunette woman who looked to be about the same age as the man who had introduced himself as Xander was curled up on one of the sofas, reading a book. She looked up when they entered the room and raising one perfectly plucked eyebrow in his direction, addressed Dawn.

"Hey squirt, who's the hottie?"

Draco sneered and raised an eyebrow right back at her - he'd be damned if he let some uppity Muggle get the better of him.

"Apparently his name's Draco Malfoy, which is actually kinda funny now that I think about it," the girl replied, smiling at him insolently.

"What exactly is it about my name that you find so amusing?" he drawled in a manner that would have most of his year mates at Hogwarts shaking where they stood. Dawn however, just grinned at him and brushed a strand of shoulder length brown hair out of her eyes before answering.

"Your name's French, right? Means Dragon of Bad Faith," here she broke off giggling.

"I fail to see how that is funny," Draco replied, outwardly calm, but seething on the inside. How dare this, this...Muggle mock the Malfoy name!

"She's laughing at me, not you," the dark-haired girl answered, rising from her position on the sofa and walking toward him. She stopped before entering his personal space and cocked her head in his direction, "my name's Faith, you see, and I'm a very bad girl."

Draco's mouth went dry. Tiny as this Muggle girl might be, there was something about the way she moved which made him think that it would be a really bad idea to piss her off, "I…see, I think."

Faith smiled and shrugged, "Whatever. I'm gonna go bug Andrew, anyone want anything?"

"Ask him to make some tea and bring it in here," Xander replied, "we need to call a Scooby meeting."

Twenty minutes later, Draco found himself sitting on a sofa, drinking tea and listening to the conversation around him with ever growing bewilderment. Faith had indeed gone off and returned a while later with a blond boy who stared at him and muttered something about a pike before he introduced himself as Andrew and flopped into a seat next to him.

Complete with Xander, Faith and Dawn, they were apparently part of a group named the Scooby Gang, a title that made no sense to Draco, and he said so. They explained to him that they were named after a 'cartoon' dog and when he expressed his bewilderment at this, they looked at him oddly for a moment before carrying on with their conversation.

Apparently other members included Buffy Summers and some people called Giles and Willow, though Draco could not begin to hazard a guess as to who they might be. He thought the names strange and the mode of conversation off-putting and at time he found himself totally confused.

The biggest problem, he found whilst listening to Dawn and Xander explain to Andrew and Faith about him, was that he did not know whether he should be pretending to understand because a Muggle would, or that it was alright not to understand because it was this particular group of people who were confusing.

So, more often than not, he found himself nodding inanely, not knowing whether it was the right thing to do or not. On top of everything else, the blond Muggle seemed to have elected him as his new friend and kept chattering at him and touching his leg.

Draco was feeling immensely put upon. He was wondering whether he would be given his own room and what the chances were that it might lock from the inside, when he noticed that everyone seemed to be looking at him.

"Excuse me?"

"Xander asked who the relative was that sent you to Buffy," Andrew simpered at him, in a manner freakishly reminiscent of Pansy Parkinson.

Draco blinked at him and turned to answer Xander's question, edging away a little from the strange blond.

"I've never met him; he was a relative on my mother's side apparently. She…she died a few days ago and they sent me here because she said something about him in her will. His name was William Black apparently and…what?" he broke off, glaring at Dawn who had spit her tea halfway across the room upon mentioning the name. Faith and Xander looked surprised and Andrew whispered something that sounded like 'he's alive Frodo'. Draco decided to just ignore everything he said from now on.

"Did you know him?" he asked curiously, as he had never heard of the man before two days ago in Minister Fudge's office.

"Yeah, we knew Spi…William," Xander answered, hesitating for a moment; "he was a… uhm…friend of Buffy's and lived with us in Sunnydale for a while. He, er…died last year in a gas explosion."

He'd probably been a Squib, Draco decided, which would explain both why he'd never heard of him and why something like a gas explosion had killed him. Still, this did not explain why his mother had insisted on sending him to this man, when she surely must have known he associated with Muggles. Why send him to a Squib when he had a cousin and another aunt other than Bellatrix Lestrange in the wizarding world? Draco knew that his mother and Andromeda and Nymphadora Tonks never spoke, but surely it would make more sense to be sent to even a blood traitor than a Squib? There was something not right about this whole thing.

"When did your mother write this will, Draco?" Xander asked him, careful not to meet his eyes.

Draco frowned, "About twelve years ago I think." There was no question, she had written the will several weeks after Bellatrix was arrested and thrown into Azkaban for torturing the Longbottoms. Whatever it was Xander had expected him to answer, that was not it, as he and Faith exchanged troubled glances. Seeing, that he noticed the look that passed between them, Faith added, "We only met him a couple of years ago."

Draco was about to ask her what a relative of his had been doing in America, when a loud crash coming from the back of the house interrupted him.

"Aw shit," Faith groaned, "no rest for the wicked. I'd better go sort the kids out before they wreck the garden."

"Kids?" Draco asked, making no effort to hide the scorn in his voice.

"We run a martial arts school for young girls," Andrew volunteered, nearly bouncing at the thought of being useful, "a handful are here at the house training all year round and there are more facilities being developed all around the world. Faith's ex-boyfriend Robin runs one of our chapters in Cleveland together with Vi and Rona. They're friends," he added off Draco's blank look.

"Willow and Kennedy are in Brazil looking for more members and Giles is in Uzbekistan trying to recruit more teachers. But they'll all be back soon, so you'll get to meet them," he added, nearly squealing with excitement, "you'll love Giles; he's very handsome and distinguished as well as being English like you. And Willow and Kennedy are the cutest thing together, although I think Kennedy could do with washing her hair more often."

Throughout this speech, Draco could do nothing but stare at him in horror. If he were back at Hogwarts, he'd have Crabbe and Goyle hang Andrew upside down off the Astronomy Tower to teach him a valuable lesson about addressing his betters in a non-sensical fashion, but no, surrounded by Muggles there was nothing for him to do but grin and bear it.

"Is there somewhere I could go to lie down?" he asked Dawn, who had been observing his one-sided conversation with Andrew, weakly, "I think I'm getting a headache."

"Of course," she answered, picking up one of his bags before he could stop her, "come on, there are plenty of spare rooms, I'm sure we can find one you'll like."