Dear Ms. Summers,

I am sorry not to be able to convey this news to you in person; however, due to pressing business matters, I could not spare the time to deal with this matter personally. Nevertheless, I have the utmost confidence that my subordinates will deal with this delicate affair in professional manner, tailored to suit both your needs and ours.
You have no doubt by now met Mr. Draco Malfoy and it is indeed he about whom I have the pleasure of writing to you today. Mr. Malfoy, the only son of a very prominent family in the community I find myself in charge of, recently suffered bereavement in the form of his mother. Narcissa Malfoy, a lady of both class and style, shall be sorely missed by all, and I have no doubt that had you known her as I, you too would have grieved for the loss of such a jewel amongst women. Sadly, Mr. Malfoy's father is currently unable to take custody of his child and the late Mrs. Malfoy's Last Will and Testament stated quite clearly that in the event of the incapacitation of both parents, the care of Mr. Malfoy should fall to a distant member of her family. I believe you were at one point acquainted with this person and I would like to take this moment to offer you my most heartfelt condolences on the passing of Mr. William Black. While I did not have the pleasure of knowing Mr. Black myself, I have no doubt that he was an upstanding citizen and indeed feel that Mrs. Malfoy's actions in leaving the care of her only child to him speak volumes about his character. As I have mentioned, it has come to my attention that Mr. Black is regrettably enough no longer amongst the living, however, I have similarly been informed that he, before his untimely demise, left notice that upon death, all his earthly possessions should be transferred to your name, and have taken the liberty to count young Master Malfoy amongst these. It is therefore with great pleasure that I grant you custody of Mr. Draco Malfoy until such time as he reaches his seventeenth birthday and trust that you will take good care of him. Enclosed with this letter are copies of both Mr. Black and Mrs. Malfoy's Testament's.
No doubt you still have a great many questions, and with your permission, I have taken the liberty of arranging a meeting at nine am the morning following your reception of this letter, where any questions you might still have on this matter will be dutifully answered. I regret that once more that I will be unable to attend, and hope that we will have the pleasure of meeting one day.

With best wishes and sincere gratitude,
Cornelius Fudge

"So, what do we all think?" Xander asked the makeshift Scooby Gang who had gathered in the Rectory living room to hear the contents of the mysterious letter to them, "Demon? Monster? Horrible Squid-type alien from Mars?"

"I think your English accent sucks!" remarked Dawn ever tactfully, "You made that Fudge guy sound totally constipated."

"I think Draco looks just like Spike!" gushed Andrew, enthusiastically ignoring the girl seated next to him, "you can totally see they're related, they even have the same super cool hair colour!"

Rolling her eyes, Dawn exerted valuable energy reaching from her place on the sofa to hit Andrew over the head with a pillow, "Spike used to bleach his hair, you moron. That wasn't his natural colour."

"It wasn't?" Andrew asked, sounding puzzled. He frowned mildly before announcing, "It was still super cool!"

Ignoring the squeaky voiced annoyance to his right, Xander had to concede that there was a certain resemblance between his second least favourite vampire and the pointy-faced boy currently scowling to himself in a bedroom on the third floor. It was not overly pronounced, but Xander had noticed a hint of Spike in the angles on the pale boy's face. It made sense, he supposed, for two people who were from the same family while being several generations apart.

Frowning slightly, Xander wished that he was not the only senior Scooby member present. Two years after the fall of Sunnydale, and he was still not comfortable with taking an active leadership role, which was one of the reasons he why he shared the responsibility of training the Slayers at Stretham Rectory with Faith.

To be honest, initially neither he nor the dark haired Slayer had been comfortable with the idea of working so closely together, there was a definite amount of unsavoury history between the two and neither were the type to talk about their feelings – least of all to each other. Over time however, Xander had come to realise that as long as she and Buffy were not in the same country or preferably the same continent, Faith could actually be quite a pleasant person, and while she had turned out to be surprisingly competent at dealing with the baby Slayers, Xander couldn't help but wish that Giles were here.

Shrugging mentally, Xander returned to the world at large, only to catch the tail-end of yet another Andrew/Dawn catfight. Those two had been at each other's throats for months now and secretly Xander had to admit to being surprised at Andrew's stamina, he honestly hadn't expected the blond boy to be able to take as much crap as he got from Dawn on a day to day basis.

"…well, I still think he's evil. We'll probably all be murdered in our beds and sold for spare parts or something, but if you don't want to listen to me that's fine, just don't come crying to me when you're all dead and mankified, and be surprised when all you get is a 'I told you so'!" Dawn finished ranting with a toss of her head.

Andrew's only reply to Dawn's supernatural teenage drama was to stick out his tongue at her, squealing in pain only moments later when the pillow she aimed at his head caused him to bite the tip.

Ignoring Andrews's pleas for help and mercy, Xander turned to ignore both squabblers and quietly asked Faith's opinion.

"I dunno, kid seems alright other than being kinda skitterish. I didn't sense anything demony about him, but…" here she trailed off looking thoughtful.

"But?" Xander asked.

"Well, this whole 'Will' thing sure seems suspicious. Why would anyone leave their kid to Spike of all people?" she answered, looking Xander in the eye.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Not only that, but if the kid's mother wrote the Will when he said she did, Spike would still have been unrepentantly evil, what with it being a couple of years before he first came to Sunnydale and all."

"Do you think she knew he was a vampire?" Dawn asked, looking shocked and a little frightened, "In the Will she referred to Spike by his real name, the one he died under. If she knew enough about him to know that they were related, or even met him…" here she trailed off looking horrified.

"She can't have known," Andrew added quietly, suddenly serious, "leaving her child to the mercy of a bloodlusting Vampyre…especially one with Spike's reputation…no one would do that."

Dawn nodded emphatically, but Xander wasn't so sure, and from the looks of it, Faith agreed with him. If there was one thing the years of living in Sunnydale had taught him, evil took innumerable guises and nothing was ever as simple as it seemed. Once more he wished that Giles or Willow were here to tell him what to do.

"Ok," he said, rubbing the bridge of this nose nervously, "here's what I think. Dawn and Andrew should start researching Draco's family and find out everything they can about what Spike was doing around about the time that Will was written. I'm gonna try to get in touch with Giles and see if he can give us any advice. In the meantime we should all keep an eye on the kid. Be nice by all means, but maybe not trust him too much. Who knows, if we're lucky he might turn out to be a brain-sucking squid-monster yet."

"What about Buffy," asked Dawn, "who's gonna tell her?"

"Well Dawnie," Xander replied, fondly ruffling the girl's hair, "since you ask…you do! This time, try not to insult her aging boy-toy before you give her the good news. We wouldn't want her to hang up before she gets the message, would we. What you do after is your business."

"I don't think we should tell the junior Slay-brigade," Faith added, "they're gonna be keyed up enough about there being fresh meat…fresh MALE meat…as it is. No need to rile them up by telling them the kid might be evil. The excitement'll probably just kill them."

"Yeah, and him too," Andrew agreed, nodding brightly.