While Buffy is out discovering open graves in the cemetery, Joyce and Dawn are curled up on the couch watching TV. Joyce asks about Buffy’s recent emotional distance and Dawn reassures it’s probably just boy problems. When Buffy comes home, huffy over Angel, her mom wonders aloud if Buffy is dating Xander, which Dawn, affronted, immediately rejects and denies. Dawn corners Buffy in her room when she gets home, asking more unanswered questions about slaying (and Xander).

After her second night of open graves, Buffy again comes home huffy with Angel. To make matters worse, she finds Dawn in her room asking more questions. Dawn’s relentless idolization is exasperating Buffy, who throws a pillow at her little sister, telling her to get out! Joyce gets a night to herself when Buffy goes to the football game and Dawn goes to Melinda’s (her neighbor down the street) for dinner. The Summers girls get home at the same time, Buffy having new empathy for Dawn after her experience with Chris and Dawn eager to ask about Xander at the football game. Buffy and Dawn sit on the porch together talking about boys, Buffy finally answering some of Dawn’s questions about Angel (is he really a vampire? Does he have a reflection? If he doesn’t, how does he know how to gel his hair like that?) before they go inside together to find their mom on the couch watching “Thelma and Louise” and having schnapps.

The Summers girls are tense in the ride home from LA. All summer, Buffy's been distant and mean, refusing to answer Dawn’s questions about being a slayer. The only thing Buffy's told her is that she's the slayer, she fights monsters, and Dawn can't tell anyone. Dawn was excited to learn Buffy's identity—her sister was a superhero—but since confronting her, Buffy's been more closed off than ever. Buffy’s managed to convince Dawn not to tell Joyce (for now) in exchange for Dawn's use of her hair and makeup supplies and permission to try on her clothes (hence why she had to do so much shopping).

School brings a welcome reprieve from the summer long tension. When Joyce drops Dawn off on their second day, her brand new, limited edition, Backstreet Boys (a new band taking the world by storm!) lunchbox breaks open and spills on Buffy’s pink camisole. They quickly drive home (which is what they are doing in their car scene) so Buffy can change into the white shirt she wears in the next scene. As a peace offering, Dawn washes out the stains so Buffy can wear it the next day of school (which she does!). When Buffy’s home, Dawn can hear her talking to Angel in her room. She momentarily worries that her sister might be in danger (because he’s a vampire) but she reminds herself that Buffy is a superhero and superheroes always save the day.

The next morning, Dawn tries to reach out to Buffy again, but Buffy snaps at her, telling Dawn to "stay out of it"--all she can do is get in the way. That night, Buffy knocks on Dawn’s door before coming inside and sitting on Dawn’s bed. Dawn can immediately tell something is different. Buffy thanks her for washing her camisole. She tries to explain she’s just trying to keep Dawn safe and the less she knows, the better. Dawn pretends to be asleep, angry at Buffy for not talking to her about her secret, and unable to understand how she could be endangered by having a superhero as a sister.

Since finding the diary, Dawn's hardly had any time to find what she's looking for in Buffy's diary—monsters! vampires! magic! But Buffy's pre-1997 entries were mostly about shopping, her boyfriend (Jeffrey), and Christian Slater.

The next night, Buffy is out, again (probably with her vampire boyfriend!), while Dawn is at a group sleepover with the friends she made during her first year of school-Shannon, Melinda, and Janice. They talk about boys (have you seen the boy from P.E.?!), school, and siblings. Dawn tells her friends about her sister kissing a boy and Shannon discloses that her older brother knows a girl who died ‘cause she choked on her boyfriend’s tongue. Their giggling is interrupted by shaking ground beneath them--an earthquake (a 5.1, at least).

Buffy comes home from school the next day upset and looks through old photo albums to the sound of melancholic ballads. When Dawn tries to ask what’s wrong, Buffy deflects, suddenly energized with the idea that they should all go away for the weekend. But Dawn has another sleepover planned with her friends (which is why Buffy suggests to Joyce they go out of town--just the two of them). Buffy deflates and returns to the photo album while Dawn passes her mom on her way out.

The following night, Buffy shows off her new dress in Dawn’s room, which Dawn loves. She asks Buffy if she’s going to the dance with the boy she was kissing and Buffy coyly remarks, “no,” before sharply adding Dawn cannot tell mom. Before she embarks to fight the Master, Buffy hugs Dawn tightly and tells her that she loves her and she'll be okay. Hours later, Buffy arrives home victorious and dirty. Dreaming of nothing but collapsing into her bed, Buffy’s caught off guard by what awaits her in her bedroom. Dawn sits on Buffy’s bed, diary open in her lap. Before Buffy can threaten her little sister with bodily injury, they lock eyes and Dawn declares, “I am so telling mom.

Dawn is in the kitchen mixing different varieties of cereal into a single bowl. Walking to the fridge for milk, she passes Buffy’s bag on the floor and does a double-take. A pointy piece of wood? A literal mace?! The items make Dawn think of the gigantic container of communion wafers in that old chest in Buffy's room…

At school, Dawn notices a short girl in her class—Melinda—for the first time. Melinda also lives on Revello Drive. Melinda is hanging around Kirstie and her friends, who vacillate between ignoring her and talking about her like she's not even there. A rejected Melinda sulks toward the bathroom, and Dawn—who's been in Melinda’s shoes—follows but discovers no one's inside!

That night, Buffy reminisces with Dawn about winning Spring Fling Queen in LA. Dawn tells Buffy about Melinda disappearing and can tell Buffy’s interested. The next day, Dawn spots Melinda sitting alone at lunch. She starts walking over to her, but Melinda disappears before her very eyes. In class, Dawn again sees Melinda and finally gets to talk to her. Melinda confesses she thinks she's disappearing, so Dawn agrees to help her. They spend the rest of the day together waiting for her to disappear, but it never happens.

When Dawn gets home, Buffy is out late helping her friend Cordelia with her May Queen dress. She darts upstairs to Buffy’s room, confirms the coast is clear and sneaks behind Buffy’s closed door. Just as she lifts up the false top on the old chest, the front door opens and Buffy’s home. Buffy checks on Dawn before bed, asking her again about the girl who disappeared in the bathroom. Dawn explains she must have been seeing things but tells Buffy how she spent the day with her new friend and neighbor. Buffy tells Dawn that she’s glad she reached out to Melinda. When she’s sure Buffy’s gone, she pulls out the diary she was concealing under the blankets and cracks it open...

Dawn is downstairs eating breakfast with Joyce, who confirms that her dad is visiting. Joyce stresses because Buffy is still asleep and rushes off to wake her up. That night, Dawn hears Buffy screaming and she launches out of bed and into Buffy’s room clutching her pink bedside lamp as a weapon. Fortunately, Buffy was just having a nightmare.

Dawn can hardly concentrate the next day at school knowing that her dad is picking her up after school. By mid-afternoon, Dawn is still waiting. Heartbroken, she asks her teacher to call her mom, but her teacher acts like she doesn’t recognize her. Dawn is eventually able to call Joyce, but her mom insists that she doesn’t know Dawn and that she only has one daughter--Buffy.

Dawn starts to realize that things are not quite right. Her first instinct is that Buffy will know what to do, so Dawn walks from the elementary school through Sunnydale's intricate labyrinth of back alleyways to Sunnydale High. Dawn spots Buffy with a boy stepping into some shrubs, so she follows, but finds herself in a dark graveyard, alone. She wanders around terrified until she spots a familiar group surrounding a headstone. She hides behind a headstone when Buffy emerges from a grave! Dawn sees Buffy’s face and stifles a scream. When she is sure everyone is gone, she approaches the grave. She reads Buffy’s headstone and tears well up. Buffy is dead. And a vampire.

A sudden flash of light pulls Dawn back to her classroom, like she just woke up from a nightmare. Her teacher calls on her, using her name, which confirms for Dawn that whatever happened wasn’t real. When Buffy and her dad pick up Dawn after school (on time), Dawn gives Buffy a big hug and tells her she loves her.

Buffy, Dawn, and Joyce are eating breakfast while Buffy gleefully talks about how Mr. Giles was put in charge of the school talent show. Dawn wonders if they even had talent shows when Mr. Giles went to school since he’s so…old. When Buffy comes home the next day, her attitude has changed dramatically after a day’s worth of dummy investigation and involuntary talent show entry. Dawn, however, is excited about the talent show, especially when she learns that Willow and Xander are part of it. She practices lines with Buffy in Buffy’s room (which is why Buffy had a better performance than Xander and Willow at the end of the episode), and Dawn takes the opportunity to scan for Buffy’s potential diary hiding spots. Dawn also takes the opportunity to ask questions about Buffy’s friends, like, “what kind of music does Xander like,” “what’s Xander’s favorite color,” and “do you think Xander believes in soul mates?”

That night, Dawn is startled awake by the sound of Buffy screaming. Joyce dashes into Buffy’s room and Dawn peers around Buffy’s doorframe, keeping outside of the threshold, afraid for what she might see. Buffy frantically tells her mom that there’s something in her bed, more afraid than Dawn is used to seeing her. Buffy tells her mom that it must have been a nightmare, but Dawn remains in the doorframe, skeptical. Buffy reiterates to Dawn that it was a nightmare and tells her to go back to bed, which Dawn does begrudgingly.

The next day, Joyce and Dawn attend the talent show, which opens with a weird scene that Buffy didn’t even tell her about. Typical—Buffy never tells her anything! Dawn, who loves magic, leaves disappointed that she didn’t get to see the magician who was supposed to be in the show, but all is redeemed by Xander’s soulful, passionate, and captivating acting. That night, distracted from searching for the diary, Dawn writes about how Xander is just so much deeper than the boys in her grade.

While Buffy helps Mr. Giles at the library, Dawn flips through the Dawnmeister Chronicles, reflecting on everything that’s happened in Sunnydale: the mysterious deaths no one acknowledges, her mom’s BBQ fork “accident," the boy Buffy was kissing (gross!) in her room with the fangs. The next morning when Willow shows up late for 5th period, Dawn sits in computer class working on her Mavis Beacon assignment. The class is suddenly distracted by what the teacher sees on Kirstie's screen, gasping in horror and characterizing it as “the most offensive, foulest, abhorrent content she’s ever seen,” while Kirstie vehemently insists that she didn’t write it! The strange, but timely, distraction allows Dawn to get on the net. Typing “vampire” into the Alta Vista search bar leads her to a website, “Demons, Demons, Demons,” before the chaos dies down and she’s forced to abort.

Buffy comes home that night and tells Dawn about Willow’s new online boyfriend. Buffy is unhappy about it, which is clearly just because she's jealous of how cool Willow is. She tries to bring up the other night with her fanged boyfriend, but Buffy insists that all Dawn saw was a shadow.
The next day, Dawn can’t log into her school computer. She learns that her entire school file and many of her digital records—including her birth records—have been deleted, as though she never existed. Dawn panics, believing her extracurricular search resulted in a computer virus, and shuts her net investigation down.

Buffy is out late, again(!), and her room is empty, so Dawn sneaks into Buffy’s room to find her sister’s diary, looking for answers. She opens Buffy’s nightstand but it’s not there. She must have moved it since that night. The sound of Buffy climbing into her second-floor bedroom window startles Dawn back to her room. She quickly climbs into bed, looking sound asleep when Buffy checks on her, already making plans for the next time Buffy sneaks out.

Dawn is doing homework at the gallery while her mom works late. When they get home, Dawn darts out of the car ahead of Joyce and upstairs before Buffy intercepts Joyce at the door. Dawn is disinterested in their conversation until she hears the sound of a man’s voice. Buffy had a boy over?! Alone?!! Dawn listens, out of sight, at the top of the stairs as Buffy says an obviously fake goodbye (c’mon mom!) to her BOYFRIEND! She waits until she hears Buffy’s door closing and quietly stations herself outside. Did he just say that his family was killed by vampires?

The next morning, Dawn repeatedly gives Buffy the “I know your secret!” look while Buffy feigns ignorance. That night, during dinner, Dawn pieces together that this mysterious man is in Buffy’s room again by watching Buffy race through dinner and back up to her room with a plastic bag of leftovers. (Seriously, get it together, Mom!). Dawn is eager to catch Buffy red-handed, so she quickly tells Joyce she’s done, darts upstairs, and barges into Buffy’s room just in time to see BUFFY KISSING A BOY! The sight of Dawn bursting through the door causes Angel to abruptly turn away from the kiss and when he turns back, this yellow-eyed, fanged man looks nothing like anything Dawn has ever seen before. Dawn runs back to her room afraid. Buffy later comes into Dawn’s room and tries to comfort her and reassures her that what she saw on the man’s face was just a trick of the light.

The next day, Buffy is relieved to learn that Dawn, who's been asking questions, gets invited to a sleepover at Janice’s house. During the sleepover, Janice’s mom gets a call from the hospital and Dawn learns that her mom fainted and fell onto a BBQ fork. Dawn thinks this is weird because they don’t have a BBQ fork. When Dawn later sees Joyce’s wounds on her neck, she begins to doubt that what she saw on Buffy’s boyfriend’s face was just a shadow, and has a sinking feeling that maybe vampires are real.

At the beginning of the episode, we see Buffy wearing Angel’s leather jacket at the Bronze. Before the Bronze, however, she hunts around her room for her brown leather jacket. Dawn hears Buffy rooting around her room for the jacket and becomes nervous. Dawn is reminded of the time in LA when Buffy came home with a bunch of weird books about vampires, including one big, old one titled “VAMPYR” and another titled, “Slayer Handbook,” which captured her interest. Dawn recalls sneaking the Handbook out of Buffy’s room, accidentally spilling watercolor paints on it, and quickly throwing it out before anyone could ever know.

The next morning, Buffy and Dawn are downstairs eating breakfast and discussing Buffy’s upcoming school trip to the zoo. Dawn finds it weird that Buffy’s high school class is going to the zoo (as did Kristin and Jenny on October 18, 2016) and is jealous. She casually asks if Xander is going to the zoo, and Dawn finds herself even more jealous at Buffy’s answer. Jealousy leads to daydreaming about how mysterious and cool it is that he goes by “Xander” instead of “Alex.” She concludes that he must be a deep and creative soul—just like her.
Dawn goes to school in braided pigtails and a fuzzy, multicolored sweater inspired by Buffy’s cool friend Willow, but some of her classmates don’t respond kindly. Popular girl, Kirstie, makes fun of her outfit in front of the whole class, which makes Dawn flee the classroom in tears. When Dawn is crying in the bathroom, another student in her class, Janice, rushes through the door to comfort her and assures her that Kirstie is mean and probably jealous. Janice and Dawn are fast friends. When Dawn comes home that night, she slips into her sister’s room and tells her about the mean girl, Kirstie, at school. Buffy and Dawn bond over school bullies and spend the rest of the evening laying on Buffy’s bed reading magazines—Buffy with a “Cosmopolitan” and Dawn with a “Tiger Beat.”

It’s the middle of the night and Dawn is roused from sleep by the now-familiar sound of her sister’s bedroom window opening followed by the sound of her big feet hitting the floor. Dawn is angry that Buffy is doing all the same things she did before she got kicked out of school and they had to move away. The next day, Buffy tells Dawn that she’s having friends over and tells Dawn not to embarrass her and to leave them alone. Dawn, now very upset with her sister, plans to do exactly the opposite. As soon as Willow and Xander arrive to help Buffy get ready for/discourage her from her date with Owen, Dawn is on the staircase ready to do what 10-year-old sisters do best. When she sees Willow’s braided pigtails, cool shirt, and gentle demeanor, she immediately likes her. When she sees Xander, she freezes, her face turns red, and she runs back upstairs unable to exact her plans. Once they get to Buffy’s room, Dawn stands just outside with her ear pressed against the door and listens to their conversation, wondering how Buffy got friends who are so much cooler than her.

Another unexpected knock at the door startles Dawn and she quickly runs back to her room, only daring to step out when she can hear that everyone is downstairs. This is where Dawn sees Mr. Giles—Buffy’s librarian—for the first time. She doesn’t understand why he would come to their house for library business, but her 10-year-old self just attributes it to him being so…old. By the time Owen arrives, Dawn zips back into her room and waits for everyone to leave. When she’s sure it’s safe, she sneaks into Buffy’s room and pulls her brown leather jacket (recently replaced by her new, black leather jacket) from her closet and puts it on. A few minutes of modeling results in clumsy Dawn spilling nail polish all over the jacket, resulting in a series wrap for Buffy’s brown leather jacket from “The Harvest”.

Dawn’s first introduction in the episode happens when Buffy gets home from the Bronze with a new leather jacket, which Dawn notices seems to be far too large for Buffy until she puts it on and it mysteriously shrinks to fit her body. Both Summers girls are undisturbed by this leather jacket shrinking magic and are focused on more important things—Buffy, weirdly on her biology homework and Dawn, on devising a plan to sneak into Buffy’s room to “borrow” her brown leather jacket (she can’t wear them both at the same time!).

The next day, Dawn gets up for school and makes herself a classic Dawn sandwich—salami with peanut butter, much to Buffy’s disgust. Buffy tells Dawn that she makes the grossest sandwiches, which upsets Dawn and prompts her to declare that she is no longer speaking to Buffy. When Dawn gets to school, she, too, has a substitute teacher in her science class. The substitute introduces himself and tells the class that he also went to school at Sunnydale Elementary and was taught by some old lady who retired in like 1972. Ms. France or something? Dawn was distracted by overhearing one of the girls in her class, Kirstie, tell a group of students that it’s a rite of passage to make the substitute cry—something that Dawn will later repeat in Season 5, Episode 4, “Out of My Mind.”

When Dawn gets home from school, she learns that Buffy’s biology teacher was found dead at school and missing his head. Dawn starts to suspect that something is off about Sunnydale because someone dies or something weird happens every day at Buffy’s school and no one seems to think this is a big deal. They didn’t even cancel gym! However, because she is a child and none of the adults seem worried about it, she puts it out of her 10-year-old mind…For now.

Dawn is in homeroom starting to get familiar with her new classmates, while Buffy breaks the horrible news to Giles that she is trying out for the cheerleading squad. When Joyce picks her up at the end of the day, Dawn tries to tell her about the rumor at her school that a girl caught on fire during cheerleading tryouts at Sunnydale High. Joyce is preoccupied about inventory for the gallery and distractedly responds with a platitude.

Joyce’s disinterest upsets Dawn, especially since it’s so close to her birthday. She runs up to her room and shuts the door before Buffy gets home from school, so we don’t see her when Buffy talks to Joyce in the kitchen.

The next morning, Dawn sits in Buffy’s room asking questions about the girl who spontaneously combusted at school. Frustrated by her older sister’s lack of information, she runs to the bathroom to affix butterfly clips to her hair before school while Buffy goes downstairs and talks to Joyce about Joyce’s yearbook staff escapades.

The following morning when Buffy wakes up spell-drunk, she dances her way into Dawn’s room before going downstairs. It’s Dawn’s 10th birthday and Buffy is acting uncharacteristically silly. Buffy puts chopsticks in Dawn’s mouth and chases her around the room yelling “I am the Slayer! I'm going to get you!" before dancing her way out of the room singing “Macho Man” by the Village People.

Dawn goes to school and no one knows it’s her birthday and she is too shy to tell anyone. With Joyce engrossed in the inventory for the gallery and Buffy too busy being a cheerleader, Dawn is sad and feeling forgotten about on her birthday.

She has all but resigned herself to her room for the night when Joyce breaks the news that she has rented out the entire carousel for Dawn’s birthday. Joyce, Buffy, and Dawn ride the carousel for the whole hour, making sure they get their moneys worth, while Joyce tells Dawn all about why she should join the yearbook staff.

When Buffy gets home from the Bronze, Dawn is already asleep. The next morning, Joyce drops off Dawn at school first, as always.

While Buffy reassembles with her new friends in the library, Dawn is meeting a new friend at school, Shannon, who also lives in her same neighborhood.

Later, when her mom picks her from school, Joyce gets a call on her car phone from Principal Flutie, informing her that Buffy left school grounds without permission. Dawn knows this means Buffy is going to be in trouble and like any little sister who enjoys hearing their older sibling get in trouble, she later eavesdrops just outside of Buffy’s room and hears Joyce grounding her.

She runs off before her mom can see listening her outside of the room, but soon comes back to keep listening. This is why we don’t ever see her. Dawn hears Buffy opening a chest and shuffling things around inside. She hears the window open, which Dawn recognizes as the sound of Buffy sneaking out.

Once she hears Buffy go through the window, she sneaks inside Buffy’s room for some younger sister snooping. She sees the blue chest on the floor and opens it. Because Buffy didn’t put the fake top back in the chest before she closed it, Dawn sees an unreasonable amount of garlic, a gigantic container of communion wafers, crosses, and holy water. This confirms for Dawn that she has the weirdest sister on the planet. She ends the episode eating dinner with a stressed out Joyce before running off to her room to make another entry in the “Dawnmeister Chronicles,” while listening to the sound Joyce’s parenting cassette tapes playing in the background from downstairs.

In the morning, Dawn gets in the car with Joyce and Buffy so Joyce can drive them both to school. We know that Dawn gets dropped off first because when we see Joyce dropping off Buffy, there’s no one else in the car.

Buffy and Dawn have just moved to Sunnydale. Starting a new school in the middle of the year is always hard in a new place, but to make matters worse, Dawn’s mom and dad have just recently split, which made 10-year-old Dawn cry for a whole week. Undoubtedly, the move from LA to Sunnydale—several hours away from her dad—would drum up upsetting feelings from the divorce. So, when Dawn gets home from school, she goes straight to her room and straight into updating the Dawnmeister Chronicles—her diary that she’s been keeping for the last 3 years, which is why we don’t see her when Buffy and her mom have a conversation about going to the Bronze.