Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Soul Eater

Quick Question: I promised myself I'd ask. The stuff I've been writing lately isn't the epitome of 'funny'. Is there anyone who thinks I should change the genre away from 'Humour'?

Thanks

…

Soul's mind was black.

Maka glanced around uneasily. His entire mindscape had been shaped out of a sticky, tar-like substance that bubbled at alarming moments. It swelled into shapes (furniture, trees, people) and then shifted back into the bog with a pop!

"Right," Maka said. "This is unexpected."

Where she was standing was solid, thanks to her anti-madness wavelength. She didn't like to think unpleasant things – such as just how deep that bog actually was.

Still, it wasn't important. Right now, all she needed was to find her partner.

Maka took a cautious step forward, toeing the ocean of mud with her boot. She sighed in relief as it hardened underneath her, providing another place to stand.

"Looks like I'm counteracting the madness already," Maka said, though she wasn't too happy about walking around on top of the black water. It made her all kinds of uneasy that she couldn't see any boundaries.

That was a problem: Soul liked boundaries. It wasn't obvious, but he preferred to be indoors with four walls around him rather than in a wide-open space. He preferred cities to the country. He liked to see where he was going, rather than to be lost in an infinite wasteland.

Maka had been resonating non-stop with Soul for years. She knew that he needed space – confined space. He had grown up in an environment where everything – from the clothes he wore to the food he ate to the things he thought – was controlled by someone else. Soul, Maka had realised quite early on in their partnership, was too used to being told what to do.

The fact that he usually did the opposite or what, say, Kid or Stein ordered him to do was beside the point. When she told him to do something (in her very scary, very authoritative voice that never failed to make Black*Star back off or Stein think twice about attempting to dissect her), he did it.

Freedom with boundaries. He didn't trust himself enough to let himself completely loose.

He trusted her enough to know when to say: Stop.

So the fact that his mind-scape had no boundaries…that was a Big Problem.

Maka wandered around for a bit, with the tar-like substance that floored the mental world hardening under her feet as she walked. Occasionally, she would stop and toe at the tar, mildly surprised to find that she could dip her boot in without too much difficulty. It seemed as though it was inviting her to jump in, the bubbles popping around her feet almost greedily.

Something weird was going on, here.

"Soul?" she called, moving from a casual-walking speed to a slow sprint. She could keep this up for hours, thanks to the many training-sessions courtesy of the DWMA, and she felt better rushing around than doing nothing. Even if now she was just rushing around doing nothing. "Soul?!"

Nothing. Maka's skin began to crawl.

Where was he? Usually, she didn't have to look around such a large space, when this happened. What was going on? Where was –

Oh.

Without a second thought, Maka dived into the Black Blood.

…

Jackie woke up to a splitting headache. Tiny versions of Kim jumped up and down on her forehead, hammering cheerfully away at her brain cells and giving out short, high-pitched squeals of laughter whenever they managed to incite a particularly aggressive burst of pain.

Jackie groaned and tried to block them out, but squeezing her eyes tighter only caused her to see white, and my temples throbbed in a very uncomfortable manner.

Finally, Jackie gave in and opened her eyes. The chibi-Kim's gave out shrieks of laughter and ran around faster, but Jackie just ignored them in favour of looking around her room.

Her cell.

It was a stark white, which made her eyes burn (and the litte Kim's to cackle in a distinctly evil manner), and it reminded her uncomfortably of a padded-cell they used in mental institutions. Indeed, the floor was made of a soft, spongy-like substance, but the wall felt concrete against her skin, so that was something. There was nothing in the place, aside from a single doorway on the far corner.

Jackie looked down at herself, discovering with an unpleasant – but not entirely surprised – start that someone had changed her from her burnt school-robes into what looked like white pyjamas.

Burnt out…

She groaned and knocked her head back onto the wall as the events before her lapse into unconsciousness took hold in her mind. Kim's disappearance. The people in black. Her temper.

The fire.

"Me," she whispered. "Oh, Death, it was me…"

Shame welled up. As a child, she had always had the best self-control of all her siblings; she was always the one to keep silent and safe, tucked away somewhere out of reach as her parents danced and drank the nights away. Her grandmother had instilled a very direct sense of self into her; keep quiet and modest. Sit up straight. Look people in the eyes, unless they're prospective husbands – then, you must titter along with every word like some brainless twit...

"Straight laced". That's what Kim had called her, when they had first met.

In all honesty, she had been.

But that control had given her something, for what it was discovered that she was a Weapon; and not just any Weapon – no, a Demon Lamp. One of the most dangerous, accident-prone Weapons there were. Accidental burns – intentional burns – flare-ups – Meister burnouts – the list of the dangers presented by a Demon Lamp went on and on. But Jackie had survived, keeping her soul in tight control. Too controlled, many of her former Meisters would always complain; no one but Kim had ever been able to force anything but the most casual of Resonances.

The only person Jackie had even burnt unintentionally was Kim.

And didn't that just say something?

Jackie thought back to all those months ago, when Kim had speculated about the ability of Death Scythes to wield magic.

Well, she thought, a touch hysterically, I've been Resonating with a Witch for years. She's as much a part of my soul as I am hers.

And I've been living in a MAGIC SCHOOL, for crying out loud.

Fire.

Explosions.

C'mon, Jackie, why didn't you figure it out before?

Oh, well. No time to self-pity. She had to break out of wherever the hell she was, go back to that stupid scorched little piece of forest and find Kim. Because being without Kim was unacceptable.

The door opened.

"Huh," Jackie said, and launched herself at the man who entered. She transformed her hand into a lamp and shot a burst of low-heat flames at the guy, disappointed when he dodged out of the way. She swerved towards the door, intent on ignoring whoever it was, but it slammed shut as soon as she reached it. "Nuts."

"Jacqueline O. Lantern Dupre," the man gasped out, sounding very nervous. Jackie gave him a savage sort of smile, and he backed away until his back hit the wall.

Cool, Jackie thought, hostage.

"I'm glad you know my name," Jackie's smile widened. "What's yours?"

"I – I'm Pius Thickesse." The poor man squeaked.

"I don't like you," Jackie announced. "I think I'll kill you" – he gave a girlish sort of shriek, and Jackie took a moment of unholy pleasure from that sound, drawing strength from it (she had definitely spent too much time around Kim) before continuing – "Unless you give me what I want."

"What do you want?" his chin wobbled in an unattractive sort of way.

"A mirror," Jackie said promptly. "And for you guys to let me out of here!"

"I – I – I…" he started to hyperventilate.

Jackie narrowed her eyes, and then let out a disgusted groan. "Really?"

"W-what?" he gave her a terrified look.

"Stop it," Jackie snapped. "Don't think I don't know that I'm being played." She shook her head. "I can't believe you're trying to get one up on me! Stop acting, you moron!"

Thickesse gave her a wide-eyed look of utter fear, and then it just…melted away. "What gave it away?" he asked, sounding resigned.

"For one thing, no one came to help you," Jackie snorted. "Either you're utterly hated, or you're a plant. There were no tears, no involuntary wetting of your pants – Death, I can barely see a sheen of sweat on your face. Okay, yeah, so your acting was top-notch, but your body gave you away."

He didn't look at all perturbed, which only made Jackie's humiliation worse. "Really? Most wizards don't really notice that sort of thing."

"Because most wizards lack an ounce of common sense," Jackie muttered. "Alright, here's what we're going to do – a question for a question. I'm allowed to skip."

"That sounds fair," Thickesse gave a shallow nod, and Jackie almost smirked.

"I'll go first," she raised her arm and pointed her flaming lamp towards him. "Where in Death is my Meister?"

"Kim Diehl?" Thickesse gave her a shallow smile. "We haven't found any sign of her. We went to a forest fire and found you in the middle of a storm of ash. Most of your clothes had burnt away. The only thing that remained was the hollow ghost of a tree. Not trees, plural – all that was left of a forest was a single tree."

"Uh…"

"Do you know how much trouble we had explaining the dragon to Muggles? There were too many people to Obliviate, and we ended up posting something about a gas leak and mass hallucinations."

"Dragon…" Jackie murmured, eyes un-focusing. Yes, she remembered a dragon. A wild, massive beat that she couldn't control.

It had killed them.

Jackie didn't cringe in horror. Death was part of her job – hell, Death was her employer. Still, that didn't mean she was happy with the loss of control.

"Now, a question for you…" Thickesse gave her a long, sharp look over his hooked nose. Jackie was once again filled with annoyance that she could have ever mistaken him for anything other than a predator. "What can you tell me about how the moon went black?"

Jackie stared at him. "That was years ago," she said, stalling. "Why would you want to know now?"

"A question for a question," he reminded her, face hard.

"There's something off about this place," Jackie snapped. "If you're so interested, why haven't you asked the other two who you arrested?" she grinned, a touch maliciously. "They know more about it than I do. Honestly, they know more about it than anyone."

Yes, Jackie was bagging them out – but for a good cause. She was confident that Maka and Soul's bullshit detectors were pretty much in sync, thanks to the ridiculously-long period that they had spent resonating. They could probably decide, almost instantaneously (despite being in different surroundings, since Jackie was almost positive that Thickesse wouldn't be this calm had they been in the same cell) whether or not to tell these people the truth. What's more, if they decided to lie, the odds on them using the same lie was almost certain.

They had tested it. Such an ability was truly a thing of beauty.

Thickesse gave her another of his long, searching looks. Jackie just stood there and took it; she had been the subject of the old Lord Death's scrutiny before. While he looked cute and cuddling, his Reaper Chop was something to be feared. Without such a danger present, this guy ad nothing.

"Very well," he said, and then strode off in a dramatic swirl of his cloak.

"Wait – what? Aren't we going to have more questions? You've got to be the worst interrogator ever!"

"More questions will come," Thickesse said without looking back at her. "And this time, if you don't answer them, we're going to do something very…special, to those two others. The albino, in particular, seems to be having a very adverse reaction towards the tests we have done."

Jackie stared at him. "Tests?" she spat, rage growing. "What the hell do you mean, tests? We aren't lab rats!"

"On the contrary," Thickesse turned to give her a chilly smile. Jackie's answer almost grew out of control. "You are dangerous lab rats. Infected with the foulest form of magic. We need protection against your kind. We need to find out what makes you tick."

Jackie almost laughed. "And you think studying Soul is going to help with that?"

"What do you mean?" Thickesse's eyes flared.

"Because he's insane!" This time, Jackie did laugh at him. C'mon, Jackie, make him question the results. Make him wonder if he caught the right Weapon.

Make him regret ever touching your friends.

Somewhere deep in Jackie's mind, a dragon stirred.

…

When Kid had asked Liz – indirectly, of course – to 'Go find Crona', he had a very specific list of personality traits in mind for the person who was to play the part. Calm was one. Sane was another. He wanted someone with strong and confident enough personality to be able to fool these bastards. He wanted someone who was great at bullshitting, able to make things up on the go – but not completely insane about it. He wanted reasonable bullshit. He wanted a reasonable story.

In short, he wanted – well, he wanted someone fairly normal, for the DWMA.

Franken Stein was none of those things.

…

…

A/N: Hey, looks like I made it on time after all. The thing on Thursday wasn't that important, anyway (well, it was, but I'm just going to lie for myself for a little while, 'kay?)

Anyway, big thanks to the people who reviewed: Krazyfanfiction1, LesbianWonderland, Tris PhantomEvans, Kim-senpai, MutantRancor, Waywardneko and Guest. Sorry, not sending PM's this week, guys, unless there's a specific question. I don't have the energy.

I think I'm going to bed. I'm not feeling too cheerful today.

Thanks

MM