A/N:Sorry it took so long, but I've been busy with all manners of things. I promise an update much sooner than this one was. Keep the reviews fresh, all my authory love, Chelsea.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince…And Others
Chapter Seven The Soul Problem

"Missing soul, eh?" Moody grunted. Even though Dumbledore had said the grungy man was trustworthy, Buffy felt all but secure in his presence. Moody's wooden leg smacked loudly on the floor as he moved aroud Spike, assessing him with his large blue eye that swiveled dizzily in its socket.

Spike had an unlit cigarette between his lips, and Buffy could tell he desperately wanted to light it, but he refrained, watching Moody as he sank into the plush armchair.

They were grouped; Spike, Buffy, Moody and Tonks, at the cozy bar in Hogsmead. Moody was occasionally sipping from his flask, Buffy and Tonks both had butterbeers - warm and frothy, while Spike had a murky brown liquid in his glass that he sipped from thoughtfully once in a while.

Moody stopped, facing Spike dead on, his blue eye riveting Spike to his chair as it quivered, looking him up and down, inside and out.

"Huh." Moody grunted. Buffy became uneasy, feeling that strange lurking of something gone wrong in Moodys' voice.

"What is it?" She ventured, seeing Spikes' lips whiten as he pinched the cigarette between his lips.

"He's fractured," Moody said.

Drusilla sat cross-legged at the foot of the large pillowy bed, eyes unfocused and fingers playing in her hair. Before her, Draco was out cold, eyes closed in slumber, his slicked hair loose in curls and his normally pale face pink. Drusilla stood up off the bed and walked silently past the bed, disregarding her crumpled slip and slipping a finger over the soft curves of Dracos' face.

"Sweet Draco," she cooed. "Mummy will make it all all right."

Anya lay on the soft bed, her eyes closed in more than in exhaustion, vivid images flashing behimd her eyes.

Death. Destruction...What had she done, what had she really accomplished in so many years of existence? To provide scorn women with a change at revenge? Vengeance, she thought, had been her strength. Love...well, what did that feel like? Who would know now?

A putrid smell of sulfer and brimstone began filling the room, and Anya sat up, coughing, her eyes teary.

"Anyanka?" D'Hoffryns' voice boomed as he appeared in his grand purple robes, his twisted horns sticking out sadly. He choked and crumpled to the floor. Anya rushed to his side, still taken slightly surprised.

"D'Hoffryn? What happened? What's wrong?" she turned his to his back and gasped.

A small iron dagger was protruding from his skull, and his pendant, she discovered as she searched his neckline, was gone.

D'Hoffryn was dead.

"Fractured?" Buffy asked, confused. "What do you mean, 'Fractured'?

"It means," Moody said between swigs from his flask. "That when the Amulet moved him to safety, It did it at the cost of a piece of his soul."

Oz held the small silver mirror close to his chest, wary of the rising moon as he tumbled into the motel. Tucking the mirror away between the mattresses, he shrugs off his clothes, examining the crisscrossing of bracelets on his arms. They're silver and twine, ribbon and bronze and they dig into his skin. Running hands down his torso, he feels the tightly wraped markings the strings and twine and silver have made, feeling his skin bubble as it strains to take form.

Mental capacity is too weak in these times, and he whimpers at the searing pain he endures.

But no wolfish howl peirces the night, and he cumples to the sheets, clawing at his skin as the night drifts by.

In the morning he awakens, half-conscious at the knocking on his door.

He drags himself to the door, and opening it, h's confronted with a stranger's face.

Lupin crosses his legs over again, smiling pleasantly and a little into the distant.

"Yes, yes, there's many forms of sustaining the beast, many species of the beast, and many characteristics of the beast. But they all lead to control, you'd say, I suppose."

"Uh, yeah." Oz holds the tea cup, looking down into the murky brown and concentrating hard on not throwing up. His skin is pinched, his breaths hallow gasps, but he controls his pain, stills his quivering.

"Well then, I have a propasition for you." Lupin said, a twinkle in his eyes. Oz looked up at him warily, remembering his first objective that was shoved between mattresses.

"What?"

"Ever heard," Lupin said coyly. "Of a place called Hogwarts?"

Buffy slipped out of the silk robe she'd been wearing after her bath and padded into the bedroom to the hunched form of Spike. Sinking into the mattress next to him with a sigh, she took his hands, kissing the remnants of hot tears away.

"Spike, don't" she pleaded softly.

He looked up with tear stained eyes and sniffed in a way he'd deny soon enough.

"It's gone Buffy." He said softly. "I'll never get it back, the spark...it's gone...It's lost."

"I'm not real anymore."

"I solemnly swear I am up to no good." Whispered Dawn as she examined the swiped map under the safety of her covers. Tiny spider-web lines crissed and crossed over the parchment, making up the map that was creased from over-use.

Her eyes grazed it, examining the faint prints of feet, and the scribbled names. In the dark, her eyes adjusted slowly, but she knew what she was looking for, and found it quickly.

It was there, in the dungeons.

Three dots, meeting in a tucked away room.

Three dots, late at night, when all should be tucked away in their dormitories.

Snape. Drusilla. And Malfoy.

A/N: As it's a day before 9/11, let me pay my respects to the lost loved ones from the terrorist attacks and their families