Chapter 13 - At the end of the day, you're another day older.

Phew! You guys don't know how long it's taken me to sit my butt down and get this chapter finished!

Dannii: Aw, thanks! I'm at glad you're liking it so far.

Aliesha: Patience. I have plans for Malfoy Senior. *smirk* And good on me for pulling the wool over on the Dru-cius! As for Snape and Buffy, I figure that will happen slowly for awhile but something big will happen later to force them to accept their feelings and generally get a move on already. I promise it'll be worth it. Picture Snape doing the Macarena until then; it always helps me.

Jaime Lynn Potter: I tried to send this chapter off several times for beta-ing, but I kept getting my messages returned to me because of some stupid error. If you have an alternate address, leave it in your review and I'll try that.

ennui deMorte: No, Dru's under strict orders not to eat any of Tom's people, especially Ginny. I mean that she's been forced to break away from her friends, family, and everything else she holds dear and can't see a way out. That'll do a lot to a girl's state of mind. Look for increasingly obvious fighting between those two, old pet versus new.

Amelle: Oh yeah! And how! Again and some more! I think he's had a thing for her since the diary incident but was too busy getting his body back to concentrate on her. But, now that he's back to his old self again, the feelings are really starting to come out.

DeadlyFate: Why, yes. Yes, I am. But the snowball will really start to pick up speed in the next chapter. Heh heh (wish I had it written already)

A/N: This is for Aliesha, who requested a little exposition on the Draco thing. Everyone! Do the Exposition Boogey! (tm Regina)

A/N the Second: To make it up to Joss, here's some pimpage. Buy "Radio Sunnydale", the new Buffy soundtrack!! It's absolutely amazing, and more than a few songs can be applied to the Gin and Tonic. "Pavlov's Bell" actually got me started on Chapter 8. Buy it!

A/N the Third: The Xandrew rides tall in the middle of this chapter. I think it's cute, but I've done it in such a way that they can be ignored if people don't like/get it. Let me know through reviews!

Dinner that night was a somber affair. After a day of classes that refused to end, the gang trudged to dinner without saying a word and began mechanically piling food on their plates without much thought to what it was. Even a day without Potions wasn't enough to lift the gang's spirits.

"You just put sour cream on your chips, Ron." Hermoine pointed out tiredly.

"Uh-hun" Ron continued to smear the substance around his plate, as if the patterns in the dull white goo could produce a solution to the current situation.

Draco looked worriedly over at Harry, who was the only one in the group who was completely neglecting the food in front of him. "You should eat something." he suggested quietly.

"Not hungry."

"You're always hungry."

"Not today."

Suddenly, Draco snapped. "Alright, enough!" he hissed, slamming his fork down on the table and causing the other three Gryffindors around him to start. "This is stupid! Moping about isn't going to solve anything."

Hermoine took in a slow breath and replaced her fork by her plate. "Well, then, Malfoy." she said. "What do you suggest we do? We don't even know where she is, so we can't take her ourselves; she's being held by a fully-empowered Voldemort himself, for Merlin's sake; the Order is having enough trouble keeping the Ministry under watch so we can't ask them to get involved." She sighed and pressed her lips tightly together. "It's always worse when it's personal, but we need to keep our heads." She looked over at Harry, who was still staring at nothing.

Draco stoically met his new friend's gaze. "I am very aware of all of those facts, Granger. I just thought it might give us some perspective." He violently speared a chip and ground it into the salt on his plate before shoving it in his mouth. "Forgive me for even suggesting such a moronic idea."

Harry shifted in his seat and turned tiredly towards Draco. "What's there to talk about?" he asked. "She's gone -"

"Don't you ever say that!" Ron yelled suddenly, causing the whole Great Hall to turn and stare at them. "What are you looking at?" he shouted at the rest of the school, who murmured amongst themselves but returned to their meals. "She isn't gone." he continued to his shocked friends. "We just need to think of a way to get her out that doesn't involve us getting captured, tortured, maimed or killed by Death Eaters." He blinked. "Something simple like that."

Hermoine looked tentatively at her friends. "I know it may sound naive, but she may be trying to get back on her own." she suggested, sipping her pumpkin juice. "She may have an exit planned, just without a good time to use it."

Harry closed his eyes. "I don't think so, Hermoine." he mumbled, rubbing his temples. "You heard what Snape said..." He trailed off, the horrible mental image cutting his brain off from his vocal chords.

Ron looked over at Harry with barely suppressed rage. "He's lying. Ginny would never willingly do that. She said herself before she left that she would only do what's necessary keep him from killing everyone." He regarded his friends with a ferocious desperation. "We need to think of ways to get her back. We've never shied away from the dangerous and stupid before, so why are we starting now?" He looked over at Harry. "I know you probably don't want to remember it, but you've been to Riddle House. Don't you know anything that could help us figure out where it is? Come on, mate. Give me something, anything, to work with here." Harry's tired eyes flicked up to meet Ron's fiery ones. "Do it for Sirius. It would make him proud to see you back in action."

"I know, Ron." Harry said quietly. "And I want her home and safe from him, too. But it's no good if...if it turns out like last time." He rose quickly from the table. "I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do." Without a look back, he all but ran from the Great Hall and back towards Gryffindor Tower. Draco followed him a beat later, napkin thrown carelessly across his plate.

Ron and Hermoine sat together silently, staring at the two vacant spots in front of them. "We should probably start avoiding mentioning Sirius at all costs, you know." Hermoine said quietly, gaze focused on her lap.

"Probably." Ron agreed distractedly. "But you agree with me, don't you, Moine?" He looked pleadingly at her. "We can work this out, we just need to think harder."

"Ron, stop." she snapped, jerking her head up to look at her best friend. "We can't over power a Dark Lord and Merlin knows how many of his Death Eaters and make it out alive. You know as well as I do that the only reason we aren't dead right now is because the Order saved us at the last minute." She closed her eyes and flexed her fingers in an attempt to control her raging emotions for a moment before returning her gaze to Ron. "We're rank, arrogant amateurs who have absolutely no leverage in the situation. Face it: we may have finally found something we can't solve." She threw her legs violently over the bench and stood. "I want her back but I plan to be alive to welcome her home." With a sharp turn of her heel, Hermoine stalked out of the Great Hall, leaving a desperate Ron alone with his increasingly frantic schemes.

**

Willow groaned as she sank into one of the couches in the tower common room. "I think I'm getting old, Buffy." she groaned. "I should have seen that book coming."

Buffy grinned as she pulled on a t-shirt sat down beside her friend. "Well, it was levitated by Neville Longbottom." She shook her head. "He was in my class this morning. I didn't even think it was possible to punch yourself in the head like that."

Willow straightened and cracked her neck. "But I take from the lack of bruises and frantic visits to Poppy's infirmary that your classes are going well?"

"Famously." Buffy replied in a mock English accent. "And I assume your classes are beyond pencil floating?"

Willow smiled. "Some of them have real talent. We might even be calling up some elements by the end of the week." Suddenly, her smile turned sly. "I'm just glad that I don't have to cover Potions. That substitute the Ministry sent looks terrified of her own shadow."

Buffy chuckled. "I talked to her today in the staff room. She kept eying the ceiling and muttering something about how Beauxbatons doesn't keep poltergeists." She ran a hand absently through her hair. "I offered to get notes off of Severus for her - I don't think she's last 10 seconds with him." The Slayer rolled her eyes.

Willow's smile deepened. "I bet you'd last hours with him." she joked

Buffy smiled ruefully. "Gotta love Slayer stam - " She cut herself off as she noticed Willow biting her cheeks to contain her laughter. "Would you give it a rest? I don't like him like that." she protested as she playfully hit the witch on the arm. "I can't even stand him! He's arrogant, sarcastic, annoying, British. That's all definitely off my list now." 

Willow held up her hands in a mock gesture of defeat. "Alright! No more Brits." Suddenly, her look turned conciliatory. "It's because of Spike, isn't it?" she asked quietly.

Buffy sighed and got up to pace the room. "It's like he's everywhere here, Will." she said softly. "It's like he's haunting me."

The redhead regarded her friend with a sympathetic smile. "He'd want you to be happy, Buffy. You know that."

"And what if he doesn't?" Buffy whispered. "What if all this - especially that Malfoy kid - is all a sign that I'm not supposed to forget about him?" She turned and looked pleadingly at her friend. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Hey." Willow said, rising and taking the shaken girl into her arms. "This is just grief. You're seeing parts of him everywhere because you want him back." The girls pulled apart, and Willow smoothed an errant strand of hair behind Buffy's ear. "You'll live through it, the same way you've lived through everything else."

Buffy turned away from her friend and took up slowly walking the room. "You're right, as always." she said with a small smile.

"About time you admitted that." the witch replied, smiling.

Buffy rolled her eyes, but continued. "I'll just keep teaching - how did I get this job again? - and wear out the semester." She paused in front of a window and watched the moonlight play off the trees of the Forbidden Forest. "Maybe it's time I revived the tradition of "Birthdays Without Boyfriends", only this time, it'll be Yule Balls without Boyfriends, Christmas breaks without Boyfriends and New Years without Boyfriends, and Graduation Ceremonies Without Giant Snakes and Boyfriends."

"Unless, of course, you end up getting some quality time in with the Dungeons master." Willow teased. 

Buffy grinned. "He hasn't seen a Slayer in action."

Willow blinked away the mental picture swimming through her head and shook her head. "Now, there's the resilient Buffy I've been looking for." She patted her friend on the shoulder. "Just wait until I owl Xander about this."

"I wonder how New Zealand is working out for him and Andrew." Buffy wondered. "Think they've found any Slayers there, yet?"

Willow rolled her eyes. "I don't think so. Do you really think that the two biggest fantasy geeks in the world are going to waste their time chasing girls when they're in Lord of the Rings territory?"

Buffy laughed. "Right. I just hope they're keeping out of trouble."

**

"And don't let me see you're ugly mug around here again, punk!"

Xander squattted beside his fallen traveling companion. "Maybe you shouldn't have opened up with 'Bench-pressed any of these losers yet, baby?'" he said tiredly, while helping Andrew to his feet. "I kinda get the feeling her brothers were the over-protective type."

Andrew rubbed a hand over his face, checking for cuts. "Yeah, I got that too." he said sourly. "But as far as our search goes, I think we're doing alright. I mean, we're alive." he said optimistically as he and Xander headed back to their hotel. "I wonder how Buffy, Willow, Giles, and Dawn are doing."

"I bet they're probably having a sumptuous victory feast to celebrate their glorious victory over He-Who-Probably-Wet-His-Pants-Like-A-Bitty-Baby's." Xander answered confidently as they walked across the small lobby and over to the elevators.

Andrew sighed. "I still can't believe all that's real." he said, running a finger over the elevator railing.

Xander eyed him incredulously as they began their ascent. "After living in Sunnydale all these years, an all-powerful wizard wanting to take over the world is a surprise?" He scoffed. "There aren't even any vampires involved."

"Still, it's Voldemort, Xander." the blonde replied as he opened the door to their room. "Buffy might be able to stop him. He could jump out of any of their heads at any moment."

"Nah, he can't even get passed the words in his fully-powered form." Xander answered unthinkingly. Then he paused. "I mean, there's nothing our Buffy can't handle." He looked over at Andrew. "Geek."

"Bigger geek." he answered breezily as he flopped backwards down on the bed. "Anyway, when do we get to do some sight-seeing?" he whined. "We've been looking all week and my butt is tired from getting kicked by all the over-protective boyfriends and brothers of girls we just seem to insult."

Xander smiled. "Yeah, you're right. We've earned a little indulgence."

Andrew squealed and tackled his traveling companion. "Yes! We'll go traveling on an epic sight-seeing journey, just like Sam and Frodo!"

"'Don't you lose him, Samwise Gamgee!'" they said in unison before dissolving into fits of giggles. Suddenly, the laughter died down and the two were left in uncomfortable silence.

Finally, Xander broke it by disentangling himself from the blonde and nervously making his way to the bathroom for a shower. "Sight-seeing until Dumbledore's money runs out. Can't beat that!" With a nervous chuckle, he disappeared into the bathroom and the sound of running water.

Andrew rolled his eyes and reached for the T.V remote. "Some day, Xander." he murmured to himself as he lost himself in late night TV. "Someday."

**

Dawn groaned as she shut the book. "Face it, Giles. There's nothing here." she whined. "Can I go yet?"

Giles frowned as he looked up from his volume. "I promised Albus that we would research potential new hosts for Salazar's possession, and you're no stranger to long work sessions." He took off his glasses. "Is there somewhere you need to be?"

"Oh, no. No. I was just supposed to meet Cho and some other girls for a common room studyfest." Dawn answered. "But then again, Watchers have no friends. Watchers need no friends."

Giles rolled his eyes as he cleaned his glasses. "Fine. Go. Leave me all alone in this mountain of thick books, reading until the lines blur together, weak with hunger -"

"Alright! Alright! Jeez!" Dawn held up her hands in surrender. "You do know you sound like mom when you do that."

Giles returned his glasses to his nose and his focus to the book in front of him. "I always knew I should've had children of my own." he said distractedly.

Dawn pulled another book from the heaping stack in front of her and opened to a random page. "So, we're looking for evil, healthy, powerful?" she asked, flipping back to the index in frustration. Then she looked up, all faux suspicion. "Giles, have you hugged your inner Ripper lately?"

The former Watcher ignored her. "Well, the new host would most likely be someone who made it out of Azkaban relatively unharmed or who healed that much faster than the others." Giles replied. "If I had to choose anyone at this point, it would be - " he scanned his list of Death Eater's names and brief biographies. "Rudolphus Lestrange."

Dawn furrowed her brow. "So we narrow down the list of the usual suspects and send it off with the other double?" she asked, and Giles nodded. "And I thought this year was going to be about magic."

"It is, Dawn." Giles answered, looking up earnestly. "The skills you'll learn here will be invaluable for your future as a Watcher. You never know when you might need to levitate a weapon, or prepare a potion or - "

"Conjure a breakthrough?" Dawn interrupted excitedly. "Look at this." she said, handing Giles The Ties That Bind - a Guide to Mystical Connections. "It's not exactly what we're looking for, but I bet Ginny's friends don't know this."

Giles scanned the page. "In some cases, permanent magical bonds have been known to form during periods of intense contact, such as through spells that connect the hearts, minds, or souls of the participants." he read aloud. "These bonds, however, connect the persons' mystical energies in such a way that they may begin to loose their own traits into a kind of mixture of both personalities until they are utterly the same. Interestingly, the participants also lose the ability to use magic on each other, perhaps owing their energies becoming intertwined as well."

"So they can't use magic to hurt each other because magic can't work against itself." Dawn clarified. "Weird. So why didn't you, Buffy, Xander, and Willow get your minds melded?"

Giles continued to read on. "Because it was a different kind of magic that involved a very annoyed ancient spirit who kept killing us until Buffy chatted it into submission." he replied nonchalantly before handing Dawn the book. "Look here." he said, pointing to a paragraph below a moving illustration of a boy scribbling frantically in a book. "This isn't the first incident involving a diary."

"In 1893, it was recorded that a young Russian wizard named Ilya Sotorov found an enchanted diary in his great-grandmother's attic. It seemed to be charmed to teach Dark Arts." Dawn read. "He withdrew from his friends and family and began communing exclusively with the paper. Soon afterwards, he developed unnatural abilities, such as the ability to perform advanced feats of Legilimacy and Apparate at the age of 11. Later, when the spirit of the diary was released and corporialized in an attempt to destroy the diary's power, the boy flew into a rage and slaughtered the town's people. The former ghost, Svetlana Popovskina, sensed Ilya's usefulness had passed, but she found herself incapable of harming the boy in anyway. They lived together in various parts of Russia together for many years before being killed by Bolshevik rebels in 1916." Dawn looked up at Giles. "So, Ginny's going to develop a taste for vodka and boiled potatoes?" she joked weakly. 

Giles pushed up quickly from the table. "We have to inform Dumbledore. He has to find a way to warn Ginny." he said as they sped out of the library. "She may be invulnerable to Voldemort's magic, but the Death Eaters can still have an effect."

Dawn had to run to keep up with the older man. "You do know that you just jinxed it, right?" she said nervously, praying that no one on Voldemort's side had figured out the link.

So, how's that for plot development? Also, I'm toying with the idea of bringing Sirius into this crazy mix. Do you guys want him here, or is there enough angst without him? The story works with or without him, just in different ways.

Review? Please? You've all been so good at it before. :D