Year of the Shadows
Authors note: This fic Is going to be centered around Yugi, Bakura and Harry. There is and will not be any shipping. This story is to take place in book five of HP, and sometime between Duelist City and the following arc. I'm going to try to stick pretty close to the events of the fith book, but hey, Yugi and Bakura weren't in the actual book, so It's going to have quite a few changes. Now, I'm not changing anything incredibly important, but please don't get on my case if some character isn't in the right place, or I missed a small event. If you want to read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with exactly the same story with the exception of our favorite little duelists, then go buy yourself a copy and use your imagination.
Now that we've covered that, we can begin!
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or Harry Potter. Unfortunately.
Underlined text is Japanese
Chapter 1. An Invitation to Wizardry (Letters and Languages)
Yugi looked around him. King's Cross station was busy as he had feared. 7, 8, 9, 10... He counted for what seemed the hundreth time and now he was starting to panic. Some of these people had been giving him and Bakura weird looks. They didn't really fit into the into the crowd that well, and passing time didn't help them one bit.
Bakura had walked up to someone wearing a uniform for directions.
"Excuse me sir," Bakura asked the man. Even if they were near the same height, it didn't make it any less intimidating.
"But, can you direct us to platform nine-and-three-quarters?"
The man was obviously unamused. He held up one neatly gloved hand in a gesture to wave the teen away.
"Nice try kid," He looked at Bakura with what seemed to be disgust. "But I've already heard that one twice today. Now scram."
Of coarse, Bakura retreated back to his friend. Yugi sighed. They were going to miss the train if they couldn't find it soon. The shorter duelist tried to recall what had lead up to this disaster.
Less than a month ago, Yugi had found a letter on the gameshop counter. Grandpa knew nothing about it or how it got there, and it was addressed directly to Yugi. It was as follows:
Dear Mr. Yugi Muto,
We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. We do apologize for not discovering your talents in time to join the first year class as most students do, and that all local schools are unable to enroll you at the moment. Due to your singular situation, you will be joining the fifth years. If you cannot catch up in your studies we can lower you to a younger set of students if absolutely needed. Upon request, we may also have a tutor assigned. We apologize again for the inconvenience. The term begins September 1, we await your owl by no later than July 31.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva Mcgonagall
Deputy headmistress
Although the letter was at first dismissed as a practical joke, the next day Yugi awoke to a spotted brown owl resting pleasantly on his desk, his bedroom window wide open. The next two days were a mess of negotiations and arguments on what to do. The owl kept on coming back until Grandpa had made the final decision to let Yugi go.
When Yugi's Grandpa had bought plane tickets to the UK, Yugi had one thing left to do. He gathered up his friends to say goodbye. Everything had been going smooth until Bakura had stood up and pulled Yugi into the hallway, revealing his own letter. The rest was a blur of "We'll miss you"'s and "You'd better write us"'s once it had sunk in that Yugi and Bakura were both leaving for a long time. Of coarse, they never mentioned that they had been invited to a school for wizards.
There had been one other problem; Yugi was not fluent in English. Sure, he was getting quite good grades in the English class at his school, but what he knew was barely enough to hold a conversation. He understood English quite easily, but actually speaking the language was the hard part. On the plane and in the weeks before, Bakura had done all he could to teach his friend. It was a start, but Yugi still struggled.
Yugi's Grandpa had attempted to help them with supplies, but it seemed absolutely hopeless. Grandpa instead let them go around town on their own as long as they had a flip phone on them at all times. Eventually, after seeing his guardian was no help, the two Duelists left on their own, only finding Diagon alley by pure luck.
"Hey Bakura..." Yugi stopped his friend when they had been walking down the street,
"Doesn't that seem like it might help us?" The Leaky Cauldron. It was forgotten how they managed to get to Diagon Alley, neither of them could exact remember. They had walked inside the pub, were pushed and shoved and there was some part that involved a moving wall. The memories that had stuck were the ones in Diagon Alley its self
Seeing magic of the wizard variety was probably the height of their visit. This was not dark, frightening shadow magic like that used by their yami's (Who had both been rather quiet on the matter so far). Bakura had practically jumped up and down with excitement. Everything was just like in the tabletop RPG's he enjoyed so much! He had ran from stall to storefront, gazing with awe at the various magical products. Yugi's face lit up as well. It was rare he saw Bakura so happy, as he had always been bullied by the spirit of the ring. He followed the white haired boy about, chatting about the interesting things they found in Japanese for Yugi's convenience.
It was then a familiar voice in the back of Yugi's head spoke up. In all this commotion, he had almost forgotten of Yami. How he could forget the Pharaoh that was always in the back of his mind he did not know.
/Yugi, you may want to calm down a bit, I wouldn't like to attract too much more attention than we already have/
He was right. The people around them were all staring. They made the decision to find their supplies and leave, no matter how cool the wizarding world was.
Less than two hours later, both late wizards had wands, even though the shorter of the two had nearly set Olivanders on fire in the proscess. He looked up at his friend then.
"Well Bakura, you know what this means, right?"
"No, what?"
"That this is the real deal, we're actually going to a school where magic isn't something people think you've made up just for attention..."
Bakura sighed. "Yes, but I don't think we should go waving shadow magic around just yet."
Yugi was just about ready to give up. He had turned around to start pushing his way towards the exit when he encountered a black dog. A big dog. It barked at Yugi and he jumped nearly three feet in the air. A dark haired boy with glasses began rushing over.
Dumbledore happened to be in his office, looking through files of information he had gathered on both transfer students. He chuckled to himself.
"Oh, this is going to be an interesting year, isn't it?"
Author's note: Eh... There you go. It's not the best first chapter but I will try my hardest to improve it in the following chapters. It's a bit short too. Anyway, thanks for any feedback, I could really use some constructive criticism! Constructive. Please don't just point out everything that's wrong with this because most likely I'm already painfully aware of it myself. Sorry if this seemed super rushed.
