I'm not going to pretend that I have anybody eagerly awaiting the next story from me, so I'll just say this: enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh, Harry Potter, or Egypt. Or England. Sadly.

ZZZz

In the Valley of the Kings, there is yet another archaeological dig. Here, pay dirt has just been struck. A hole in the ground has just been opened, and from the looks of it, it's a new tomb. Now the entire crew is running around, writing reports and getting ready for the exploration.

In his tent, a certain Egyptologist with tri-colored hair was getting ready for his first foray into a previously undiscovered ancient Egyptian tomb. It was something he had been looking forward to for a long time. His grandfather was a renowned archaeologist, and, after 8 years of grueling college work, he had finally allowed the young Dr. Yuugi Mutou, Egyptologist, to come on a dig.

Yuugi nervously checked out his toolkit again. He knew he shouldn't be nervous. After all, he was trained for this, and had been waiting years for it. It had always been his ambition to explore the temples and tombs of ancient cultures. But still, it was a new experience to actually do it, and he was nervous.

Aldous Sterling, a student from England doing some post grad work, came into Yuugi's tent.

"Are you ready?"

"Just about. Are you?"

Aldous nodded. "Yeah. I'm a bit nervous though."

Yuugi chuckled. "Yeah, me too. But it's exciting. This is the first time I get to go into a tomb that no one else ever has before."

Aldous smiled. "Me as well. Well, I'm ready to go. Just come on out when you're ready. We're getting to go in first. We're lucky, most heads wouldn't allow students in fist. Your grandpa is really nice."

"Well, Ojiisan always said that one of his favorite parts of his job was teaching. He loves letting his students get their hands dirty." Yuugi grabbed an ancient Egyptian dictionary. "I'm ready. Let's go."

Aldous folded back the tent flap. Outside Sugoroku Mutou stood, waiting.

"Are you two ready? This is very exciting. The last time a new tomb was discovered here was in 2007. It's been a while."

Yuugi and Aldous quickly began checking their equipment. The batteries on one of the headlamps needed to be changed, and Yuugi thanked God that they checked the lamps. It would be bad to get down there only to find the light was on the verge of going out. Besides that, the equipment seemed to be perfectly fine.

Yuugi grabbed his tool belt and strapped it around his waist. He made sure that he had everything he could need down there: several sizes of brush, tweezers, a crowbar, and other such devices. They all seemed to be there, so he stuffed his dictionary into his belt and snatched a carabiner off the table and attached a small flashlight to it. Aldous did the same, except he called his a torch. They were ready.

But first, Sugoroku had to give them a long lecture on how they were not to disturb anything down there, and how lucky they were that he was allowing them to go down. Not that they didn't know all of this already, but as far as Sugoroku was concerned, he had to give this lecture. They, had of course, both heard from professors about how they would not be allowed to go down alone for years, even if they did have their doctorates. So they had a clue how lucky they were. But the speech came anyway.

Of course Sugoroku trusted his grandson. But he had raised the child, and like any good parent, he felt better having said those things. He noticed the two's nervousness, but did not comment. Nothing he could say would make it any better, and they would get more from this experience without his help. So he stayed quiet.

The students1 walked over to where the entrance to the tomb was just barely big enough for one of them to fit at a time. They lowered themselves down, turned on their headlamps, and discovered themselves in the tomb of a Pharaoh.

A brown-haired man stepped up to a podium in a large hall. Lights flashed as pictures were taken of the round-faced man as he took his position.

Neville Longbottom had never thought that he would become the Minister of Magic. But when he continued to hear about how the politicians continued to attempt to hide magic from muggles, while the wizarding public called for an end to the charade, he knew he had to do something. At the advice of Professor McGonagall, he had quit his post of Herbology professor at Hogwarts, and had run for minister. And he had actually won, something that surprised him more than anybody.

Neville held up his hand, and immediately the reporters became silent. That would have never worked with his students.

"Hello. I have to admit, this is not the speech I expected to give today. I never expected to be Minister. But here I am. And I have a policy announcement to make already: this will be my last speech given to an all-magical audience. I plan to talk with the muggle minster about pulling back the veil we of the magical world have placed on all but a few muggles. Soon, the magical world will become part of the world at large. We must show that we are in fact different than the likes of Voldemort and Grindelwald. And so we end our long era of hiding. We come out to the open NOW!"

Most of the audience erupted into applause. Neville was now one of the best loved public figures in the wizarding world right now. Only Dumbledore and Harry Potter had ever been more popular, and one was dead, and the other had withdrawn to raise his children and godchild. Now, however, those children were all but grown, and Harry still refused to take part in public life. And that thought gave Neville inspiration for the next part of his speech, which was good because the applause were dying down.

"I remember back when I went to Hogwarts. I was friends with Harry Potter, which is a name I think most of you know." The audience giggled slightly. The joke wasn't that great, but they loved the man making it. "Harry lived with muggles. His aunt and uncle were about the worst thing that could happen to a young wizard. But he never hated muggles."

The crowd broke into applause again, but less enthusiastic this time. The minister had talked about his friendship with the Boy Who Lived before, and they didn't care about it much. Neville sensed this.

"The point is, discriminating against all muggles because of how a few might react, or because of the actions of those who lost power many years ago, is ridiculous. It is as bad as discriminating against those of muggle blood, which all of us agree is wrong. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been elected." Neville flashed a smile to the crowd. 2

"Now, some have worried about the posts my wife and I had before this election. I am happy to announce that my wife will be keeping her post at the Leaky Cauldron. My position of Herbology teacher at Hogworts will be taken over by a friend of mine from my time there, Luna Lovegood. The students at Hogworts will be in good hands with her there.

"Now, I want to thank you so much for the faith you have put in me and my ideals. My family has always fought for equality. Years ago, when Voldemort offered me a position in his army, I responded with a shout of 'Dumbledore's Army'. Now, I am happy that Dumbledore's Army has come into the mainstream. And I leave you all with something new. The Dumbledore Party!"

And with that, the crowd exploded. The applause were deafening, as was the shout that went up among the audience. Neville walked off the stage and over to the new fountain, which now showed Wizard, Witch, Merman, and Centaur standing as equals. House-elves had protested about being portrayed as free, though SPEW had demonstrated to add them to the statue. SPEW had entered the world at large now, though it was still made up of muggle-born witches and wizards.

Hannah Longbottom stood by the fountain, and the Daily Prophet got a few good shots of her and her husband together before they disapperated.

Yuugi flashed on his headlamp and was immediately dazzled by the large amounts of gold. This was obviously one of the few tombs not even discovered by tomb robbers. Aldous was a little more careful after seeing his friend's problem. The walls were all gold leafed, and the hieroglyphs, rather than being the drab carvings in the stone walls like they had mostly studied, were as colorful as they were in the Book of Coming Forth by Day.3

Aldous pulled out a notebook and made a rough sketch of a bird's-eye view of the room they had found themselves in. He then turned on a digital recorder and started talking in it.

"We have entered what appears to be a hallway. The walls are gold leafed. The hieroglyphs that cover even this room's walls are very colorful. Indexing will have to start right away."

At this point, he glanced over at Yuugi reproachfully, as the spiky-headed student had excitedly started deciphering the words on the wall. He turned on his own recorder and started to comment on the writings before he noticed his friend's look. He turned off his recorder and grinned sheepishly to his fellow student. "Sorry. I guess that can wait for later."

"But not now," Aldous continued. "We begin by taking the door to the south."

This led the friends into a treasure room. This pharaoh had obviously been rich, even compared to others of his rank. The room was filled with gold, silver, and other precious goods. In the corner there were some human bodies, obviously servants that had been trapped down here to help him in the afterlife.

Aldous continued to sketch his map and dictate notes, so Yuugi thought he'd take a cursory glance at the treasure. There didn't seem to be anything particularly notable about the treasures, except that the name Atem was mentioned several times. Yuugi noted that on his recorder, and postulated that it might be the Pharaoh's name.4

They moved through another door, and entered another hallway, that curved around. Aldous merely mentioned that they entered it, and sketched it on his map before moving on.

The next room was filled, yet again, with what at first appeared to be treasure. But upon closer inspection, Yuugi found that the gold and ivory items all took the form of games. Yuugi flipped on his recorder and made note of this.

As he did so, Aldous had finished in the room and was just waiting for Yuugi. "Really?" he asked, surprised, and walked over to where the shorter 20-something was standing.

Yuugi nodded and pointed it out. He recognized several of the games. "See, there's Ouija, and there's an instruction book for Senet, written on papyrus. And there's a Senet game made out of ebony..." Yuugi, of course, recorded this. "And from the looks of it, Atem lived when Senet was considered a religious game."5

Aldous threw Yuugi a strange look. "Who's Atem?"

Yuugi looked embarrassed. "That seems to be the name of the pharaoh buried here. The name was written all over the treasure, referring to him as the owner."

"Oh, I see. That's interesting. Turn off your recorder and let's get out of here."

Yuugi flipped the switch on his recorder and stood up. He and his friend looked on the three walls that they had not entered from and found no door.

"It must be a dead end," said Aldous.

The post-grads turned around and found that wall just as blank. There was no door. There was no way out.

"What the fuck!" Aldous started screaming his head off.

Yuugi, whose head was a bit calmer under the pressure, tried to hail the dig site. He got nothing but static from his radio. He frowned.

"We seem to be stuck," he sat. He did not move, just sit there in a funk.

Somewhere in England, a black-haired man handed a glass of sherry to his wife before sitting down with his own drink of scotch. The last child that lived at home was out with some friends that evening. He and his wife had a relaxing evening with his father. He had spent a long day doing the dredges of his work, filling out form after form. After all, with the vanquishing of Voldemort, there were very few dark wizards for Aurors to catch.

Ginny Potter reached over and turned on the Wizarding Wireless Network. There were the election results. She and Harry had been following this closely, as one of their old friends was running. She turned excitedly to her husband – Neville had won! They would have to send him an owl.

They sit and sipped their drinks, listening to Neville's speech. It was a good speech. It was very inspiring.

As the speech ended with a yell of "The Dumbledore Party!", Harry laughed. "He never used to be like this. It was DA that did this for him. He used to be so... awkward.

Anyway, I suppose I'll be seeing him soon then."

Harry, as he had, after all, killed Voldemort, had entered the department of Aurors at a high level, as had Ron. Harry, however quickly climbed the latter, and now found himself near the top – he was Head Auror. He would indeed meet with the new Minister of Magic soon. 6

Ginny and he spent a time reminiscing. After all, the thought of Neville as Minister was almost laughable. But they liked the idea of coming out to the world. The magic world had been there for a long time, after all, and it wouldn't be going away any time soon.

Then a sound came from the window. An owl sat on the window sill, tapping for admittance. Harry got up and let the bird in, taking the letter off its leg.

His wife immediately recognized the seal on the back. "Hogwarts? But it's too early for Lily to get her letter."

Harry shook his head. "It's addressed to me. It's from Professor McGonagall."

His wife was as confused as he was. "What's it say?"

Harry read the Letter aloud:

"Dear Harry,

"I have made my decision to retire from Hogwarts. It is my fondest desire that you, as Albus's favorite student, take my position and become Headmaster. I am fully aware of this break in tradition, but as it is Lily Luna's last year, it is time for you to come back to the public spotlight. The headmaster of Hogwarts has always had a part in public affairs, and with Neville's immanent administration, I am sure that we will become open to muggles very soon.

"It seems important to me that one such as you, who was raised by muggles and has seen the worst they have to offer, is in charge of the education of magical children. Please make your decision quickly, as the new Headmaster has many things to do in preparation for the new school year."

Ginny frowned. "Are you going to take it?"

"I'm not sure." Her husband shook his head.

Just then, there was a knock on the door. Ginny hurried to see who it could be while Harry still stood with the letter in his hand. As Ginny showed the new Minister of Magic into the sitting room, the head auror took a quite large sip of his scotch.

A house-elf ran off to get the preferred brandy of Neville, and the round-faced man looked at his old friend.

"What a wonderful day! I'm so excited to start! I mean, I know it will be hard work, and your department will fill for sure, but... what's that?" He had noticed the letter in Harry's hand.

"It's from Professor McGonagall. She wants me to be Headmaster." Harry's head shook again. "I don't think I'm going to take it."

Neville looked at Harry. "Why not? I think you should. Ron can be the head auror. And we need a head of education. Nothing like that nasty Umbrige." Neville had caught the dark look from both his guests. "Someone to work with the school. I think You'd fit that roll. And as Headmaster, you could do it perfectly."

Harry paused. His wife took the opportunity to voice her agreement with the minister. "I could always write stories from the school."

"Fine. I'll do it. Sounds like it's a good idea. But I want to have some time to train Ron."

"That's fine. You and he both come to the first cabinet meeting next week, and the next day you announce your resignation as head auror and your position at Hogwarts and as my head of education."

Harry nodded. He was beginning to like this idea already.

"In the meantime, I came here to get away from the fucking press. No offense Ginny."7

"None taken. I always considered myself more of a Quiditch player, anyway."

Neville smiled. "That's good. Hannah will be joining us as soon as she can put off the press."8

"That's fine. I'll put on the tea then."

Neville smiled.

Aldous had long calmed down, resigned to his fate. Yuugi got bored and started translating the hieroglyphs. Aldous had protested it's uselessness at first, but Yuugi had insisted, and said that when the others found them, they could at least have done something.

But now, he came close to where the door had been.

"That's funny. The story breaks off here in mid-sentence and continues here. It's like the doorway had something else on it. Let's see here... It speaks of the trap! It says that we can leave if we can beat a game of Senet."

"What? But isn't Senet a two-player game? Or is only one of us allowed out?"

"I don't know. But let's see what happens anyway. I actually am Senet champion back in Japan. It says to use the ebony one."

Yuugi set up the Senet board quickly as Aldous commented on the fact that Japan had a Senet championship.

"Well, it's mostly college students."

Once Yuugi had the board set up, he waited to see what would happen. When nothing did, he threw the knucklebone in the set and moved one of the good pieces accordingly. His eyes then widened in amazement as the knucklebone threw itself and then moved one of the pieces trying to keep him from the afterlife.

"Holy crap!"

The yell caught Aldous's attention. "What?"

Yuugi made another play to demonstrate. Aldous's eyes also became the size of saucers. "Maybe that's what it means."

Yuugi continued to play. For a scary moment it looked like he was going to lose. But then an opening came, and Yuugi moved his piece into position. "I won."

The door did not open, though. Instead, Yuugi's eyes rolled back into his head, and he fell over. Aldous flew back into a panic and quickly became rough in his attempts to rouse his friend. Nothing worked, however. Eventually he pulled a stick out of his pocket and muttered under his breath. "Renervate." 9

Even this produced no noticeable effect. Aldous sat down and resigned himself to the fate of dying in this tomb. That seemed kind of ironic to him. Then he thought of the live burials in the other room and shuddered. He couldn't stand the thought of being found like that.

He eventually curled up and went to sleep. It was a light sleep, full of dreams about tombs and Senet-playing ghosts. So it was no surprise when he was woken up by the sounds of someone next to him. He peered into the pitch-black darkness, and cursed himself for turning out the lights. But a moment later a light flashed on.

There stood Yuugi. He had apparently gotten over whatever had caused him to keel over. Aldous was cautious. Was it possible the short Egyptologist was possessed? It seemed likely.

Yuugi walked to the spot where the door used to be and appeared to make some sort of motion, and the wall disappeared. Aldous was surprised, the tri-haired man had never mentioned any magic, and he did not appear to use a wand.

Yuugi turned around and motioned to the brunette. "Are you coming?

Aldous stood and walked over to where Yuugi was standing. "What happened?"

Yuugi smiled and motioned for Aldous to walk with him. "After I beat that game, I found myself in complete blackness. It was like I was unconscious and conscious at the same time. One of the weirder sensations I have felt." At this he gave a little smile. "I felt like information was being... downloaded in my brain. Like someone was speaking without words, giving me a lecture so quickly that I could never remember it, but at the same time... I knew everything that it said. Not word for word, since there were no words, but I knew every detail of what it was trying to teach me."

At this point Yuugi stopped in his tracks and turned towards his new confidante. "There's magic, Aldous."

Aldous was shocked. Yuugi had learned magic? Aldous had grown up as a muggle-born wizard, so he knew of the existence of magic, but the idea that one could learn magic from a spirit that played ancient Egyptian religious games was incredible.

Yuugi continued. "I learned about a type of magic called shadow magic. Although it seems there are more types and forms of magic. This was a type of magic performed by the ancient Egyptian priests. This pharaoh ruled when the magic was all but lost. His teacher was the last one to know how to use it, and the pharaoh had no pupil. So he set it up so that the only people that could come into his crypt and come out were those that could play a game of shadows and survive. Shadow magic is fixed on games. The only reason I could get out of there was because the door was set to respond to the one who won that game. My magic would be all but pointless without it."10

Aldous ogled at Yuugi. Shadow magic? Ancient Priests? That was all too much for him. The worst part was how close the word 'shadow' was to 'dark'. Had his friend become a dark wizard? He would send an owl to the auror's office tomorrow to see what he should do.

They came to the doorway that they had come out of. It was dark outside now, and the majority of the camp was asleep. Sugoroku's tent still had the subtle glow of a oil-burning lamp, though. The old man must have been waiting for his grandson. Yuugi and Aldous went to go check in with the dig head.

The last thing Yuugi had been expecting when he got back was to have a teary-eyed old man tackle him. As little as Yuugi expected it, Aldous had expected it even less.

"Where have you been? You've been in there for a day and a half now. Search teams found nothing. Went through the whole tomb twice. I thought I had sent you two to your deaths. Don't ever do that again!"

It took the two a while to understand. They had been down there for almost two days. The old man had freaked out when they were down there longer than they were supposed to be, as it was his grandson, after all. They insisted that they were fine and would tell him all about what happened tomorrow.

They went back to their tents and the camp was normal and quiet for the night. The only unusual thing was an owl flying out of the camp and to the north-northeast.

ZZZz

1 Yuugi and Aldous are both doing post-grad work with Sugoroku. Just in case that wasn't clear.

2 I'm afraid that Neville may be a little out of character here. I tried to make him more like he was in the fifth book on.

3 Also known as the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

4 None of the Yamis will be appearing in this fic. I just thought I'd throw that little reference in.

5 I actually did some research on ancient Egyptian games. These were both actually from Egypt.

6 According to J.K. Rowling, Harry actually did quickly become head auror. I found this out after writing this. Go figure.

7 After joining then leaving the Harpies, Ginny becomes the senior Quiditch correspondent for the Daily Prophet.

8 Neville marries Hannah Abbott after the series. Thank god for Wikipedia!

9 How many people saw this coming? Huh?

10 That's right, no items either. Sorry, fans.

And hey, a special thanks to esama. Some of her ideas inspired portions of the fic. Although none of them were used directly, they became my springboard. Thanks, esama!