Well, here it is. Chapter four. It's a big update, so I hope that sort of makes up for the wait. Lots of action, in this chapter. Yay!

Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh or Harry Potter. I am simply borrowing them against their will for ransom...I mean for fun. Just for fun.

Chapter Four

Rebirth and Redemption

"Where are you going?"

Ryou glanced back down the hallway. Draco stood in the doorway to their room, arms crossed and leaning against the threshold. Ryou sighed.

"I'm just going out."

The ambiguity was not lost on Draco, who simply closed their hotel room door and took a few steps towards Ryou, standing opposite to him. "You just 'went out' yesterday."

"I'm going out again," Ryou said stubbornly. His eyes flickered to the door. "How do you plan to get back into the room?"

Draco flashed a key that had been hidden in his jean pocket. "I'm not a fool."

"I never implied that you were."

"Well it's plenty implied," Draco snapped, "when you keep dodging the question like this. Do you really think I'll fall for it?"

Ryou's lips twitched. He had hoped that Draco would fall for it. He didn't want him suspicious of him. He was just revisiting the psychic woman. The...what had she called herself? The "squib". Something about their encounter the day before had him curious. He needed to see her again.

If he told Draco, though, he would surely be reamed out for endangering them needlessly. Revisiting someone connected to the Wizarding World was a risky move, one that he really couldn't afford to make. He knew it. Bakura knew it.

"What did you discover yesterday that has you going back?" Draco asked as he leaned against the wall beside the hotel room doorway. He spun the key in his fingers absently, a smugly questioning expression on his face.

Ryou's eyes hardened. "Let me go, Draco. It's fine."

"Look," the blonde said, "I've spent my entire life obeying 'orders' and doing what I've been told. I'm going to be frank and tell you something obvious:" his lips curved up into a wicked smile, "I'm a jackass. I don't like taking orders. Now that I'm free of my father and all of that nonsense, I'm not taking orders anymore. We're equals on this playing field, Ryou."

Ryou put his hands in his pockets, red bleeding into his irises. "It's interesting," he drawled, "that you think yourself so important that we won't dispose of you. You are quite the irritating loose end."

Draco didn't miss a beat.

"Don't try to intimidate me, Bakura, it's not working." The young wizard snorted and pushed away from the wall, standing directly across from Bakura with a pose that bespoke stubbornness. "You can't afford to lose me. I'm all that you have when it comes to the Wizarding world. Do you want to stumble around without knowing what you're dealing with?"

"Trust me," Bakura sneered, "I've managed through worse."

"I'm sure," Draco agreed, and the statement sounded honest. He shoved his hands into his pockets, a picture of patience. Bakura had to marvel, for a minute, at how he had somehow ended up the loose cannon and Draco was the one reigning him in.

"You're having some obvious issues," the blonde wizard said slowly, obviously trying to keep Bakura from exploding. He was treading carefully as if every word was a step in a mine field. It was strange, almost amusing, to see. "I mean, ones that no one but you can deal with. You and Ryou," he amended. "However, I'm sure that we both know that I'm right on this one. You need me with you this time, as much as you don't want me with you. Malik can hold his own, for now."

Bakura blew out a hissing breath from between clenched teeth, but his body still relaxed somewhat in a motion of unusual submission. The kid was right. He hated that it was true, but Bakura had to take his lumps when he needed to.

Since when was he so willing to submit to others?

He worked his jaw silently. Bakura knew exactly what this was a symptom of. His and Ryou's souls and magic were becoming too intertwined. Though some connection was necessary, this was becoming a volatile mixture that would eventually force both personalities to merge. It would destroy both of them. Neither of them wanted this.

Bakura had to stop it from happening. He had to.

He spun on his heel, glaring over his shoulder. "Well," he said snidely, "if you're coming, then hurry the hell up."

He certainly didn't miss the expression of smug triumph on Draco's face as the young man fell into step just behind him.

"So," Draco commented in an off-hand kind of way, "where are we going? You seem to have left that out."

"It's a surprise."

Draco didn't look amused. "Hilarious," the blonde droned, "now tell me the truth."

"Be happy," Bakura said coldly, "that you've gotten this far in your argument. Pushing my buttons any further isn't going to do much more than make you target practice, got it?"

"You're not the easiest person to work with, did you know that?" Draco pursed his lips in frustration. Bakura didn't particularly care.

"It kept me alive for a long time," Bakura said. Draco cleared his throat, but did not make an effort to continue the conversation. Bakura preferred that. He didn't want to talk about his past any more than Draco would want to speak about his own. The past was better left where it belonged: behind him.

Looking back only made him think of all of the reasons why he had so much hate, and that served no purpose other than to upset.

- It's okay, - Ryou said quietly through their link, - let's just go. -

"Yeah."

Bakura cast a surreptitious glance to their unwanted guest. No matter how much he wanted to beat the attitude out of their tagalong wizard, Bakura had to admit: the kid had some serious gusto. He rarely had children stand up to him the way that this one did so often.

- You're warming up to him, - Ryou commented. There was warmth in his voice.

Bakura snorted. "Like hell. I think you're deluding yourself."

Ryou smiled knowingly, but didn't press the subject. Instead, he changed the topic to a more pressing matter. - What do you think that she will say, this time? -

"I don't know."

It was true; Bakura didn't know. He hated that he didn't know.

"We'll have to find out when we get there."

When he heard retreating footsteps, Malik realized that he'd been left alone in the hotel room. Again.

He was getting sick and tired of being left alone. He wasn't needy, or anything, but it was that sense of being left behind, of being utterly useless that was getting to him. He was getting a little cabin fever, permanently shut away in hotel room after hotel room.

He was starting to get angry over his inability to do anything to help. Malik had never been so helpless in his entire life.

Grunting, Malik pushed himself up off of the bed. He shuffled to the nightstand of the other bed, where Ryou had left a novel of some sort. He needed a way to pass the time without brooding. Otherwise, he was going to drive himself nuts.

But as he opened the book and sat back down, Malik knew that he wasn't going to get himself anywhere.

Where the hell were those two going, anyways? He hadn't heard all of the conversation, probably not even much of it at all. Malfoy had sounded angry, and Ryou had sounded almost...resigned. Then it'd been Bakura, and he just sounded like every bit the douche he usually was.

He was definitely missing something. When Ryou had gone out the day before, he'd come back to the hotel room looking strange. He'd been quiet the rest of the night and had spent it doubtlessly speaking with Bakura in their mind.

Malik had been tempted to link into the conversation, just to see what was happening, why he was being kept out of the loop. He resisted, though. Malik hadn't tried to use Shadow Magic since he was attacked. He wasn't sure if trying it when he was so injured would be a very good idea.

In fact, he was almost a hundred percent positive that it would be a bad idea.

It'd taken every ounce of his self-control to not say anything. Snide remarks wouldn't have budged Ryou an inch. He was dealing with plenty, between his father's death and whatever was going on within his connection with Bakura. Malik causing issues wasn't going to serve much purpose other than to increase stress to the maximum. Malik was a jerk, but he wasn't cruel. Not to his friends.

Other people were totally different territory, but that was another story. Malik hated people.

He was surprised, though, with Draco Malfoy's observance. Malfoy knew that there was something going on with Ryou and Bakura. It was obvious that he didn't know what, because he always looked suspicious but never knowing. It was also plain that he was going to figure out the logistics of the situation sooner than later, and it was only going to frustrate the wizard when he realized that there was nothing he could do.

What was going on with Ryou and Bakura...it was an inadvertent reaction to their entire situation. It was also something completely outside of anyone's realm of control. Ryou and Bakura probably didn't even know how to control it, or even if it was controllable at all.

Malik knew that Bakura was more worried about it than Ryou. Bakura was coming out dominant, and this time it was completely against his will. That was a problem. There was something wrong, if it was happening without either of their consent. It meant that Ryou's spirit was weakening.

Malik didn't want to think about the implications of Ryou's spirit getting that weak.

A wave of nausea hit him, and Malik braced his arms on the bed to steady himself.

That was weird.

He hated being wounded. Weird things happened to him when he got himself wounded.

"You should not be straining yourself with all of this movement. It will slow your healing, Tomb Keeper."

Malik jerked violently, and he all but heard his wound ripping with the movement. He gasped, choking on bile as it rose in his throat. Damn it, that had hurt. He clenched his fist as the other hand came up to gingerly touch the bandaged wound.

"What the hell," Malik bit out, his voice more of a wheeze than anything, "are you doing here, Shadi?"

The Spirit cocked an eyebrow, vague surprise evident on his otherwise emotionless face. "I did not expect you to know me by voice."

"You've been a wonderfully consistent thorn in my ass," Malik snapped, pushing himself back so that he was leaning, propped up against the wall. "I've been expecting you to show up. You always do, eventually."

"I am becoming predicable," Shadi commented. The complete lack of intonation in his voice always gave Malik the shivers. It was like he was dead inside, a machine spitting out facts but with no actual care for them. Shadi had never been one of Malik's favourite people in the world, for this reason and for a multitude of others, so being alone with him only put him on edge.

"Why are you here?" Malik demanded. He just wanted the guy to give his usual cryptic prediction and go. If he just said nothing and left that moment, Malik would be happier.

"I visited with your sister," Shadi said, "and your brother," he amended after a short moment's pause. His empty eyes moved over the length of Malik's body.

"These injuries are far worse than I had first thought them to be," Shadi commented. His lips quirked downwards in a ghost of a frown. He seemed more displeased than anything, which only irritated Malik.

"Sorry to disappoint," he grunted roughly, crossing his arms carefully in front of his chest. The staring was making him self-conscious. Ryou and Draco always made efforts to look anywhere but the wound. To have Shadi so plainly staring at it was uncomfortable.

Plus, Malik didn't really want Shadi doing anything but saying what he had to and going. Staring at his wound was just wasting time.

"Why are you here?" Malik repeated roughly. Go away, go away, go away...

Shadi fixed him with a piercing stare. "I am sure that you are well aware of why I am here."

"If I knew, I wouldn't be asking," Malik snarled. Shadi was really starting to grate on his nerves. If he was at full capacity, Malik would have kicked him in the face, or something.

Shadi walked a few steps towards the window, brushing the curtains aside to peer at the street before him. "You have both run far deeper than you were ever meant to," Shadi said, "these two worlds, these two kinds of magic, were never meant to intermingle. Coexistence is impossible. I found it time to intervene."

"If our magic and theirs weren't supposed to meet," Malik snapped, eyes following Shadi's every movement, "then why the hell have you waited this long to intervene?"

"Free will is something that we often take for granted," Shadi said.

"And?"

"It means," he continued, pulling away from the window and letting the curtain fall back into place, "that I had hoped the situation would sort itself out. Worlds meeting often result in rejection. I had assumed that the two of you would either deal with the wizards quickly or be killed trying."

"Fantastic," Malik muttered darkly, glaring at the emotionless spectre-like man before him.

"No," Shadi said. "There is nothing good about this."

Malik's eyebrow's shot up in an 'oh, really?' gesture. This was not news to him. He didn't need Shadi creeping around and telling him things that he already knew.

"These worlds have mixed in...a very unseemly manner. It is interrupting both their magic and yours." Shadi gave Malik a very deliberate stare, one that Malik figured out immediately.

"Ryou and Bakura..." Malik breathed. So it was directly due to this modern magic that they were having issues. Malik had thought that it'd been just the significantly larger amount of magic they were using, but perhaps it went deeper than that. Perhaps it was something in the fundamental saturation of this other magic that was screwing with their Shadow Magic.

It was like being slowly poisoned to death without even realizing it.

"I have come," Shadi continued, "to advise that the three of you immediately eject yourselves from this world. If you return to Japan, it is unlikely that you will be followed. Your sister and...brother have been moved to a secure location in Japan with Seto Kaiba. You can find them there."

Malik felt a breath, one that he hadn't known he'd been holding, whoosh out with relief. They were safe. They were actually safe.

He wanted to go back, now. He really, truly wanted to go back. To just see Ishizu and Rishid, to be able to feel his family so close, was something that he wanted more than anything.

But how was he supposed to do that, now that Ryou had no family to return home to? Could he be so selfish as to force Ryou to leave, to get no vengeance, just so that Malik could have something that Ryou would now never have? He had already lost his mother, his sister...and he had just lost his father.

Malik couldn't imagine losing loved ones like that. His mother had died when he was so young, and he had loathed his father above all else. If his sister had died, if Rishid had died, Ryou would have stayed so that Malik could exact the revenge that he needed.

No. He couldn't be selfish. He had to stay, if for nothing but Ryou's sake.

"Your indecision troubles me," Shadi said, and a strange instant of emotion ghosted across his face. Confusion. Frustration. Not understanding. "You will all die if you stay."

"How do you know that?" Malik demanded.

"It is how the worlds are. You cannot-"

"But how do you know for sure?" Malik interrupted, voice harsh. He already knew the answer. Shadi didn't know. For all of his creepy ghostliness, Shadi was not clairvoyant. He did not know all, he did not see all.

"Do you know for sure?" Malik pressed.

Shadi looked uncomfortable for a moment, frustrated, even. It was hard to tell. His emotions were so minimal, Malik was never sure what exactly was passing over the creep's face.

"I do not," Shadi said finally, his mouth pulled into a thin line. He was obviously not very impressed with Malik fighting against him. Shadi obviously wasn't used to not getting what he wanted.

Malik felt a certain sense of victory, hearing Shadi admit to that. "Well, then. That settles that."

Shadi's lips thinned further. "You are making a grave error."

"Look," Malik snapped, grunting as he pushed himself up into a more comfortable sitting position. "The thing is, Shadi, this isn't about you. This isn't about your predictions or your assumptions or what you think the world order is. This isn't even about me or Ryou or the bratty seventeen-year-old we're babysitting. This is about everything that Ryou stands for, that I've learned to stand for, that Bakura refuses to admit to standing for. I will not just cower in Japan while some psychopath gets away with having killed so many people."

Shadi, needless to say, looked clearly surprised by Malik's outburst.

"You may think that we're only doing this for vengeance, but we're not. Is that a big part of it? Yes, yes it is. However, I don't think you really have any right to a say in this, no matter what our reasoning." Malik fixed him with a long, hard stare. "And also, this has become a matter of responsibility, for us. When their Overlord of Darkness or whatever the hell they call him is screwing in our magic, I think that it's time for someone to step in and kick his ass. If he resurrects Him, if Zorc comes back, then we're all toast. We need to do something. Even if we need a Pharaoh to do this, even when we don't have one, I'd rather die knowing that I tried than die knowing that I ran with my tail between my legs."

There was silence on the floor. Shadi stared at Malik with disbelief. The only sound was Malik's ragged breathing as he tried to calm himself, tried to stem the throbbing of his wound from getting himself so worked up. Malik didn't back down, though. He didn't crumple from exhaustion or show any budging. He would not budge. He couldn't.

"I was unaware," Shadi said slowly, "that you knew of the plan for Resurrection."

"Ryou's been having some convenient visions, lately." Malik answered, cracking his neck and rubbing his shoulder gently. He was feeling really tense. No idea why.

Shadi didn't look particularly surprised by that. His lips curved into a vague smile. "The child is awakening a latent skill," he mused.

"Wait." Malik said suddenly, something clicking into place in his head. Shadi's eyes trailed back to Malik. "You knew about the...the Zorc thing."

Damn, Malik thought, even saying his name kind of gives me the shivers.

"Yes," Shadi replied, folding his hands together. His brow creased, as if he were troubled by something.

Malik gestured for the creep to continue. Shadi only began silently surveying the room. Malik bit his tongue and forced himself to stay quiet. Pissing Shadi off wasn't going to get him any answers, especially now that Malik knew that Shadi had some. Much as he hated the guy, he obviously knew some important stuff.

Stuff that they were going to have to know, if they wanted to have any chance of surviving this whole mess.

"I must prepare for any multitude of outcomes," Shadi said after a few moments, "for situations like these. My duty is to protect the Pharaoh, and by extension, protect the magic that he possesses. The Resurrection would be a pertinent risk to that safety."

No, Malik thought snidely, really? You think?

"It's a risk to just about everything," Malik said. "He'd destroy the world."

Shadi gave Malik a look that quite plainly said 'yeah, I know'. Malik rolled his eyes and looked away from the strange spirit-like man. He didn't need someone like Shadi looking down at him like that.

"So, what?" Malik said, trying to move the conversation along. Shadi had yet to say anything particularly useful. "What does this mean that you're going to do, now that we're not running away with you?"

Shadi gave him a flat look for his poor choice of words. "Now," Shadi said, "we will discuss what you must do to bring the Evil down."

"Us?" Malik sputtered, "what do you mean us? Only the Pharaoh, only Yugi's other half can defeat Him!" There was no way. There was absolutely no way. Everything that had been recorded, everything left that told of the First Shadow Games, stated quite clearly that only the Pharaoh could overtake that darkness. He was the only one.

Shadi's expression shifted to something strange, something solemn and dark and yet strangely hopeful at the same time. "You cannot know that."

"Oh, really?" Malik sneered. "Then what do we do? Swear at him until he dies?"

"This is not the time for foolish jokes and childish displays," Shadi admonished harshly, "you must listen. You have little time left."

Malik settled back down, crossing his arms again. "Okay," he said, staring expectantly at the spectre, "then tell me how the hell we're going to, apparently, pull this off."

It had taken a lot of asking around, and quite a bit of frustration, before they managed to find the squib-woman's shop. The place was small, quite like it'd been just shoved in between two larger buildings as an afterthought. It looked almost a little run-down, too, with paint chipping along the little sign proclaiming 'Magda's Tea and Palm Readings'.

"Well," Draco commented snidely, wrinkling his nose, "this looks simply promising."

"Off your high horse, you cheeky little brat," Bakura snapped, hands shoved deep into his pockets in a very forced effort to appear casual. His brows were drawn down in a 'v' of obvious irritation, his lips pulled back into a closed-mouth sneer.

"I'm not little," Malfoy protested somewhat haughtily, crossing his arms.

Bakura's lips curled back over pearly whites. "You're many centuries younger than me, child."

Malfoy just cast him a flat look, not intimidated by the show. "Whatever," he said.

"This isn't the time," Ryou murmured with some frustration. Whatever it was that was making Bakura feel that he needed to prove something, Ryou needed him to get over it. They weren't going to get anywhere if they just argued and distrusted each other.

Bakura, frustrated, just relinquished control to his other half and let Ryou do the work. Malfoy watched on as Ryou's face took on a distinct expression of concentration before, after a few moments of obvious struggle, the Ring exploded in light and the switch was done.

"That..." Draco murmured, "...that was much brighter than usual."

Ryou glanced at his comrade. "Yes," he said softly, but he did not offer any more explanation than that.

Then the young male stepped forwards and pulled open the door to the shop. A bell tinkled to signal their entrance. When Draco stepped in, he was hit by two things:

One: the room was very, very dark. Unusually dark. No one should have been running any kind of shop in light like this.

Two: the room smelled like death. Draco wrinkled his nose and glanced in Ryou's direction. Could he not smell that? It was utterly putrid. He had to be able to smell that kind of stench.

But there was no indication that Ryou saw anything wrong with anything.

Draco grabbed Ryou's arm. "Something's not right," he said, motioning them back towards the door. "We should go."

"This woman knows something," Ryou argued, "something about me, about Shadow Magic, that she wouldn't unless this gift of hers is real. I know visions when I see them."

Of course, Draco knew, he was talking from experience. Draco had witnessed these such visions, most notably when in that strange dream world, the time when he'd first met Malik's mysterious 'other half', the one that had sacrificed itself so that Malik didn't have to die by Bellatrix's hand.

They had all described this 'Marik' character as a very selfish, somewhat psychopathic creature. Malfoy had gotten a nagging little feeling of 'weird' when he found out that Marik had played the martyr. It didn't really add up.

Selfish people didn't just change instantaneously and go do something noble. That did not happen. It may happen in storybooks, but in real life, selfish people did no such nonsense. Draco knew from experience. He had, after all, spent most of his life being very, very selfish.

Malfoy didn't let go of Ryou. "This is wrong, Ryou. Let's go," he urged. Ryou ignored his request. Draco growled under his breath in frustration as Ryou shook his arm away and stepped further into the shop.

This is so wrong. I know that-

Something in the corner caught his eye. Movement?

"Ah, you came back."

A woman, middle-aged, stepped out from behind one of the draperies. It looked like the curtain hung in front of a hallway, or something. Perhaps a back room? The woman had dark brown hair and eyes that reminded Draco of copper. She was dressed in a modern style, something that Draco had certainly not expected from a palm reader, or a tea leaf reader, or whatever she was. Absently, Draco wondered whether or not she would get along with Professor Trelawney. She wore a warm smile that lit up her features, making her look a little younger, welcoming...friendly, even.

Draco balked a bit, however, when he realized that her sharp, copper eyes were just a smidgen too sharp. The smile just didn't quite reach her eyes. There was calculation, there. Cool calculation. A killer's kind of expression. It was hidden well, though. Very well. Too well.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong...

"Ryou," Draco murmured, urgency slipping into his tone.

The woman caught it, eyes snapping to his face. He quite nearly jumped back. This woman was making him very nervous. That was something that did not happen often, and when it did, Draco made practice of listening to that instinct.

Draco's eyes snapped back to the curtain. Movement. He could swear that he saw it again, shifting like a shadow somewhere that he just couldn't quite see.

"You said that you could give a better reading, here in your shop," Ryou explained. Draco saw Ryou's eyes flicker to where he had just been looking a moment ago. Could he see movement, too?

The woman made a sweeping gesture to a small table at the centre of the room. "Come, then," she said with an almost-motherly smile, "sit. I'll give the best reading that I can," she winked, "all things considered."

When Ryou approached the table, and Draco moved with him, was the moment that the woman seemed to openly notice his presence. Her mouth popped open in surprise.

"You do keep company with wizards," she commented.

When Draco looked shocked, then confused, Ryou's hand brushed gently across Draco's arm.

"She thinks that I am a squib, like she is."

Draco jerked as the foreign thought ghosted across his mind. He had not expected that Ryou would...just enter his mind like that.

Scary. It reminded him of the Imperius curse. Could Ryou, he wondered, take over another person's mind? Could Malik do that?

Ryou's lips twitched. Draco shot him a dirty glare. Stay the hell out of my mind, Ryou. You and Bakura.

"Let go of him," a much harsher voice snapped, "and the connection will break."

Draco blinked when he realized that Ryou was still gently, subtly, touching his arm. He recoiled away from the touch, and the whispers of...of that connection, or whatever it was, disappeared when they broke contact.

He shivered.

Ryou moved past him and sat down at the table. He laid his hand, palm-up, on the table. The woman's hands moved forwards, snatching his hand in both of hers. She trailed her fingers along his palm, her eyelids fluttering with...visions?

Draco saw it again, out of the corner of his eye. Movement. Someone or something was moving. He was sure of it. He couldn't be imagining it. Not after three times.

"Your future," the woman said in breathy tones. She inhaled sharply, eyes rolling. "The Shadows move around you, child. They haunt you."

One of the curtains, in a dark corner where Draco could barely see, shifted. It moved.

That was it.

Draco stalked forwards, leaned across the table, and ripped Ryou's hand from the woman's. Ryou yelped in protest. The woman's eyes snapped open, eyes on him with a cool stare.

"What are you doing?" Ryou hissed, obviously fed up with Draco's suddenly strange behaviour.

Draco, not in the mood for arguing, wrenched Ryou up out of his chair with all of the power that he could muster. Ryou hissed through his teeth in discomfort. Draco saw red beginning to bleed into his eyes.

Draco turned to the woman, who was just sitting calmly and staring. It was disconcerting, to say the least. "What are you playing at?" Draco demanded.

Ryou suddenly went very tense, and Draco saw his eyes slide to another part of the room. He'd obviously just figured out what Draco thought was going on, and apparently agreed with him.

"I..." the woman's expression turned faux-confused. "I'm not sure what you're so upset about, child."

"You're not her, are you?" Ryou asked suddenly. The question obviously surprised her, and she struggled to school her expression fast enough. She failed. They both caught the flickering of surprise, then rage, and then blankness.

"I'd be willing to bet," Ryou said softly, hand on Draco's shoulder as they both took tentative steps back towards the door, "that you killed her. Then you impersonated her, somehow. Took her face."

Took her face?

Draco's eyes widened. "Polyjuice potion," he breathed. Ryou's eyes snapped to his face, not seeing whatever realization Draco had just made. "She's taken a Polyjuice potion! You need the person's DNA, like a strand of hair, and you mix it into a potion. You can physically become that person for a short period of time!"

The woman, Magda, stood up. A slow, cruel smile curled onto her face. "Very good, boy," she said. "Excellent deductions, both of you." Her gait changed, from that of an older to a younger woman. She moved gracefully around the table, finger tracing the tablecloth.

"I did kill the crone," she admitted, haughtiness in her voice. "She wasn't much use. What good would the Imperius curse be if I had already killed her? Some people are just frightfully useless."

Draco reached for his pocket, where his wand was, when he saw shadows beginning to shape into bodies. People.

Ryou stopped moving them backwards. Draco glanced over his shoulder. Two men behind them. Two men dressed in black, wearing white, skull-like masks...

Death Eaters. They had been found by the Dark Lord's Death Eaters.

Damn it.

"Who are you?" Draco demanded, hoping that talking would bide them some time for...for something. Maybe Ryou had a brilliant escape plan.

"Don't worry, Draco Malfoy, dear," the woman said, laughing with Magda's face. "You've never had the pleasure of meeting me. Not since you were a baby, at least."

Draco scowled at the condescending tone. He did not like being talked down to.

"Careful about underestimating me," Draco warned, trying to taunt her into reacting, "I may surprise you."

The woman's smile only grew. "Don't try to goad me, dear. It won't work. There are two of you. There are seven of us. Be good boys, both of you, and submit to the Dark Lord. I doubt he will be forgiving, but at least he may kill you quickly."

"How nice of him," Draco bit out venomously.

The woman made a 'hm' sound in her throat, as if disregarding his behaviour as simply something beneath her. That just made him mad.

Ryou suddenly threw his head back and started laughing, a cold, vicious laugh that even made the Death Eaters pause in surprise. To hear something so evil from someone to appeared to be so docile was a chilling experience.

"What is so funny?" the woman demanded, disconcerted by Ryou's strange reaction.

Ryou's head snapped back down to level, and Bakura grinned a wicked, wicked grin. "I was just thinking," he crooned, voice lilting and deep and dangerous as hell, "that it was awfully nice of you to give us a heads up."

Magda's face contorted in scowling confusion. "What?" she demanded.

Pointed teeth flashed in the darkness. "Letting us know how many we have to take out, of course."

Draco took it as a signal and withdrew his wand, pointing it at the woman and shouting: "Stupefy!" The spell hit her dead in the chest, blasting her backwards and slamming her against the back wall of the shop.

Bakura had spun around in that very same second, raising his hands and extending them towards the two Death Eaters blocking the door. "Call of the Haunted," he said softly, voice like velvet.

One of the men screamed as hands, skeletal hands, came up from the floor and grabbed him by the ankles. Moaning ghosts crawled up his body, pulling and ripping their way to the surface. He struggled against them for a moment before they pulled him through the floor and into, what Draco could only assume, was Bakura's 'Shadow Realm' place.

The other man stumbled back, prepared to run. Bakura was too fast for him, though, and punched him in the jaw. Hard. Draco heard the crack as the jaw broke.

"Crucio!" One of the wizards shouted.

In one fluid motion, Bakura grabbed the shirt of the man who he'd hit, spinning him around and into the path of the spell. It hit him in an explosion of red. He shrieked in pain and collapsed, effectively out of commission.

Three down, Draco counted off.

One of the other men ran at him, but Draco pointed his wand first, "Imperio!" Draco shouted, and the man froze stiff. Draco glanced at the other men, the two that had just ran into the room. "Kill them," he commanded.

There wasn't room anymore, it seemed, for getting choked up over killing people. Maybe it worked that way for Potter, maybe he could get away with casting Expelliarmus and everything working out, but Draco wasn't in that position. He was fighting a different battle. A dirtier battle.

"Avada Kedavra!" The man cried, killing one of his comrades.

One of the other two Death Eaters caught on quickly and pointed his wand at his friend. "Avada Kedavra!" The spell hit Draco's puppet, and the man died instantly.

No allies here, Draco supposed.

It was in that moment that the man realized that he was the last one standing. Panicked, he raised his wand to Draco. Draco raised his. Bakura leapt out of the shadows, grabbing the man around the torso in an attempt to subdue him.

The man shouted out in shock and began fighting. "Crucio!" He yelled. Draco wasn't sure which of the two of them that he was aiming at, but Draco knew one thing for sure: the spell hit him. It hit him hard.

Draco's world very suddenly exploded in agonizing pain. He vaguely noticed himself crash, face-first, to the floor. Bakura shouted his name, to see if he was okay, but when Draco was unable to answer, he just went back to subduing his hostage.

One well-placed slam against the wall effectively broke the wizard's wand-hand. The man cried out in pain, and Bakura took that moment to slam his head against the wall and knock him unconscious. He then pulled a knife from his person and twirled it in his hands, pointed the blade down, and stabbed the man in the chest. It went right between the ribs. Bakura twisted and pulled it back out, wiping blood onto the man's black cloak.

Bakura took a few steps towards Draco and knelt down by him. "You alive, you annoying little bastard?"

Draco wheezed, turning over onto his stomach. "Shut...the hell..." he choked as he got onto his hands and knees, spitting bile out of his mouth, "...up."

Bakura was long gone by the time that Draco managed to bite out his response. He was already across the room, stalking towards the woman who had, assumedly, been the ring leader of the entire incident.

Sometime during the scuffle, whatever 'potion' she had consumed must have worn off. Now, instead of a middle-aged woman, there lay a fairly young one. Her hair was long and dark, lighter than her previous 'colour'. Her eyes were very dark, though. They were nearly black. She glared up at him, still having trouble moving.

"Had a good nap?" Bakura asked good-naturedly.

She slowly managed to work her way up the wall, into a stand. "You killed my men."

"Not true," Bakura replied casually, hands in pockets, "one of them is still alive." He indicated, with a jerk of the head, the man whose jaw he had broken. He lay moaning on the ground.

Draco stumbled up into a stand, spitting blood from his mouth where he must've bit his tongue, and pointed his wand at the injured Death Eater. "And he's not pulling anything," he warned.

The woman scowled. "We underestimated you."

Draco snorted. "Told you not to."

She only glared.

"How did the Snake Bastard know where we are?" Bakura asked, hand coming out of his pocket. The woman shrank against the wall when she realized that he was holding the same knife he'd killed her fellow Death Eater with.

"Do not insult the Dark Lord," she hissed, but her eyes never left the weapon that Bakura was spinning in his fingers.

Bakura, fed up with being told that precise statement, pushed right against her, knife held just at her throat. "Listen here, and listen well, mortal. You are fighting power that you do not understand. If you were smart, which I am sure you think that you are, you will do as I say."

"Will that spare my life?" she asked scathingly, knowing the answer.

"Actually," Draco said, "it could."

Her eyes widened and darted to Draco's face, to Bakura, and then back. "You lie," she whispered.

"We'll just have to see," Bakura said, "but you don't have any good bargaining chips. Tell us what you know, or we kill you."

"You are foolish if you-"

Bakura pressed the knife to her throat, cutting her off. A thin line of blood appeared along her neck, like a tiny necklace. She gasped and strained her head away from him, shutting her eyes.

"Tell me," Bakura murmured in her ear. His voice was seductive, almost. He was like a predator enjoying the hunt.

Draco turned away, focusing on the Death Eater that he was keeping under control. The man lay on the ground with his hands up where Draco could see them, unmoving. Draco couldn't see his face, but he was sure that the man looked positively terrified.

"Will you spare me?" she whispered pleadingly.

"You are in no position to make requests."

When she said nothing, Bakura pressed the knife in again, exactly where it had been before. She cried out in pain. "Fine, fine!" She cried, "I will tell you what you want to know!"

"First things first," Bakura's eyes snapped to the door. "Why have no mortals burst in yet?"

"We cast a spell on the shop," she answered quickly. "So that we could kill you uninterrupted."

"You were never going to take us to the Snake Bastard."

"No. We were ordered to kill on sight."

Bakura scowled. "Have all of your Death Eaters been given that order?"

"Yes."

Bakura said something low in a language that Draco didn't understand. It was fairly easy, though, from the tone of voice, to recognize that he was cursing.

"Now," Bakura said, switching hands and just strangling her, "how did you know where to find us?"

"The vampires," the woman gasped around his hand. "We knew because you killed those vampires. They were sent to directly report to us. When they did not report, the Dark Lord sent us as plants. Apparently, the suspicions were correct."

"Apparently," Draco commented sarcastically, but his tone was soft.

"Are there any more?" Bakura asked her, snarling in her face and closing his hand around her throat a little harder.

She choked, trying to speak, but found that she could not. She shook her head. Bakura's grip loosened. "They will send more," she wheezed out, "when we do not report."

"When are you due to report?"

Realizing that she had something, the woman grinned and shut her mouth.

"When?" Bakura shouted, taking his knife and running it along her cheek. "Tell me or die."

"I will tell you nothing more," she spat, suddenly courageous.

Bakura smiled cruelly. "Then you are of no use."

Then he snapped her neck.

Draco winced, looking away, as he heard the soft thump of a lifeless body hitting the floor. Bakura dusted off his hands and walked over to a curtain. He pulled it back.

"There's an exit this way," Bakura said, letting the curtain fall back. He walked over to where Draco was, regarding their last captive with contempt. "Just kill him."

The man tried to cry out a plea, but his unhinged jaw made it impossible to properly form any coherent begging.

"Avada Kedavra." Draco couldn't even muster up energy into it. He just pointed his wand and said the spell. He didn't look away, though. Not this time.

He would not play the coward anymore. Now that he had the courage to kill, something that had failed him as a Death-Eater-in-training, Draco would not run away. He had a reason, now. He had a reason to kill, if he had to.

Bakura knelt down by one of the other bodies, lifting the man's sleeve. "Do they all have this strange marking?"

Draco glanced down. "It's the Dark Mark," he said with some force, clenching his fists.

"Ah."

Bakura went about making sure that all of the Death Eaters were dead. Draco absently found his arm, the one where they had marked him.

He would never use that mark. If Bakura or Malik knew what it was for, they would never trust him. He was sure that they had seen it before, but he was hoping that they hadn't yet made the connection. Because him having the Dark Mark, and him having a wand, made him a very immediate danger to their security.

"Do you have any spells for lighting things on fire?" Bakura asked suddenly.

Draco's eyebrows shot up. "Um...yes. Why?"

"We need to get rid of evidence," Bakura said, making a sweeping gesture to the bodies. "Burning is the best idea."

Draco blinked, paused, and then nodded. He really didn't have much to say to that.

"We'll go out that back way," Bakura said, thumbing to the exit behind the curtain. "It'll minimize witnesses. We're leaving anyways."

Draco knew that. He had expected no less, especially now that they knew just how close on their tail the Dark Lord actually was.

Bakura stalked over to the exit. "Okay. Now."

Draco pointed his wand out to the room. "INCENDIO!"

They were barely out the door and into an alleyway before the entire shop exploded into wild, all-consuming flames.

"So you're telling me," Malik said, sceptically confirming all of what Shadi had explained, "that this whole thing is about rebirth? It's about repeating what happened thousands of years ago?"

"It is...in a way. It could have happened differently, with different villains instigating the Resurrection," Shadi looked somewhat amused by this. Malik didn't even bother to wonder why, "but things have changed. The players have changed. It has shifted the game onto a new playing field."

His eyebrows shot up for a moment, before realization crashed back down. "Shadi," Malik snarled, "if this is about rebirth, it's about doing everything over. For that, we're still going to need to find ourselves a Pharaoh."

"Rebirth may not always be about what occurs twice over."

Malik was unconvinced. "Oh, really?"

Shadi stared calmly, his face an ever-perfect mask. "Yes," he said. Finality resounded in his voice.

Malik's eyes narrowed at the spectre before him. "Then if it's not about repeating history, what's it about?"

The emotionless mask shattered as Shadi's lips curled into a smile.

"Redemption."

End Chapter

Well, this chapter's had a lot in it, I like to think. We've seen some action, some plot development. Some character development...

(I absolutely cannot stand Shadi, can anyone tell?) (laughs) Well, I've always found him to be a bit of a meddlesome...well, douche bag.

Anywhoo, this chapter's got some real juicy stuff in it. I'm hoping to follow up as quickly as I can! Don't fret between long waits. Remember: I will NEVER give up on this fic. No way.

Love,

OoCA