Kitty: I need a life besides typing a chapter every day and waiting to post them so a nice amount of people can read and review! (sighs and falls onto her bed)
Yugi: My poor angsty Kitten. (strokes her hair)
Cedric: (singing under his breath) I'm too sexy for my shirt...too sexy for my shirt... (looks up at Kitty's and Yugi's surprised looks) Not really! I just heard it off an AMV Lina was listening to! She was laughing really hard too...don't really know why.
Atem: Who was the AMV about? Me?
Cedric: No...it was that brown-haired guy you and Yugi hang out with.
Yugi: KAIBA-KUN?
Atem: (is rolling on the floor with laughter)
Kitty: (chuckles) Well, that makes me feel a bit better... (posts the chapter) R&R!
Chapter Seven:
Back to Hogwarts
The Brits and the Japanese boys were glad to leave Foxhole Grounds and return to the Burrow the next morning. Mrs. Weasley had been quite worried about them after the Daily Prophet came with a large headline about the Dark Mark's appearance, and Mr. Weasley and Percy, as well as the rest of the Ministry of Magic, quickly had to deal with a lot of fuss from the public after such reporters as the fact-twisting gossip reporter Rita Skeeter started writing stuff criticizing the Ministry for what happened.
"That's stupid," Bakura snapped when Mr. Weasley read Rita Skeeter's latest article ('Ministry Security Too Lax to Catch Dark Wizards') out loud, "If the Ministry had the ability to catch Dark wizards at the World Cup, then those Death Eaters would've been caught when Voldemort first fell and they wouldn't be a problem today."
The students' school supply lists arrived by owl the day they returned to the Burrow, and along with their normal textbooks, they were required to buy a set of dress robes. Dress robes weren't really much more than different colored school robes with a bit of decoration here and there…for Ron, however, "a bit of decoration here and there" meant "moldy-looking lace on the neck-line and cuffs," because Mrs. Weasley had to buy his maroon dress robes second-hand and there weren't many affordable choices.
"I'm not wearing that," Ron said stubbornly, "Ever."
"Fine," snapped Mrs. Weasley, "Go naked. And Harry, get a picture of him: goodness knows I could use a laugh."
With that, she slammed the door to Ron's room behind her.
The youngest Weasley boy sighed. "Why is everything I own rubbish?"
On September 1st, the Brits, the Japanese boys and the Weasleys still in school boarded the scarlet Hogwarts Empress on Platform 9 ¾, and once more started their journey to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
The fourth-years and Mokuba said goodbye to Ginny, Fred and George and headed down to the end of the train to find an empty compartment for them to squish into. At last they found one, and they all settled in for the long ride to Hogwarts as rain plummeted against the windows of the train to leave water marks only worthy of the shapes the students would find while reading tea leaves in Professor Trelawney's Divination class.
Hermione had taken out a book (An Appraisal of Magical Education in Europe) and was reading. Ron was teaching Mokuba how to play Wizard's Chess as Seto gave his little brother hints on moves. Harry had finally finished constructing his Duel Monsters deck over the summer and was eager to test it out, so he and Diana started a duel in the corner while Marik, Yugi and Ryou watched them.
Diana had a slight lead: with her Dark/Light/Effect deck, she had dwindled Harry's lifepoints to 900, but he'd played some good combos with his Wind/Dragon deck and brought her lifepoints down to 1200.
"I play Spirit of the Breeze in attack mode," stated Harry as he laid the card on the field, "By her effect, if I can keep her in attack mode for one turn, I gain 1000 lifepoints."
"If," Diana reminded him, "And your card has 0 attack points."
"Yeah," Harry assented, "But I play the magic card Swords of Revealing Light, so you can't attack for three turns."
"Good move."
Diana drew a card. "I play a card facedown and end my turn. Your move."
"I gain 1000 lifepoints," Harry muttered as he drew, "And I sacrifice Spirit of the Breeze to summon Hyozanryu, and I attack your Rapid Fire Magician, bringing your lifepoints down to 700. I end my turn."
Diana drew, and her face broke into a smile. "Sorry, Harry…but I win. First, I play De-Spell, which I use to destroy your Swords of Revealing Light. Next, I summon Mataza the Zapper. This card can attack your lifepoints directly, so your lifepoints go down to 600. Finally I play the magic card Reborn the Monster to bring back my Guardian Angel Joan, and I attack your Hyozanryu, wiping out the rest of your lifepoints."
Harry smirked. "Good move. Next time, though, I'm going to beat you."
"Oh really?" challenged Diana, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah, really," Harry assented, "My dragons will kick your ass."
"They will, will they?"
"You better believe it."
"Are you really that sure, Potter?"
"A hell of a lot more sure than you are, Randall."
"We'll see about that!"
Diana wrapped an arm about Harry's neck and gave him a noogie. The Boy Who Lived struggled to get free, but he was laughing all the same.
"Hey…let go, Dare!"
"Aw, does the famous Harry Potter not like his hair getting messed up?" Diana teased as she mussed up his jet-black hair so that it was even messier than usual.
"C'mon, Dare, I give!" choked Harry, "I give! You win!"
Diana let go of her friend and grinned. "'Bout time you admitted it, Potter."
"I can still kick your ass at Quidditch."
"You wish."
The door opened, and in came Neville Longbottom, a Gryffindor classmate of Yugi and the Brits.
"Hi Dare," he greeted, "Hi Yugi…any room here?"
"No," Yugi answered, frowning sympathetically, "Sorry, Neville-kun."
"Wait a sec, Yugi," muttered Diana.
She was looking up at the suitcase racks above Yugi, Harry, Hermione and the Kaiba brothers' heads. Then, without warning, she jumped up into the racks and lay sideways along the suitcases.
"Voila!" she declared, waving her hand to her old seat, "We have room!"
"Are you sure you'll be comfortable up there, Dare?" Neville asked, looking nervously up at her.
"I've been in a hell of a lot more uncomfortable places than up here, Neville," Diana assured him, looking around the compartment with a smile, "Actually it's kinda fun: I can look down on you all!"
Neville smiled and sat down in Diana's seat.
"So how's your summer been, Neville?" inquired Harry.
"Not that exciting," sighed Neville, "I really wanted to go to the Quidditch World Cup, but Gran said no. It sounded amazing, though."
"It was," assented Mokuba as he took one of Ron's rooks, "You wouldn't have disappointed if you'd gone, Neville-kun, it was fantastic."
"You all went?" Neville asked, looking envious.
Ron, barely paying attention to his and Mokuba's game now that Neville had brought up the World Cup, nodded fervently. "Check this out."
He showed Neville his souvenir: the salesman called it a miniature, detailed model of Viktor Krum, but it looked more like a Muggle action figure to Diana. Neville, however, looked delighted.
"Wow, that's so cool, Ron! Did you actually see Krum?"
"Yeah," responded Ron, "Right up close too, we were in the Top Box-"
"For the first and last time in your life, Weasley."
Draco Malfoy had appeared in the doorway Neville had accidentally left open, with his enormous cronies, Crabbe and Goyle, right behind him.
Hermione looked up from An Appraisal of Magical Education in Europe in annoyance. "I don't recall asking you to join us, Malfoy."
Malfoy wasn't paying attention: he was instead looking up at the suitcase rack opposite to the one Diana was lying across.
"Weasley…what is that?"
He pointed to Ron's suitcase: a moldy, lacy sleeve of the redhead's maroon dress robes was dangling from it.
Ron made to stuff it back in, but Malfoy had seized the sleeve first and yanked the robes out.
"Look at this!" he crowed in ecstasy as he showed the robes to Crabbe and Goyle, "Weasley, you weren't thinking about wearing these, were you? I mean…they were fashionable around 1890!"
"Eat dung, Malfoy!" Ron retorted, as he snatched them back from Malfoy and blushed the same maroon color as the robes.
Malfoy smirked at him and asked coolly, "So…going to enter, Weasley? Going to try to bring a bit of glory to the family name? There's plenty of money involved: might be able to afford some decent robes if you won…"
"What are you talking about?" inquired Ron.
"Are you going to enter?" Malfoy repeated, "I expect Potter and Mutou will…they never miss a chance to show off-"
"Either explain yourself or get out, Malfoy," Ryou advised testily.
A gleeful smirk appeared on Malfoy's face.
"Don't tell me you don't know! Weasley's got a brother and a father in the Ministry and he doesn't know? Merlin, my father told me about it ages ago…heard it from Cornelius Fudge himself. But then, Father's always been associated with top people at the Ministry: maybe your father's too junior to know about it, Weasley…and what about you, Ran-?"
He looked around the compartment confusedly for Diana, obviously hoping to mock her too and wondering why she was not sitting with her friends.
"Yoo-hoo," sang Diana from the suitcase rack.
Malfoy looked up in surprise at hearing her voice, and Diana waved down at him cheerfully. The Slytherin quickly recovered from his surprise.
"What are you doing up there?" he scorned, "Finally realized that you're so low you belong more with people's luggage than people themselves?"
"No, just getting a different view of the world," Diana answered, still pretending to be cheerful, "I look down on you all the time, but now I can do it more than just figuratively. Actually, now that I think about it…"
Artemis's Heir climbed down from the suitcase rack and stood in front of Malfoy, and she was delighted to see she'd grown a head taller than him over the summer.
"Aw, how cute," Diana mocked, "A chibi enemy is always adorable to watch in Muggle TV shows…maybe now we'll have a bit more of a laugh when you come to bother us."
Marik and Yugi laughed.
"Shut up, Randall!" snapped Malfoy, obviously not knowing what "chibi" meant, but guessing it meant something like "little," "I'm not a-"
He stopped in mid-sentence, for Diana had rested her head on top of his to accent their height difference.
"Chibi Slytherins," she chuckled, "Hey Seto, you think you could make a little ride at Kaiba Land where the Chibi Slytherins could sing and dance to an annoying children's song? The Muggles might enjoy it."
"They have that already at Tokyo Disney, Dare-kun," Seto pointed out with a smirk, "And yet…your version of the idea sounds more amusing."
Malfoy's face was a bright rose color: he shoved Diana off him, muttered something to Crabbe and Goyle, and the three left the compartment sulkily.
As soon as they were gone, everyone roared with laughter.
"That was awesome!" Neville choked through his laughter, "I've got to hang out with you all more often!"
Yugi: YAY! DUELING! (grins in an adorable chibi-like way)
Atem: (still roaring with laughter because of the "Sexy Kaiba" AMV)
Kitty: I could just see Harry with a Wind/Dragon deck. I mean, he likes Quidditch so damn much...
Yugi: Is there going to be more dueling, Kitten?
Kitty: Maybe...hopefully if my theory for the end works with the seventh book, we'll see some more dueli...whoops, said too much! (goes off into the corner and twindles her thumbs)
Cedric: (peace sign) R&R!
