Harry was in a foul mood for a week because of Voldemort's escape. Though that couldn't be said of the Order.
It seemed that the near defeat at the hands of his rival had shown Voldemort that he was not the strongest.
Harry was.
Which meant they had a rather quiet two months. During that time, Luna managed to learn how to summon a vision and how to use her Ka to summon monsters. She mostly focused on water types.
Bakura, on the other hand, was determined to help Harry find his Ka beast. The monster which would represent him personally.
As far as they could tell, it was a magician type. Thankfully it wasn't the Dark Magician. That would have been very awkward indeed.
Sirius had started to learn how to summon, and already knew what his beast was. And it didn't surprise anyone that it was a dark beast.
Sirius' Ka beast was the Magician of Black Chaos. (Remus had one too, and it turned out to be a ritual monster known as Lycanthrope.)
Harry was frustrated, to say the least. Nothing he seemed to do worked. Bakura and Malik were out, so he couldn't work out his anger that way. And anything flammable had been hidden weeks ago. He didn't feel like hunting it down either.
So, in an effort to keep from screaming, he did the only logical thing he could think of.
He took a walk...in the Shadow Realm.
This wasn't as dangerous as it sounded. Most of the creatures that lived there knew him by now. Or avoided him like the plague.
Seeing the dark nightmares actually calmed him down. Here he could destroy whatever he wanted and not hurt anything. He could even use his flames to annoy the monsters.
Suddenly he stopped.
Was that arguing he heard? Walking towards the sound of the two voices, he came across an interesting sight.
A group of spellcasters were in a rather intense argument. All of them were of the 'elemental charmer' variety. He recognized them on sight...because he had them in his deck.
Wynn the Wind Charmer, Hiita the Fire Charmer, Eria the Water Charmer, Dharc the Dark Charmer, Lyna the Light Charmer and Aussa the Earth Charmer.
When played correctly, they took control of any monster that corresponded with their element.
"He's my partner!" said Wynn angry.
"No, he's mine. Get another one!" shrieked Hiita.
Utterly confused, Harry debated on whether to ask what was going on or to back away slowly.
Alas, Fate always hated him. Because at that moment the two spellcasters spotted him. The others wisely stayed out of the way.
"There you are!" exclaimed Wynn.
"Finally, we can end this debate!" said Hiita.
"Um...hello?"
"Harry, which one of us do you want as a partner?" they said in unison.
Harry blinked owlishly. He was so out of his element that it wasn't even funny!
"Could someone explain what's going on first?" Harry finally asked.
"A few weeks ago I heard my partner calling me, and ended up running into Hiita. I was glad that my friend had finally heard her master, until she told me WHO it was."
"Wynn tried to get me to pick someone else, but I heard you better than she did. Next thing we knew, we were arguing over who your real partner was."
"And we haven't stopped since," said Wynn.
Harry couldn't believe that the reason he hadn't found his partner was because he had two. He felt like doing an anime pratfall.
"So this whole time, the reason why I couldn't get my partner to come out is because you two couldn't decide on who it would be?" he said, calmly.
The girls nodded emphatically.
"Why can't both of you be my partner?" he said.
"Because the rules state that only ONE partner may join with a Shadow Summoner," said Wynn.
"One monster to each soul. That was the deal," said Hiita, nodding.
"I think I see the problem here. Are you two aware that I carried a second soul in my curse scar for nearly fifteen years?" he asked.
The two looked utterly shocked at that. Then they started talking again.
"It explains the double summoning..." muttered Wynn.
"And why we were all called..." said Hiita.
"Now that the main problem has been more or less explained, why can't both of you be my partner? I'm sure I have enough magic to support the two of you, provided I only power up one at a time."
"Finally, someone can end their bickering," said Dharc tiredly. The others nodded in agreement.
"May I ask why you guys are here too? No offense..."
"We're here, because you soul called ALL the charmers, not just fire and wind. Fortunately, we agreed to let them be the Ka beast... if only they would make up their minds," said Eria.
"And it's just coincidence that my deck happens to be focused on Charmers and not traditional magicians?" he asked dryly.
They all shook their head. His deck was one of the rare Charmer decks (rare because few people saw the point in using them in a deck, let alone basing a theme on them) because their soul called to his.
By the time they had agreed on who would come out when (apparently they all qualified to be his Ka beast, since his soul was suited to Charmers) Harry came out, wiping his eyes tiredly.
He looked at the clock, and decided against dinner.
Bakura and Malik found him sound asleep in their room two hours later. They decided not to bother him.
Bakura watched from his chair, which he had backwards for some reason. Harry told him he was going to summon his Ka beast today, and he was interested.
He gaped when he realized his toy had not one beast, but six.
"How the hell did you end up with six? Most can barely support one!"
"How does Yugi support over a hundred Kuriboh at one time?" asked Harry dryly.
Bakura conceded his point. Charmers were relatively low level enough that they could be summoned easily. And Yugi had more than enough magic to handle Kuriboh's multiply ability.
Harry, on the other hand, had about the same amount if not more than Yugi, and he had been practicing with it longer than the chibi had.
"Still, not many can handle six at one time, especially when the attributes are so ranged."
Harry snorted.
"I walked in on two of them arguing who would represent me last night, and only got back a few minutes before dinner. They worked out a schedule...with a bit of help from me."
Bakura burst out laughing. So that's why his little one was so tired last night! He was playing referee between the Ka beasts!
Malik walked in, saw the six different beasts, and had to make sure he wasn't seeing things.
"How did...?"
"Apparently my deck choice wasn't random," said Harry, amused.
They did wonder why he made a Charmer deck, but as long as it wasn't one they disliked they weren't going to comment.
Voldemort was pleased. He had found a deck that would suit his needs and bring fear into the Wizard community.
And the muggles called it the Venom deck.
Ever since his defeat at the hands of his enemy, he realized he would have to actually learn how to play the wretched muggle game. There was only one problem.
It seemed that the only duelists he could get his hands on were some of the lowest ranking ones. They could barely win a 'tournament' let alone be able to defeat Potter.
It seemed that he would have to take more...extreme measures to insure his victory over that arrogant brat!
It happened so quickly they almost didn't understand it. One minute Yami was sound asleep, the next he heard his aibou waking up in shock.
Someone had broken into the Kame game shop, again.
Strangely enough, instead of trying to steal the god cards as usual, these people seemed more interested in kidnapping Yugi.
He ducked when he felt the evil magic coming. A blast of sickly green light narrowly missed him.
His grandfather had long since come up with a solution to all the repeated break ins.
He let the Pharaoh handle it. Anyone stupid enough to try and steal from the King of Games deserved whatever his mind came up with. Besides, he was too old for that crap.
Yami watched in shock as his aibou was kidnapped. The intruders left with a loud crack.
Solomon gave Yami a look. He lived on the lower floor for safety reasons.
"Malik had better have a damn good explanation for this," snarled Yami.
The intruders bore a rather large resemblance to the Ghouls that had once flocked to the Millennium Rod.
Malik reached for, and missed Marik's cell. Marik had long since made an agreement with his dark side that one of them would handle the cell phone each night.
Usually Marik.
He finally grabbed it, took one look at the number and swore.
"This had better be good," he growled.
"WHERE THE HELL DID YOUR GHOULS TAKE YUGI?"
Malik had remembered what happened the last time the Pharaoh called. He had wisely held the phone far from his ear.
Bakura rolled over, pinning Harry.
"What have you got your shorts in a twist about this time? I didn't have that chibi brat kidnapped you moron."
"WELL THEY SURE AS HELL LOOKED LIKE YOUR DAMN GHOULS!"
Malik thought a minute, then realized how the narcissistic pharaoh could make that mistake. He kicked Bakura.
"OW! What was that for you ass?"
"Wake up. Moldy shorts had the chibi pharaoh kidnapped."
"How the hell do you know that?"
Malik put the Pharaoh on speaker. He was still ranting about what he was going to do to Malik and Marik when he got his hands on them.
Bakura was very glad they had a very strong silencing charm on the room (courtesy of Sirius and Remus.)
"WILL YOU SHUT UP, BAKA PHARAOH! We didn't take Yugi."
Yami quieted down long enough for Bakura to explain. Harry yawned, looked at the clock and gave them all a dirty look.
"It's three in the bloody morning. Why are we up?"
"The idiot kidnapped Yugi, and the Pharaoh blames us," said Malik.
"Oh. Then let me sleep. We'll rescue him in the morning," yawned Harry, rolling over.
Yami apparently realized that Harry was in the same room as Bakura and Malik, because it set him off again. They ended the call, effectively shutting him up. Then Malik turned off the phone for good measure.
"Shouldn't you warn the Priest?"
"Why?"
"Because he'll get pissed at us later for not giving him the heads up?"
"So?"
Bakura nodded to Harry, who was still sound asleep.
"Brownie points?"
"Exactly!"
Bakura fished out his phone (he had gotten his own so he could warn Ryou whenever there was trouble) and called Kaiba. How he got his number, no one knows. (Ryou suspected Kaiba had given it to him to shut him up.)
"Yo, dragon boy."
"What do you want? It's three in the morning asshole."
"Heads up. Moldy shorts had the chibi Pharaoh kidnapped. Pharaoh's pissed off and might head your way."
"...!#$%^&*() And you warned me why?"
"Brownie points."
"Think anyone will care if I don't answer the phone?"
"Doubtful."
Seto Kaiba ended the call, and promptly shut his phone off a second before Yami managed to dial his number. This would result in Mokuba learning a larger vocabulary of swear words that his brother would ban from his use unless everything goes totally pear shaped.
"So let me get this straight. Voldemort has kidnapped this kid and you're not concerned why?" asked Sirius.
"The brat has the luck of the gods. Every time he or that damn pharaoh has been close to defeat, somehow, someway he always comes out on top. We're only going to rescue him to shut his dark side up," said Bakura sourly.
"He's over fifteen and he's as sweet as a five year old," said Malik dryly.
Harry snickered.
"He's about as tall as one to."
The three laughed. Yugi was dismally short.
Yugi was in serious pain. His luck didn't cover torture. And the monster before him was after something, but he hurt too much to find out what.
Finally someone took pity on him and knocked him out.
Snape disliked this part. Voldemort wanted the best duelist in the world, and the kid they took was...cute, for lack of a better word.
He took pity on the brat and knocked him out, before taking all his knowledge of dueling. It wasn't complete, since the boy was out cold, but it was enough to keep Voldemort from killing the boy outright.
Well that and the fact that this boy had the Puzzle, which Voldemort wanted.
Bakura used the Ring to find Yugi. Though he really didn't need to. Yugi was like the Pharaoh in that wherever he was, the shadow realm rose to his aide.
So when he saw the house completely enveloped in shadows...he knew the runt had to have been tortured.
He winced.
Yami was going to be so pissed at them it wasn't even funny. Harry saw the shadows, and tried to figure out which Charmer to use.
"Should I use Dharc, Lyna or Hiita?" he asked.
"Dharc. Definitely use Dharc," said Malik with a groan.
Harry gave him a look.
"With that amount of shadow around the house, there's no doubt in my mind mostly Dark attributes will be in there," explained Bakura.
Malik facepalmed. That was a understatement. With the way the Death Eaters acted, the chances of anything other than dark attribute monsters showing up were next to nill. Harry went in first (since he was armed with flammable liquids...) followed by Bakura and Malik.
Harry walked into the house, beamed widely and said in a loud (and very clear voice)...
"Who's up for some bbq idiots?"
The Death Eaters took one look at his insane grin, saw the cans of flammable liquid, and ran screaming.
They didn't make it past the front door. Bakura and Malik grinned as they watched their little one burn everything in sight that moved. Well, anything over three feet tall anyway.
Voldemort heard the screams, looked down the balcony and swore loudly. Potter had found him again, before he could finish rebuilding his deck.
And to make matters worse, Potter had a side kick. It appeared to be one of the dark attribute magician class, one that he had tossed aside for being so weak.
Dharc the Dark Charmer. The only male Charmer out of the set.
The boy was manipulating shadows with relative ease, sending them to bind anyone who tried to escape the flames. He seemed amused by something, though he couldn't tell what.
Voldemort went down the stairs, ignoring the screams. He was going to kill the boy this time, and take his Item!
"Potter, I challenge you to a duel!" he announced.
Harry looked at him, leered evilly, then drew his deck. Dharc vanished, but the shadows began to pool around Harry anyway.
"I accept, Moldy Shorts!" smirked Potter.
The shadows surrounded the two of them. Malik and Bakura took the chance to find Yugi. Most of the Death Eaters had fled once they realized Voldemort had taken Potter out of the equation for the moment.
Snape was waiting for them.
"He's in here."
"Thanks. Know any potions to help hearing loss and migraines?" asked Bakura.
"Two. Why?"
"Because his dark side is going to be pissed enough when he finds out the brat was tortured," said Malik.
"Ah."
Bakura ducked in, and winced when he saw Yugi's condition.
"Why the hell did Moldy Short abduct him anyway? Yami is the one with the Puzzle."
"He wanted the best duelist so he wouldn't lose as badly to Potter. Well, that and he wants the Puzzle."
"Did he get any better?" asked Malik, curious.
"The boy is good, but when I borrowed his knowledge he was out cold, so the chances are slim that Voldemort would succeed."
Suddenly the shadow ball beneath them ruptured. Voldemort had barely pulled off another stalemate, though this time he had been closer to keeping himself from being eaten by the Shadow Realm.
