Shinsei Unmei: Path of Light and Darkness
Chapter Nine: Dark Sorcery
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Professor Snape wasn't seen for the next few weeks, a substitute having taken over until the second week of December, which happened to be the first Quidditch match of the season, Gryffindor vs. Slytherin.
The morning of the match, Harry and Yugi looked worse for the wear, having both heard that Slytherin was known to be violent on their brooms.
As the Gryffindor team sat together in the Great Hall, Draco Malfoy walked by, unusually cheerful since his shadow game with Marik and Yami no Bakura.
"Oh, the Gryffindor team!" he cried, pulling a handkerchief out of his robes. "I oh so hope you win, it's not fair that my House has won it the last few years." He bowed, looking fearfully towards his own table.
"What's gotten into him?" Harry asked Marik, who decided to eat with the Gryffindor team and away from the other Gryffindors.
"Hm?" Marik replied through a mouthful of cereal, sitting up to look over at Draco. "I haven't noticed a difference." He added, swallowing his food with difficulty.
"You haven't?" Harry wondered aloud, looking from Marik back to Draco, and then returning to the food in front of him with a shrug.
As Harry, Yugi, and the rest of the Gryffindor team got up to head out to the Quidditch pitch, Marik, Hermione, and Ron Weasley followed, hoping to get good seats for the match.
"Be careful Harry!" Hermione warned as they went their separate ways.
In the locker room, Oliver Wood ran them through their game plans multiple times after they were done changing into their scarlet Quidditch robes, causing most of the team to nod off.
Soon, the team was called to the field, both Harry and Yugi remembering their previous case of nerves.
Nervously, Yugi relinquished control to Yami no Yugi, who took off the Sennen puzzle and stored it in his locker until the game was over.
The Gryffindor and Slytherin teams stood across from each other in a circle on the pitch, Madam Hooch in the center. "Now, I want a nice clean game from all of you." She said sternly, looking mainly towards the Slytherin captain, Marcus Flint.
Madam Hooch blew her whistle and all fourteen players pushed off into the air, the six Chasers taking off after the Quaffle.
As Yami no Yugi followed Katie Bell with the Quaffle, Harry flew off above the game, hoping to stay out of the way until he spotted the Snitch.
Yami no Yugi followed Katie until she reached the Slytherin keeper, having done the best he could to aid her. She threw the Quaffle into the goal post and scored the first point of the game, receiving massive cheers from everywhere but the Slytherin side of the field.
The game continued on like this, both teams scoring evenly until something else took everyone's eyes off the game and onto a single player.
Harry's broom began to buck wildly, nearly throwing him off countless times. Harry was hanging on with one hand for what seemed like ages, the Gryffindor team flying in circles below him in case he fell.
Marik was sitting in the topmost row of the Gryffindor stands when he noticed Harry's odd behavior, nudging Hermione to get her attention. When she didn't respond, he looked around her and found Seto sitting on her other side, whispering quickly into her ear.
Shuddering, he took matters into his own hands, swiping Hermione's magical binoculars to scan the stands.
"Snape? Why's he here? He's been out for weeks!" Marik muttered to himself, sliding slowly out of his seat, running down the steps to the first row.
Marik crouched down and dropped through the space between the first row and the aisle, slipping inside the stands themselves.
Looking around, he ran towards the teachers' box, and realized there was a ten-foot gap between the two boxes.
Gulping, he pulled out his deck with a shaking hand, fishing through the cards. "Rocket Jumper!" he called, tossing a card into the air in front of him. As the Sennen scales shone brightly, the card transformed into a stone man with a rocket on his back, upon which Marik jumped onto and held on for dear life.
The monster zoomed across the gap with ease, nearly throwing Marik off with its speed. Marik rolled off and called it back; sealing it within the card it had come out of.
Marik shook himself and looked up, running up one of the beams that led to the teacher stands with ease.
Looking through the gap between professors Dumbledore and McGonagall, he spotted professor Snape chanting under his breath.
"Incendio." Marik whispered, pointing his wand at the hem of the potions master's robes, lighting them on fire.
Marik hurried out of the box, running across beams and jumping across small gaps, coming to the one he feared most. "Rocket Jumper!" he cried again, jumping into the air above the card as it took off.
He quickly returned the card and hurried back up into the stands; to see Harry and the Gryffindor team on the ground and the Slytherin team continuing to take the Quaffle and throw it threw the goal posts.
"AND HE'S GOT THE SNITCH! HARRY POTTER HAS CAUGHT THE SNITCH!" the announcer, Lee Jordan announced through a magically enhanced megaphone to the crowd, getting a roar of cheers and a boom of applause from three fourths of the school.
Marik smirked as he looked up in the stands to see that Seto was gone and Hermione was looking ghastly, obviously realizing that her friend had almost died while she had been infatuated by the Ravenclaw CEO.
Harry was carried off the field by the Gryffindor team, all of whom were beaming at their victory. Marcus Flint was seen cursing Madam Hooch, who declared Harry had done nothing to break the rules in his capture. "But! He didn't catch it! He almost swallowed it!"
In the Gryffindor common room that evening, Fred and George Weasley had smuggled food up from the kitchen, and a massive feast was held in Harry's honor.
"Good job Harry," Marik and Yugi congratulated, the latter having been informed of the day's events by Yami no Yugi.
Before he could reply, Harry was bustled off by one of the Weasley twins, who shoved him into the main crowd to be cheered and congratulated by everyone else.
Harry barely got up to bed that night, being pulled back by either Fred or George Weasley each time he tried to go up the dormitory staircase. Harry plopped down on his four-poster in exhaustion, tossing his glasses to his bedside table.
The next week was chaos, teachers were trying to get in all they could in the last week of the first term before the break.
Professor McGonagall put up a list in the common room, telling everyone who wished to stay over the holidays to sign his or her name on it as soon as possible. Harry, Ron, Yugi, and Marik all signed up at once, and they noticed, that besides the Weasley family, they were some of the only ones staying.
"The entire tower to ourselves." Marik sighed, plopping down into one of the armchairs.
"Not really. Percy's going to be here. You know, that annoying prefect?" Yugi replied, falling into the armchair across from Marik.
"True... Very true..." Marik replied unenthusiastically, picking a book off of the adjoining table. "Have you seen Hermione lately?" the Egyptian added, looking around at the near empty common room.
"No... She hasn't been in the tower very much. Most of the time she does her homework and leaves." Yugi replied, recalling his meeting with Yami no Bakura.
"Yeah... Her and her boyfriend are never able to be found. Without, that is, Yami no Bakura's help. The ring can find them easily." Marik replied with a sneer, flipping through the book he had picked up.
"Well, it is their business. But I think it is kinda weird. Seto did just turn seventeen after all." The shorter of the two yawned, unreasonably tired.
"Yo, Yugi!" Harry called from the other side of the common room, coming down the boys' dormitory stairs. "What Harry?" the sixteen year old replied curiously, looking at a large brown parcel in the English boy's hands.
"This just came for you. Your owl brought it in through the window and dropped it on my bed, but it has your name on it Yugi." Harry said as he tossed the parcel to the multi-color haired boy, who began to rip it open the second it touched his hands.
"A book?" Yugi wondered aloud as the packaging ripped away to reveal a large black book, bound in what looked like gold.
"A book on the dark arts?" Marik added as he read the title, which turned out to be in ancient Egyptian.
'Yami, can you read this?' Yugi asked his dark half, allowing the spirit to see the book through his eyes.
'Yes, but I'm a little rusty at it. I haven't seen text like this since before I was sealed in the puzzle for a thousand years. Skills do diminish without practice.' Yami no Yugi returned, reading slowly down the first page, the table of contents.
'Yugi, this book contains powerful dark magic, some of them rival the ritual that created the Sennen items.' Yami no Yugi noticed as he read down the page a few more times for practice.
'No... It can't be...' the spirit added in shock, coming down to the last item on the page.
'Yami?' Yugi replied curiously, not being able to translate the writing on his own. 'What is it?'
'The last spell on the page... The ritual... Darkness...' Yami no Yugi replied, staring at the book in horror.
"Marik. What is the last spell on the page?" Yugi asked, annoyed with his ancestor's behavior.
"Hm... The last one? Er..." Marik replied as he grabbed the book, turning it over so he could read it. "A ritual it looks like... Wait! It's the ritual! The one that created the items, the spell of Darkness!" he added shakily, not as shaken as Yami no Yugi, but obviously still fearful of it.
'They were supposed to eliminate all evidence of the creations... The items were supposed to be forgotten in the sands of time after their purpose was served... We failed... Who knows whose read this book...' Yami no Yugi whispered, talking more to himself than to Yugi.
'The ritual was memorized by the priests, and the book Akunadin found it inside was destroyed, so no one could replicate the ritual and perform it twice, for it was only meant to be used once, the second time would merge the darkness with the earth, and eliminate all life in the blink of an eye .'
'We scoured the lands of Egypt to make sure we had eliminated all traces of our darkest deed, libraries were raided, houses were searched, all in the name of the kingdom.' Yami no Yugi finished, bowing his head in remembrance.
Now there was one thought on Yami no Yugi's mind, how does a book contain information forgotten ages ago, dying with the last of the Egyptian priests? Unless... One of them went against the pharaoh's judgement, defied their ruler, and copied down the forbidden ritual.
'Just what we need, a renegade spirit with the power of whatever Ra-be-damned item they're sealed in.' Yami no Yugi sighed mentally, retreating to his soul room, ordering Yugi not to let that book out of his sight.
Shinsei Unmei: Path of Light and Darkness © Copyright 2004 ArchSaugim (ID: 418011). All rights reserved. Distribution of any kind is prohibited without the written consent of ArchSaugim
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Disclaimer: I don't own Yugioh or Harry Potter, just this story.
A/N: Now that you've read, review.
