Okay, I don't know how many times I've had to grovel at your feet because of my unpardonable laziness…but…Well; here I am again, hoping that you can forgive me for taking an entire month to update.

God, I suck. XD

I hope that this chapter makes up for my horrible suckiness.

Disclaimer: I wish I owned Harry Potter. I lust to own Yu-Gi-Oh (mostly Bakura's body). Unfortunately, no matter how much I want to, I don't own either of these stories, characters, plot lines, etc. They belong to their respective owners.

Chapter Nine

A Matter of Trust

Being an enforcer of the rules as opposed to a breaker of the rules had to be the dullest job ever. It was one of those things that made one's day drag on and on. Bakura had to think that perhaps a polite decline of Voldemort's proposal may have been more kind than this torturous, slow, agonizing death.

"Drama queen." Malik muttered under his breath. Bakura's head snapped to the Egyptian on his right, and his eyes narrowed darkly as Malik's smirk widened.

The Spirit edged slightly closer to Malik, inconspicuously enough for the students nearby not to think much of it. To Malik, however…well…he knew he was in some serious trouble. "What did I tell you," Bakura queried in a deadly quiet voice, "About reading my mind when it's unnecessary?"

Malik gulped and took a step sharply to the left, bringing some distance between the two again, "In my defense," He replied in one of those guilty, but worried tones, "I can't help seeing snippets of your mind when you're so close to me and my hand happens to brush the Rod."

- It is true, Yami. He's not trying to read our mind. -

"That doesn't give him the excuse to be vocal about it."

- …but still… can't you be nice? -

"Landlord, that has to be almost as stupid as that time you asked if I could leave my knife at home."

Malik shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, wincing as he caught the tail end of the conversation, and purposely averting his eyes to avoid contact with Bakura's malicious red irises. He didn't want to get in trouble again. Once was hair raising enough.

They'd started this annoying cycle on their first day. They started morning patrol, up until lunch time, where all the students milled back into the giant hall which was, coincidentally, named the Great Hall. The two patrollers were told by the Headmaster to sit at Slytherin table. They did so, and found that Malfoy was quite the snob when amongst his peers. It was an annoying personality shift, and Bakura had been tempted on many occasions just to slap the boy around a bit.

Lunch had passed quicker than the rest of the day had, and they found themselves patrolling the halls again, making sure that all the students were getting to class. All stragglers were to be given the detention slips that Malik and Bakura had been equipped with by McGonagall, who had decided that talking to them was obviously beneath her. She regarded them with quick, blunt instructions and nothing more.

That was further proving to be an increasingly tough situation to remedy. In fact, Bakura had called a short group meeting and told both Malik and Ryou that attempting to force the woman to trust them wasn't going to achieve much. After that, they'd sighed and decided that, perhaps, it wasn't best to tempt fate where McGonagall was concerned.

After classes finished, they just got to walk around freely until curfew, where they had to make sure that students were in their dormitories and no longer tearing about the school. This also was a tedious task, because the school was huge.

A week had passed, only a week, and the three had already fallen into a pattern. It was a boring pattern, but a pattern nonetheless.

It'd been fairly obvious to the both of them that with the little contact that they were making with the students, that they were being avoided. They were fine with that, though. They'd already agreed that forming ties with these wizards would only prove to be a problem later on.

And they couldn't afford to present Voldemort with anything more that he could hold against the three of them. It would probably make them do something stupid and rash.

Malik sighed, stopping his walking and leaning against one of the cold, stone walls of the corridor leading to the dungeons. "This is ridiculous. How long will it take for us to get our magic back?" He lifted his arm into the air and fisted his hand. His eyebrows knitted in concentration and frustration, and he began to draw blood from his palm. There was no visible result, aside from a tiny popping sound and Malik's entire form withering, suddenly looking like he'd been through a triathlon.

"It was you who said that we needed to be patient about this."

"And lo and behold, I'm the one losing my patience. Whoop-de-fucking-doo. This still doesn't solve the problem."

Bakura snorted, thrusting his hands deeper into his pockets, "Stop being so melodramatic." Malik scowled at the jibe, "We can't change anything. We just have to wait."

"What if we don't have enough time?" Malik asked, his voice softening ever so slightly, "What if we run out…of all of this time that you say we have?"

Bakura's face or voice did not soften with Malik's words. Instead, his face hardened, and his voice became brittle and cold, "Then we will fight tooth-and-nail until we die, Malik."

- And we will save my father... -

"…No matter what it takes." Bakura snarled, finishing Ryou's sentence for him. His words were a promise. He refused to give up.

Ryou pushed forth a half-hearted smile from his soul room.

Malik gritted his teeth, "This is ridiculous."

"What is?" Bakura asked, narrow red eyes sliding to the side to regard the tanned blonde male with curiosity.

"Everything."

"We've already established that…multiple times." Bakura replied, sniffing and turning his head away to survey the students that bounded past, whispering cautions about the two foreigners to their friends.

"But still, why does everything happen to us?" Malik asked grudgingly. He hated self-pity, but he was in a really bad mood.

"Possibly because no matter how holy everyone thinks they are, the Gods are sadists and take sick pleasure in watching us fall into turmoil after turmoil?"

Malik snorted back laughter.

"Was it that funny, or was I just missing the joke?" Bakura asked, his eyes turning to slate. Apparently, he wasn't in much of a joking mood, regardless of how his words could have been construed as amusing.

Just for good measure, Bakura threw a glare and a vicious sneer in the direction of a young student that happened to be walking by. The young girl squealed in shock and dashed off towards her classroom. Poor girl was probably shaking in her knee-highs.

The Egyptian cleared his throat, "Was that necessary?"

"I'm in a bad mood."

"Really…?" Malik asked, frowning and crossing his arms in a pose that usually entailed sarcasm, "Because you seemed so very chipper this morning…"

"You're asking for it, Tomb Keeper." Bakura warned, his eyebrows pulling downwards.

- You're very bi-polar today, actually. – Ryou observed, tapping his hands together from inside his soul room. He'd busied himself re-reading a novel that he'd remembered reading from a few years ago. Thus was the pleasure of a soul room: you could read books that you'd read and enjoyed a few years back. Unfortunately, he could not draw any new reading material into his mind.

Bakura snorted, "Whose side are you on?"

- Malik's, naturally. -

"Cheeky landlord…"

A few students passed by silently, all eyes on Malik and Bakura, the terrifying new disciplinary committee. When Malik glanced their way - more curiously than angrily like Bakura had done to the girl a moment earlier - the students that had been staring picked up their pace and never made eye-contact with him again.

Malik briefly wondered how easy it would be to make one of the little ones pee their pants. The thought was dismissed, however, when he realized that that would not be winning them any favors with any people who may be allies.

Oh well; old, bad habits die hard, he figured. After all, Malik had had that whole villain thing going for a while.

His eyes darkened at the recollection. The Battle City Tournament was not a time he wished to revisit.

Bakura gave the Egyptian a curious nudge at the flicker of contempt in the blonde's eyes. Malik shook his head, and Bakura nodded back in acknowledgement. The spirit knew exactly what Malik had been thinking about, and also knew that pressing the matter would not bode well.

- It must be so tough for him. -

Bakura blinked at the soft-spoken words from his light, "What do you mean?"

- Well, he always has to act…I mean, up until a few months ago, Malik was the leader of the Rare Hunters. His entire goal in life was to defeat Yugi and the Pharaoh and gain their power. Now that he's been forced to rethink his old habits… - Ryou trailed off.

The spirit snorted, "It's not like we aren't in the same boat."

Ryou shook his head meaningfully, - We're not the same. Malik had to do it alone. –

"You had to do it alone, landlord." Bakura spat, his own expression darkening. Ryou had had to do it alone, and Bakura had been the force holding him back from his potential. Even still, he was holding Ryou back from being all that he could be.

- Stop that. – Ryou admonished, frowning at his other half, - You're doing nothing of the sort. You're like the brother I never had. -

"Yes, because…" Bakura stopped the next sentence, his dark expression turning to an angry scowl.

Because older brothers viciously beat their siblings, right? No regrets, ne?

He wanted to say that. He wanted to express the self-loathing to his light, but that would be self-pity, which was something that Bakura did not tolerate. It was weakness, to pity one's self, and Bakura was not weak.

He refused to be weak.

Ryou went quiet. He hadn't heard what Bakura wanted to say through his thoughts, but he'd gotten the gist of it from the feel of the silence between them.

It seemed that on the topic of self-pity, Bakura and Malik seemed to be thinking along similar trains of thought.

"I would ask that you boys refrain from scaring my students." A man said. It was Slughorn, the Potions master. He seemed to be a fairly easy-going teacher, but he certainly did not show much patience for the two members of the disciplinary committee.

Neither Malik nor Bakura bothered to respond. The man had said the same thing the other two times that week that they'd ventured down into the dungeons, and the first time the argument had resulted in a few threats and some very bruised egos.

Slughorn smiled somewhat cynically, before moving past them. There was a dark aura emanating from him. He was definitely not a happy camper at the moment. Perhaps he'd recently had a chat with the 'loving' Headmaster.

If only these good teachers knew, and truthfully understood, that Malik, Bakura, and Ryou were not in this of their own volition.

Being victims of circumstance sucked.

Malik pushed himself off of the wall, arching his back slightly to stretch it, "Let's go, Bakura. The atmosphere down here isn't exactly something out of the Care Bears."

"Nothing in the sane world is like the Care Bears, Malik. If there happens to be such a place, I would like to visit."

"To taint it?"

A hint of smugness. "You know me so well."

Malik snickered, and led the way through the winding dungeons. After about ten minutes of wandering the dark, dank corridors that were lined with eerie statues of tragic mythical scenes or creatures, they made it to the staircase. Clean air wafted down the stone steps, and both took deep breaths. The air down in the dungeons was repugnant in its scent and thick enough to practically see.

Malik didn't know how anyone could maintain an entire concentrated class down there. It was hard enough to concentrate down there for ten minutes, let alone an entire hour or more.

"Where shall we patrol next, o' honoured patrol-buddy of mine?" Malik queried as they proceeded down a random hallway.

Bakura frowned, shrugging. He didn't really care. It wasn't like they were actually going to make an effort – aside from giving a show for Snape or the Carrows – to carry out Voldemort's orders and rules. They hated them as much as the next guy, or at least, the next guy who was anti-Voldemort.

"C'mon, Bakura…just give a wave and decide for me."

The spirit's sharp eyes snapped to Malik's face with an aggravated gleam, "Is it absolutely impossible for you to comprehend the phrase 'I'm not in the mood'?" He asked in the grumpiest tone he could muster.

"Is it impossible for you to comprehend the phrase 'I don't care'?" Malik jeered, smirking as Bakura's entire form tensed.

Malik only barely dodged the swing of Bakura's fist as it came around. Considering how good an aim the thief was, Malik was quite proud of his lucky getaway. He took a few precautionary steps away from the fuming spirit and grinned, "C'mon, Bakura, what was that for?"

"That doesn't even warrant a response." Bakura snarled, prowling forwards and past Malik, snatching the front of his violet top and dragging him off down the hallway that led to the small courtyard at the back of the grounds.

Malik smirked at the set glare of Bakura as he led Malik down the winding path that made its way down the steep hill behind the school, "In the mood for frolicking through the forest, Bakura?" The Egyptian teased, not succeeding in wriggling out of Bakura's iron grip.

"Yes, as a matter of fact."

"Should I be worried, then?"

"Very much so."

There was a slight upward tugging of Bakura's lips at the short exchange between them. Perhaps he wasn't in so much of a foul mood after all.

"See? We're making progress!" Malik exclaimed in glee, "You can be happy when you put your mind to it!"

"We're going to see where I'll put my foot if you don't clam it." Bakura sneered at the other male, who snickered quietly at the threat. Malik was rarely one to take threats seriously, and Bakura was no exception to that rule.

It took a really bad situation to make Malik take threats seriously. For example, Voldemort's threats…yeah. Malik was taking those seriously. The Carrows?

As for them, they could choke in a pit of their own idiocy for all he cared.

They passed the Grounds Keeper, Hagrid, who was working in his garden of giant pumpkins and a wide variety of un-appetizing vegetables. The man, who ought to have been part giant considering how huge he was, blinked up at his visitors.

Unlike most of the teachers of the school, Hagrid did not glare at them when he realized who they were. His entire expression just went totally blank, which could have been considered as worse than malignant intentions, but he did not have any rage to his mind or form.

From reading his expressions, since he was still having trouble reading any minds aside from Ryou and Bakura's due to his seriously lacking magic at the time, Malik had deduced that this guy was a total softie. Still, he didn't want to get between that guy and any hard object, because those thick arms were probably not as soft as his personality seemed.

"Yeh can't go in there, y'know." He mumbled as they passed him on their way into the Forbidden Forest, "It's forbidden to students."

"But we're not students." Bakura reminded the large man. Hagrid seemed to look a little offended for a minute, before looking slightly embarrassed as his slip, before his expression went blank once more.

He heaved up a mutated carrot from the dirt, "Jus' don't go gettin' into trouble. I'll have tuh clean up the mess."

- Did he just insinuate that we're going to die by being torn to shreds? – Ryou squeaked, sounding particularly uncomfortable and mildly afraid. Through Bakura's eyes, he surveyed the giant, daunting trees with a newfound wariness.

"Tch, well, then he doesn't know us."

- Well, I'd say it's a pretty good guess for anyone as defenseless as we are. -

"Don't worry, landlord. We'll be fine."

- Says you. -

"Yes, and…?"

- You always say that. -

"So, considering we're still alive, you shouldn't be fretting about it so much."

Ryou fell broodingly silent, ultimately deciding that arguing with Bakura on this matter was not going to make any headway. The thief was usually pretty set on his decisions, anyways. It wasn't like he could force him to turn around.

Still, he didn't like that look in Malik's eyes.

"So, should we capture the biggest thing we find in there and have a giant bonfire tonight?"

"You're an idiot, Malik." Bakura deadpanned, rolling his eyes.

Some of the things that Egyptian said just made next to no sense, if any at all.

"Why are we out here, anyways?" The blonde suddenly queried, glancing around at the huge, foreboding trees surrounding them. The light of the school grounds had almost ceased to filter into the forest entirely, and they were suddenly engulfed in eerie, green shadow.

"I wanted to come out here." Bakura answered simply, a frown spreading across his face. He suddenly looked very wary, his blood red eyes snapping to attention.

Malik shivered at the look on his face, "What's wrong?"

"This shadow doesn't feel right."

"As in…?"

Bakura's already dark frown deepened into something of a scowl, "It doesn't feel right. There's no familiarity…it's too…green."

"Yeah, forests tend to look that way." Malik smarted, smirking at the eye roll his comment brought from Bakura.

"I didn't mean that, you impudent fool. I meant that the shadow doesn't feel dark. It just feels…alive. There's no darkness or light to this place. It's oddly in-between." Bakura's annoyed expression suddenly melted into child-like curiosity at this new revelation.

Malik grew wary, "And is this a good thing…?"

"Perhaps," Bakura answered cryptically, "Or perhaps not. I couldn't really tell you at this point, now could I? We aren't dead yet, so start counting your blessings."

Malik snorted, "Anything else, Mother Nature?"

Bakura ignored the jibe, and instead moved forwards, touching a hand to the trunk of a giant tree, "Mm…this forest is very old indeed…at least a thousand…maybe two thousand years old."

"Wow, that old?" Malik asked with an impressed whistle, "That's nuts."

"I'm older than that, idiot."

"Yeah, and you shock me every minute I spend with you. Now, can we do what you came here to do? I really don't want to find myself without a limb by the day's end." Malik fidgeted with his pants, uncomfortable.

Bakura immediately snapped out of his weird little reverie and grinned somewhat manically at Malik, "Worried, are we?"

"Frankly, yes," Malik answered without hesitation, his head swiveling from side-to-side in a dramatic show of looking for danger. "So, since we've established that, let's go."

And, as if like on queue, or like an annoying, terrible clichéd moment, there was the scream of a young woman…further inside the forest.

Bakura and Malik's heads both snapped up, and Malik glanced to Bakura.

"Hear that?"

"What, the desperate plea of an annoyingly passé damsel in distress?" Bakura replied, snorting slightly, "Yes, I heard it."

"Figures this corny crap would only happen to us."

"Figures, indeed."

- Stop joking around! Someone might be hurt…o-or worse! -

Bakura rolled his eyes, but took his hikari's advice and spurred into a sprint, Malik hot on his heels. What a coincidence, then, that this distressing woman was located further into the dark forest.

The hair on the back of Bakura's neck prickled as they continued deeper into the woods. This forest was definitely not a place he wanted to remain for so long. Bakura liked creepy, but this was just too eerie a place for his taste.

The forest seemed so displaced, almost like it was awaiting being the setting for some sort of unmistakable tragedy.

At the sound of another cry, this one much less shrill than the first, Bakura picked up speed. Man, he seriously hated having to play the do-gooder.

Luna Lovegood often found herself in the oddest, sometimes most dangerous of situations. This one was, unfortunately, of the latter's nature. She'd only been wandering through the forest, bare-foot as usual, to visit the Thestrals, all of whom were very lonely in these very dark times.

She felt so bad for them, so she decided to pay them a visit.

In fact, she'd paid the Thestrals a few visits, and no time before had she come face-to-face with piercing red eyes and an open maw that exposed sharp, elongated canines. Oh yes, Luna had found herself in quite the predicament.

And still, even as she was backed up against a tree with a monster not two feet from her throat, Luna had to wonder something very peculiar indeed:

My, they're not quite as pretty as we were led to thought, now are they?

Her second thought was:

Perhaps I am as loony as my fellow students tend to believe.

The red-eyed, fanged creature laughed a deep, rugged chuckle that sounded both strangely dangerous and – dare she say it, sexy, at the same time.

Oh, what a time for my hormones to kick in. And it's not even a human. Luna thought - no sarcasm at all in her mind, only a simple statement of fact.

"Hey, tall, cloaked, and ugly! Get away from blondie!"

Luna glanced up to see a young man leaping towards the monster, a very large branch clutched in his hands like a club. He landed close to Luna and her attacker, swinging his makeshift weapon once to force the monster to leap back and away from her.

His hair was very blonde also, so Luna thought that he really ought not to be calling her a 'blondie'.

"Why are you preying on helpless little girls anyways? Isn't there something meatier to go munch on?" The blonde boy quipped, waving a tanned hand enthusiastically. Still, throughout his whole tirade, his body never uncoiled itself from its fighting stance.

"Insssssolent whelp!" The monster screeched, lunging for the boy in a blind, pride-driven rage.

The blonde smirked, and let out a short, but very loud whistle. Suddenly, a white blur dropped from the trees above them, so fast that Luna nearly missed the entire scene. The creature screamed again as it was sent flying into a nearby tree, making a dent with the velocity in which it flew.

Beside the blonde, another young man uncoiled himself. Suddenly, Luna recognized the both of them. They were that new disciplinary committee that patrolled the school under the Headmaster, and further, Voldemort's command.

The second boy had long, wild hair that was a shocking white. It was white like snow in a morning blizzard, untamed and untouched. His body was thin, young, and had very little muscle. For someone of this body-type, Luna couldn't figure out how he'd managed to fight with the skills of a well-built and well-trained warrior.

Unlike the blonde boy, whose eyes were a deep shade of romantic violet; this young man had cold, flat eyes that were the colour of the reddest blood.

How strange.

The white-haired boy blinked at his friend, "Was that a vampire, Malik, or doth mine eyes deceive me?"

"It was indeed," The blonde replied solemnly, and snickered, all solemnity lost, "May I ask where you learned your Anglo-Saxon?"

"Ryou."

"And he learned it from…?"

"How the hell should I know? And why would I care?" The red-eyed one snapped, but not in an angry way, more in the way that a friend would snap at another close friend while exchanging witty banter.

The blonde, now known as Malik, shrugged slightly, and turned his attention back to the vampire, which had lifted itself from the tree and prepared once more for combat.

"Hey, when did you get up in that tree?" Malik asked suddenly, glancing quickly at his friend, "Because seriously, Bakura, I didn't even notice you'd left."

"I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment or be insulted." The white-haired boy responded, smirking in an almost animalistic fashion as the vampire snarled again, baring its sharp teeth.

Luna was awed as the two boys leapt into combat with the vampire. The blonde boy was parrying the monster backwards with a flurry of moves involving his improvised club, and the white-haired one had slipped a knife out of his pocket. He then proceeded to maneuver behind the vampire, and, using an almost inhumane swiftness, shoved his weapon into the back of the creature's throat. Blood sprayed out, spattering his face and the front of his shirt in deep crimson.

The monster couldn't even scream, due to the location of the blow, and crumpled to the ground, twitching as its life drained through it.

She was only mildly disgusted as she watched the creature's limbs stop twitching and its crimson irises roll into the back of its head.

It was done.

"Hey, stupid," The blonde said, suddenly focused on Luna, "What in the world possessed you to come into this forest, huh? Do you want to sign your death warrant and wrap it all up in nice ribbons?"

She nearly giggled at the odd way he worded his last sentence, but opted not to stir his bad side. "Well, I was visiting the Thestrals, of course."

"What-strals?"

The white-haired young man rolled his eyes, still in the process of cleaning his dagger with his pant leg, "She said 'Thestrals', you dolt. Unfortunately, I haven't a clue what these 'Thestrals' are." His job done, he re-hid the knife somewhere on his person (Luna hadn't caught the movement, for it was much too quick) and also made her the subject of his attention, "Care to explain?"

"They're skeletal horses," Luna explained, that dreamy-quality flowing back into her voice, "You can only see them if you've seen death. They're really quite gentle, if you allow yourself to get past their appearances."

"Creepy."

Luna shook her head, a smile on her face, "No, not really."

The white-haired boy – his name was Bakura, Luna did believe – nudged his friend's rib cage, "Malik, let's go. You didn't want to be in here in the first place."

Malik nodded at his friend, "Sure." He glanced at Luna, and her eyes met that deep, unpredictable violet again, "Make sure you get back to the school, okay kid? You're only alive right now because we happened to be here."

Luna nodded absently, her thoughts whirling as to these two enigmatic young men.

Malik turned, giving her a two-fingered salute, before padding off after his friend, who'd already started to leave.

She sat there, only a few feet away from the carcass of a monster that had tried to kill her only moments before, and pondered. Her eyes fell half-lidded with thought, and a half-frown adorned her features.

"How curious." She whispered to herself, a smile suddenly appearing on her face.

Don't judge a book by its cover, her father always had told her.

Perhaps, Luna thought in wonderment and amusement, there is more than just a Voldemort-following cover to some books.

And perhaps, She reflected, standing up and dusting herself off, Hogwarts is making a very terrible decision in misjudging these two particular books.

Happy with her small moment of insight, Luna skipped off back towards Hogwarts grounds, whistling a merry tune.

End of Chapter

I know that the last chapter had very little of Bakura in it, but I wanted a little focus on Ryou for once. I flipped back through the story and realized that the main friendship focus is Malik and Bakura thus far, instead of all three of them. This, hopefully, balanced it out a bit. Chapter eight touched on Bakura and Ryou's friendship, and so did this one, along with a little friendship bonding between Malik and Ryou.

Oh, and I'm not entirely sure if Luna ever went back to Hogwarts. Thus, this may be a bit of a stretch with my creative license, okay? As far as I was concerned, she was at Hogwarts up until she was captured by Death Eaters and later held hostage in the Malfoy Mansion. When she escaped, she went on to fight in the giant war on Hogwarts grounds. That's what I thought it was. XD

Also, thanks for all the lovely reviews I got for chapter nine! You're far too flattering!

Review! I like feedback, especially constructive criticism.