This one is for Karen, who wrote me a review this morning in the form of "Get your butt into gear!" Thanks. ' Actually, I've just come back from a personal ban of because I had the biggest test of my life last weekend. And some of you may understand me when I say proudly say that I am an HB. Woot for Pony Club.

Harry Potter and the Phantom Thief

Chapter 12

"Just a moment," Daisuke said assertively, stepping past the confused Ginny with a look of determination. He approached the painting that Seireth and her steed were currently occupying. "I'm sorry about earlier. What was the rest of the message?"

"It's Krad," Seireth answered directly. "He wants to kill you."

He heard Ginny's sudden and violent intake of breath behind him, the only warning before she latched herself onto his arm. Daisuke's eyes widened at the message, but the rest of him remained perfectly still. The three stayed motionless for a moment, Seireth holding Daisuke with her gaze and Ginny holding Daisuke's arm tightly between her hands.

"I don't mean to alarm you, Daisuke," the Dragontamer said, her voice softening. "However, Dark believes that it is important that you are at least warned. Be on your guard." She paused for a moment, letting her words sink in.

"What are you talking about?" Ginny suddenly demanded imperiously, dropping Daisuke's arm. The boy suddenly realized that she had not grabbed his appendage in fear of the death threat, but protectively, as an answer to a threat from an unknown source. Ginny was standing next to him, almost in front of him.

"This does not really concern you," Seireth responded smoothly, her gaze turning from Daisuke to the red-haired girl. "This was in fact a message intended for Daisuke. If he wishes to explain its meaning, he may, but that decision is his, and not mine."

"Er, Ginny," Daisuke began, smiling nervously. She looked at him, giving him a look that said she did not want to hear any excuses or attempts to denigrate the circumstances. Daisuke attempted to laugh, but the sound came out too breathy and too high, so he cut it off short. Besides, Ginny had just narrowed her eyes, telling him nonverbally that she was seeing right through his little façade.

"Um," Daisuke began again, wishing that he were smarter. He did not really want to drag Ginny into what was undoubtedly a mess, but he could not think of a way to leave her out of it and tell her everything at the same time. He wondered what Hiwatari would do in this sort of situation, hoping that it might give him some kind of clue. But he needed some time to think. So he would try to put the explanation off until later. "Um, don't we have to go to class?" he queried, hoping that Ginny would be as excited about History of Magic as Parvati and Lavender had been about Divination.

No such luck.

"Daisuke, I want to know exactly who this Krad person is, and then I want you to come with me so we can find Professor McGonagall and tell her what this is all about." Her tone left no room for arguments. Daisuke looked away, and his attention focused on the Dragontamer, who seemed to be waiting to see if Daisuke would indeed tell the girl. He tried to give Seireth a particularly hard stare, hoping that she would think of some official reason, true or not, for why he could not tell Ginny. Ginny gave a short cough, bringing back his attention. When his eyes finally returned to her, she folded her arms, and waited for Daisuke's answer.

The hallways were clearing of other students and noise, making Daisuke feel more and more uncomfortable. He knew he would feel terrible if something happened to Ginny because he had told her about his problems. Really, it was something he was supposed to worry about, and generally keep to himself.

"Er," Daisuke started, his smile fading. He made a decision and then looked directly at Ginny's feet. "I'm sorry, Ginny, but I think it might be too dangerous to tell you, and I don't think you should get inv—"

"Locomotor Daisuke!" hissed Ginny suddenly, flicking her wand at Daisuke and then towards the ceiling.

Daisuke let out a yell as he quite suddenly found himself jerked into the air and then turned upside-down. His robes fell down around his head of spiky hair, making it suddenly quite impossible to see. He struggled and tried to push the black material away from his face, to no avail.

"Verflucht, verflixt, verdammt noch mal! Ginny!" he yelled in frustration, slipping into German in surprise. He hoped she would let him down, and wondered at the same time why she had suddenly turned on him.

"Don't you think you're a little naïve to be lecturing me about dangers?" Ginny asked, and to his relief there was no hint of malice in her voice, only mischief. "I think it's fair to say that you want my help," the girl told him, and then he suddenly felt his body receive a mildly rough shake.

"Verflixt! Okay, I get it!" The blood was beginning to rush to his head, and he still couldn't see anything. Daisuke suddenly felt himself righted, and he shoved the robes into place as he was released from the spell about a foot off the floor. He glanced around to see if anyone else were around, and fortunately saw no one but a frumpy-looking cat staring directly at him with an expression like mirth. Then he caught Seireth with her hands plastered over her mouth to keep from laughing. Daisuke could feel how his face was horribly red, and not entirely from the physics of being held upside-down, but rather from the embarrassment of it.

"So?" Ginny asked, and to Daisuke's chagrin, her wand was still at the ready.

"Er, about what Seireth said," the boy began slowly. Ginny motioned him to come closer, and as he did she leaned against the wall and slid down to sit on the floor. Daisuke did the same next to her, letting out a long breath as he sat down. Ginny might indeed prove to be a valuable asset in the upcoming battle against Krad. It was probably wise to have as many friends as possible helping him. Like how Riku and Risa had teamed up with Mio Hio to help. With that thought firmly in his mind, Daisuke attempted to describe the situation to Ginny.

"Well, Krad is like…." Daisuke struggled for the appropriate words, feeling like his English was woefully inadequate. "Krad is…not my friend," he stated resolutely. He cocked his head at Ginny. "In fact, once he tried to…control a friend of mine," Daisuke continued, thinking of Satoshi. Ginny was nodding. "Er, Krad is a painting."

The girl suddenly stopped nodding, and gave Daisuke a strange look. "If he's a painting, Daisuke, then how is he possibly a threat?"

"Oh, well he's not, like, actually, a real painting," Daisuke explained, suppressing the urge to laugh nervously. "He's a living painting, and sometimes he used to control my friend." Daisuke could tell that something was not really coming across in the way he intended.

Ginny's face wrinkled as she tried to grasp what he was saying. "What do you mean by a living painting?"

"Er…" Daisuke started, trailing off because he was not really sure how to explain that, especially in a foreign language. "I mean that a long time ago, someone painted a picture, and then Krad came out of the picture and started controlling people." Daisuke grimaced at Ginny, and for a moment, their faces seemed to be mirroring each other.

The witch turned away suddenly, and leaned her head back against the wall. "What do you mean he came out of the picture?" She stared up at the ceiling.

"He, well, came out of it, and into a person." Even to Daisuke, it sounded incomprehensible.

Ginny rolled her head along the wall to look at him levelly. "Daisuke, that doesn't sound possible."

"But it's magic!" he countered hopelessly.

"What's this?" cackled an unfamiliar voice from somewhere down the hallway. "Students skipping class?"

"Darn, it's Filch!" Ginny hissed, jumping to her feet. She hauled Daisuke up and started dragging him down the hallway at a run. "If he catches us, there's no chance we'll get to the bottom of this!"

"Huh?" Daisuke managed as they took a sharp left and began racing down a flight of stairs.

"We'll get detention for sure, and Filch won't listen to any kind of excuse!" the witch explained when they reached the bottom of the stairs. She finally let go of his wrist, and pointed down a hallway on their right. "Hurry! This way!"

They ran past suits of armor and walls full of portraits, always going down whatever stairs they came to. Fortunately, it seemed like every magical item in the castle was on their side and ready to point their pursuer, whoever it was, in the wrong direction. Finally they reached a wide hallway with doors on either side.

"In here," Ginny said, reaching to open the door. "Quiet now…." She slowly pushed the door open, and Daisuke was surprised to see that the room led to the back of a classroom. Ginny walked in soundlessly, to the smiles and questioning looks of her classmates. She motioned Daisuke to follow, and he did, squeezing behind the other students to sit at an empty desk with Ginny.

And then his eyes moved to the front of the room, where he saw the teacher, who appeared to be transparent. Daisuke blinked several times, and then realized that he actually could see the blackboard behind the teacher, and that the teacher did have a silvery glow to him. His voice was horribly monotonous, even more so than Azumano's 7th grade math teacher, who was famous for putting students to sleep. Daisuke noticed that several of the students by the windows were actually already sleeping, even though class could not have started more than ten minutes ago and it was the first day of school.

He glanced at Ginny as she pulled out a book, a roll of parchment, and a quill pen. She smiled and shoved the book to the space in between them.

"We'll share for now," she whispered. Daisuke nodded, and then gave a quick glance at the teacher, hoping that Ginny had caught the movement of his eyes. Her brow wrinkled, and then she started nodding. "Oh, Professor Binns is a ghost, but he's still reeaaallly boring. He's the History of Magic teacher, so…well, I feel sorry for you having to take four years of this at once," Ginny said quietly, unrolling her parchment and beginning to take notes.

Daisuke looked over at the ghostly teacher, and sighed.

"… covering the goblin rebellions and the founding of the Ministry of Magic…."

A student began to snore, and was rudely awakened by the fellow sitting next to him.

"… beginning in 1052, the goblins began reconstructing the tribes they had previous to the 1040…."

Not even a ghost makes history class interesting? Daisuke had never cared too much for history classes, except maybe the history sections in art… or things having to do with the cultural reformation, but that was because the cultural reformation had been important… like the story of Ice and Dark… and Freedert and Elliot's love…. That was important stuff…. Daisuke wondered how Riku was doing. They had really only been apart for two days, but it felt like a lot longer.

He decided that when he got back to his dorm, he would write her a letter. He should probably warn her about Krad, too. If Krad wanted to make Daisuke a target, then both the Harada twins were probably targets. And come to think of it, had something already happened to Hiwatari? If Krad were already on the loose… then Hiwatari might already be….

He decided that in his letter to Riku, he would ask her to check on Hiwatari for him. Yes, that would be good, because then he would not feel silly for sending a letter to Hiwatari. And that way his letter to Riku would be longer. He was pretty sure that Riku would be happily surprised if he sent her a big fat letter, right off the bat. Daisuke smiled to himself, as he imagined her opening her mailbox, then squealing with delight when she saw that she had a letter from Daisuke. Then she would race inside, and Risa would probably be jealous, but he would make sure to add a little sheet of paper inside that would be for Risa so she would not feel too bad, and then Riku would run up to her room and sit on her bed and read it. Maybe she would read it aloud, but to herself. Or maybe it would be like in the movies, and she would imagine Daisuke's voice, reading it aloud to her. He nodded to himself. Definitely the second option, where she would imagine his voice, especially when she got to the end. P.S. I love you….

"… and the ruling wizards were undecided on the matter, so they went before the wizarding community in the first democratic vote in 1162…."

Daisuke opened his eyes as the teacher's droning voice clashed with his daydream. Ginny was leaning her cheek on one hand, her eyelids only half open. Another student had fallen asleep, and the boy right in front of Daisuke was snoring softly. Daisuke grimaced, and looked up at the teacher with determination to pay attention. It was hard to sit in the back and pay attention and understand the monotone English, but he would give it his best effort.

He looked to see if anyone else were giving it his or her best effort. Well, maybe Ginny was… but she was not doing so well. Perhaps she was worn down after years of this same thing. Daisuke wondered how many wizard teachers there were and what the qualifications for such a job were. Maybe no one liked to teach magical history. But no, that could not be right, because there were plenty of people who liked to teach normal history, and were excited about it. And magical history was bound to be more interesting. Or perhaps it was less interesting to magical people. Maybe they thought that non-magical history was more interesting. Daisuke remembered how Ginny said that sometimes her dad liked to pretend to be a Muggle. It was probably true that wizards found Muggles interesting, just like Muggles found wizards interesting. Not that most Muggles knew about wizards and magical stuff….

"…but the goblin tribes wished to overrule the decision made by the first wizarding council…."

Daisuke straightened, remembering his pledge to put forth his best effort to pay attention. He had been spacing out again. When it was exam time, he knew he would have to reread his textbook for this class. Well, at least he knew he could study with Ginny. Maybe they could make a pact to help each other stay awake in class. He glanced at the girl again, and saw her eyelids droop shut for a moment, before fluttering back to half-awake.

He surreptitiously poked her on the side of her arm. She lifted her head off her hand in surprise, and gave Daisuke a questioning look.

He shook his head, and then pointed at the book with an encouraging smile. She exhaled and rolled her eyes. But she finished the gesture by turning a few pages in the book and looking at the teacher. She even wrote something down.

A few moments later, she passed the parchment to Daisuke, and he saw, to his disappointment, that it had nothing to do with what the ghost was saying. Well, the heading was History of Magic: Goblins 1000-1200. But whatever was beneath it was obviously a message to Daisuke, and not some random fact that was in any way related to goblins, or the time period mentioned. He sighed.

Try explaining Krad better, ok?

Ginny kept her eyes on the ghost behind the desk at the front of the room as she passed her quill to him. She even blinked and nodded. Daisuke took the quill and then looked down at the paper. After a few moments, he began. Once he thought about it, he realized that putting it on paper was probably better than trying to explain it out loud. After all, he was a pretty good artist and pictures had no language barriers.

First, he drew Krad's face. He captured the narrow eyes, the sinister grin, and the long lines of hair. Then he drew an arrow pointing at the face, and wrote KRAD. Next was a picture of Dark, with his mischievous eyes, cocky smile, and messy bangs. He drew an arrow and labeled the face DARK. Around the two faces he drew a frame, and then labeled the frame asDIE SHWARZE-FLÜGEL (THE BLACK WINGS). Daisuke paused for a moment, and Ginny leaned over, obviously more interested in what he was drawing than what the teacher was saying. He could not blame her.

Ginny drew back with a look of amazement, and gave him a thumbs-up under the desk after pointing at the two faces. She thought he was a good artist. Daisuke looked away, hoping he could avoid turning into a tomato. He still got embarrassed when people complimented him. When he glanced back, Ginny was studying the drawing, looking puzzled. Daisuke held up the quill, and she motioned for him to continue.

Daisuke then inked a man sitting in front of canvas, painting. This was HIKARI, and next to it was a roguish-looking fellow that somehow ended up also looking like a ninja, which he called NIWA. Then Daisuke was stumped.

How does one draw a soul? How was he supposed to capture the image of Dark's soul? Of Krad's? Perhaps words worked well after all….

He then drew an arrow between the picture frame and the canvas in front of the artist. He labeled the Niwa ninja as THIEF. He added ART in front of THIEF. Then he paused again. This was so difficult to explain!

He looked at Ginny to see if she was following along. She was smiling, and admiring his drawing. She pointed at the Niwa ninja-art-thief. Then her finger moved to point at Daisuke. She must have remembered that his last name was Niwa. Oh, she probably thought that he was the ninja-art-thief. But then again, Daisuke had done a lot of thieving in the past year, when Dark was around….

He smiled uncomfortably. Perhaps this would be easiest when he could draw andtalk…. He looked back down at the drawing.

He added stars and swirls around the Hikari artist, and then just wrote WIZARD next to him. Ginny nodded to show that she understood what was going on. She pointed at Dark, and Daisuke held up a finger, asking her to wait a moment. Things had to go in a chronological order here, or else it would all get confused.

Underneath it all, Daisuke wrote a few sentences.

Hikari is painting Die Schwarze-Flügel. He is putting life into it. Niwa steals Die Schwarze-Flügel. Die Schwarze-Flügel breaks up and becomes Dark and Krad. Niwa and Hikari are cursed.

Daisuke reread his handiwork, and then added, And their children are cursed, too.

This time when Ginny pointed at him, he nodded vigorously. Ginny bit her lower lip and looked sympathetic. She also looked very concerned, as if Daisuke were about to drop dead any minute. Daisuke shook his head, and smiled, pointing at the picture of Dark.

There was no way that he could think of Dark as a bad curse. Especially not when there was a chance of seeing him again. Especially not now.

Ginny shook her head to signify that she did not understand how Dark was a reasonable response to her worry about the curse, and pointed at the sentence:He is putting life into it. She gave him her "you are confusing me" look.

Daisuke looked at the sentence, and wondered if he could draw something like that. Probably not. He had listened to Dark talk about it, sure, but he doubted he could make an intelligible picture out of it.

So he was left with trying to tell her what happened in English words.

Hikari is making the picture be able to move. Life makes it move. He is giving D.S-F. a soul.

Ginny looked alarmed at the last word and grabbed the quill back.

not possible, she wrote quickly. She slid parchment back to Daisuke, and tossed the quill on top. Clearly she did not believe that what he was saying was true.

Daisuke nodded insistently, keeping his eyes locked onto Ginny's as he tapped the parchment with the drawings.

"…they, however, were defeated in late 1163, when the wizard council, now led by Orbificus IV…" Binns droned on, turning Daisuke's brain into a static puddle.

He shook his head to clear it, and looked carefully at his drawings. Under the headingHistory of Magic: Goblins 1000-1200, Dark and Krad were in a picture frame, which was above an artist painting something and a guy in black. Underneath it were a few sentences, and then Ginny's not possible. No wonder she had trouble understanding what was going on.

Daisuke shook his head at Ginny, underlined the part about the soul, and then wrote, MAGIC. Ginny gave him a flat look, as if she meant that he could not use magic as an excuse for everything. Daisuke only blinked back. Perhaps he was misreading her.

Daisuke looked down at the page again, and then suddenly bells were echoing around the room. Students stood up (although some were only waking up), and put their school things away. Ginny grabbed her book and then hurriedly rolled up the piece of parchment with a small but stern nod to Daisuke. He was glad that she understood that things like that should not be left lying about where anyone could see.

"Um, I need to get my book, so I'll be right back," Daisuke told her before making his way to the front of the room. He was moving completely against traffic, and the other students were giving him odd looks, probably because they had no idea who he was and he was taller with outrageously spiky red hair. He smiled and for the most part ignored them.

"Excuse me," Daisuke said when he reached the front desk. The teacher had just turned around and looked to be about to make an exit through the blackboard. The silvery apparition rotated back to face Daisuke. "I, um, I'm Daisuke Niwa. I'm here for my textbook?"

"Yes," Professor Binns said in the same tone he had used throughout class. "It's on the desk." Without another word, he turned back to the blackboard and sailed cleanly through it.

Daisuke stared after the teacher, vaguely wondering if that was what it had looked like when he had entered platform 9 ¾. He shook his head slightly and then looked down at the desk. Right in front of him was an ancient-looking book. He picked it up, and supposed that the look of the leather-bound object fit the subject matter.

"What are you doing?" asked Ginny, who seemed to be suddenly standing right behind him.

"Ah!" Diasuke yelled, dropping the book. "Oh, um, nevermind…" he covered, bending to pick up the fallen textbook as Ginny started laughing.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." She pressed her lips together in an attempt to look more contrite, and then looked curiously towards the book. "What's that for?"

"Um, this is for me. My teachers have all of my textbooks. When I tap them with my wand, they turn to German," Daisuke explained as he went back to his desk to collect his two other books from Care of Magical Creatures and Divination. (The Herbology book and the dragonhide gloves were kept in the greenhouses.)

"Oh," Ginny answered, picking up her own stack of school supplies. She followed him and waited in a kind of pensive silence as the last few students filed out of the room. She closed the door behind the last one, and then faced Daisuke. "So, what was all this about anyway?" she asked, unrolling the piece of parchment.

"A long time ago," Daisuke began, remembering when they had gone through their fairy-tale unit in English class, " a man, er, a wizard named Hikari painted, er, was painting a magical work of art." He looked over at Ginny to check if she understood, and she nodded. "Um," Daisuke began again, and then he gestured for Ginny to put the parchment on the desk in front of him so he could point at it. "Right, so this is Hikari. And this is, um, a Niwa person. One of my, uh, great-grandfathers? No, before that."

"Your ancestor?" Ginny asked. Daisuke blinked a few times at the unfamiliar word. "Like your great-great-great-great-grandfather or something?"

"Yes," Daisuke said resolutely. "So, Hikari is painting, and Niwa, not me but myancestor, is an art thief."

"Yeah, I got that already. Your drawings are really good," Ginny complimented. He got the feeling that she wanted him to move on.

"Okay, so Hikari is bringing the art to life. It's really difficult, you see, and Niwa could not wait until he was done, or maybe he thought that Hikari was done, so he tried to steal it then." Daisuke suddenly realized that perhaps he did not quite understand the matter so well. In his defense, he had not been there, and the person he knew who had been there, had been in the process of being born at the time. "Um, so everything got messed up. And that's why there's a curse."

"And about this curse," Ginny said in concern, "is there any way to break it? Or stop it?"

"Well, it's not really that kind of curse," Daisuke answered, suddenly realizing that he probably had to tell her that he was Phantom Thief Dark, or at least had been the thief last year. He wondered if that would go over well. But what if she told other people? He could not let the entire world know that he was Phantom Thief Dark, because then they would probably try to arrest him. Even though he was not Dark anymore.

"What does the cursedo?" Ginny asked, giving Daisuke a strange look. He had probably been letting his thoughts all over his face again.

"It's a secret," he told her firmly. He simply could not tell her that he was Phantom Thief Dark. Maybe he could tell her that Dark was his friend? Right. Dark's face was already scribbled onto the parchment anyway, and talking about Dark was vital to understanding Krad.

"Daisuke? Do you remember what happened in the hallway earlier? The last time you didn't want to tell me something?" Ginny said, looking away and pulling her wand from her pocket.

The boy faltered, and swallowed, his eyes catching on the thin piece of wood. "Er, no, I remember." He sighed and sat down in his chair. Ginny sat across from him, backwards in a chair, but with the air of a general strategizing for the next battle with the parchment between them like it was some kind of map. "Okay, so Dark is like a friend of mine," he said, and then realized that Ginny had asked him about the curse, and she did not know that the curse was Dark. She gave him a flat stare, and then looked back at the parchment.

"This guy?" she asked, pointing.

"Yeah, that's Dark. He's, um, wait, have you ever heard of Dark before?" he asked, realizing that Dark actually kept most of his thieving raids to places on the European continent. And although he was well-known in the Muggle world, he may not be so well known in the wizarding one.

"Um…" Ginny said, her eyes rolling to the ceiling as she thought. "Maybe, is he some kind of celebrity or something?"

"Er, no not really, but that's okay," Dasisuke covered. He wondered if he should lie about what Dark's profession really was, but then, if he did, didn't that sound like he didn't approve of Dark's work? Because he knew that what Dark did was good work, but most people just would not understand because they would think he was crazy if he told them that some art was magical and that it could come to life and it had to be sealed away so it did not harm normal people.

But Ginny already knew about magic, and she obviously knew that not all magical things were good things. In fact, she seemed to be highly suspicious of certain magical things, like hearing whispers and talking about curses.

"Hello, Earth to Daisuke, talk to me," Ginny said, waving a hand in front of his face.

"Dark takes bad art and seals it away so it can't harm people," Daisuke said suddenly, and then felt his face redden.

"Okay, but what does this have to do with anything else?" Ginny asked gently.

"Right, well, Dark is art. He's part of this thing, see?" Daisuke said, pointing at the line he had drawn around Dark and Krad and labeled DIE SCHWARZE-FLÜGEL. "And Krad," Daisuke continued, his explanation speeding up, "Krad is too. Together, they are Die Shwarze-Flügel. But a long time ago, when my, er, ancestor came, they split apart. And well, that um, made Krad very angry? But Dark's really nice. He's been a friend of my family ever since then." He looked at Ginny in a way that signaled that he had finished his explanation.

"Like, they were a couple?" Ginny asked, confused. Then suddenly she leaned forward. "Wait, is Krad gay?"

"What? No." Daisuke answered, shaking his head so that the tips of his red bangs flipped across his forehead. "They used to be the same person."

"But you also said Krad is a painting. Is he a gay painting?" Ginny persisted.

"No, he's, well…" Diasuke suddenly realized he did not know the fearsome artwork's sexual orientation, and then he caught the mischievous look on Ginny's face. "I have no idea if he's interested in men or not," he finished lamely. Ginny smirked, and then shook her head.

"Daisuke, I just need to know what's important, and why Krad wants to kill you," she said, and Daisuke realized that he had made his explanation far more complicated than he really needed to.

He nodded slowly. "Ginny, this kind of thing is something that you have to promise not to tell anyone," he told her carefully. She nodded solemnly. "Okay." Daisuke took a deep breath. "Last year, Dark and I had to fight against Krad. We won, but in the process, both Dark and Krad were sealed away inside the physical part of Die Schwarze-Flügel. My best guess is that Krad wants to get rid of me so that he can do what he wanted to do last year." He looked sideways over at Ginny across the desk.

"Okay," she said slowly. Her brow furrowed, and she pushed back a strand of red hair behind her ear. "So, what did he want to do?" Her voice had dropped to a conspiratorial whisper.

"Um." Daisuke considered her question. "I'm not really sure."

Ginny blinked in disbelief. She half-stood and put her hands on the desk to lean over it. "Then why did you stop him?"

"Well, bad things were happening," Daisuke defended. His mind reached back to that time, hoping to give Ginny a clear example of the problems he and Dark had staved off. "Well, for one thing Krad was controlling a friend of mine," Daisuke said, thinking of Hiwatari. He really hoped that Hiwatari was okay.

Ginny gave him a skeptical look, and then suddenly stopped. "Like an imperious curse or something?"

"Er, I don't really know what that is."

"Okay, so he was doing bad things, so you and your friend Dark, who has some kind of connection to Krad, went to stop him. When you locked up Krad, Dark got locked up too, probably because of this connection. So now Krad is free, and he wants revenge. And you got a message from Dark, because he got freed too, and he's on your side." Ginny's summary was amazingly accurate.

"Right," he said, a little stunned.

"Okay, so, what should we do?" she continued, moving into action mode now that story-time was over.

"Well, I just have to be on my guard, you know. And watch out for Krad in case he comes to kill me." It sounded simple, and it was. But it also sounded too simple. Daisuke realized that he lacked any kind of plan at all.

"And when he attacks?" Ginny pressed, and it seemed obvious that she had already known he had no plan.

"Then…I don't know." He glanced at Ginny, and then realized that he did not want her to worry too much, and his answer had been an extreme cause for worry. "I'll think of something," he assured her.

"Yeah, and I'll help." Ginny stood and rolled up the parchment, giving Daisuke a smile.

"Thanks," he answered, realizing that he was actually very lucky that Ginny wanted to help. He doubted that many students would want to become entangled in the confusion that Krad, Dark, and Daisuke now had around them, especially when a failure to be wary probably meant death. And also when it seemed as if Daisuke was not being particularly wary.

"But Ginny," Daisuke said as the girl turned to the door of the classroom. He stood and walked until he was standing beside her. He looked her in the eyes and did not let her look away. "All of this is a secret. Krad is very dangerous. If he finds out that anyone else knows what is going on, he might want to kill them too. That's why I did not want to tell you—to protect you from Krad."

She hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. "Unless it becomes too dangerous for us to handle on our own, Daisuke. If that happens, we are going straight to Dumbledore. Deal?" She held out her hand.

"Right." Daisuke shook her hand firmly, sealing their pact.

Anyway, I am SOOO sorry for having this take so long. I've had about nine pages of it finished since December, but then the rest of my life suddenly happened. Anyway, thank you to everyone who reviewed, and continues to stick with me through all this despite the horribly long waits. And now you all know that dropping me a review or something that says "Hey you! Don't drop off the face of the Earth!" actually works to get me going. Indeed, guilt-tripping works. I love all of you, and hearing from you, so don't hesitate to whine or yell at me, because it's not like I'd do anything back except... maybe... hurry up and finish the next chapter?

Seriously, though, since I've gotten in the habit of asking you your opinions, now we might just up the ante a little and make it into a challenge. There will be two independent ones, but I suppose you could answer and win both if you were really special.

1. Whoever leaves me the harshest, most in-depth critique will win special kudos and a preview of the next chapter (once I have the first half or so written). Yes, this is almost an invitation to flame me. However, it is not, because only people who actually bring up good points have a shot at winning.

2. Whoever can correctly guess why Satoshi is a prince (metaphorically) wins. You probably would also have to tell me what that would make Krad. And you would win...well, something really really good, because this is really tricky. (anja-chan and Angelic Demoness, you two are exempt from attempting to win this. Sorry.)

...And if anyone likes Death Note, I've got a story going about that and all... please read AfterLife, as well as the version of AfterLife written by anja-chan. Actually, read hers first. :)

Wow, that was a really long Author's Note. Well, see you next time.