"Why do you waste your time on those losers?" Kaiba grumbled as he and Harry shared lunch together.
"Don't tell me you're jealous?" Harry teased with a smile.
Seto scowled in answer.
"You don't have to be you know," Harry continued happily, leaning into Seto's personal space just a bit – which was enough to cause Seto's scowl to further deepen, though he was much to proud to back away from Harry. Slowly, they were actually becoming friends, odd as their friendship was.
"I promise," Harry purred, fighting to keep a straight face. "I won't tempt Muto-san away from you."
"What?" Seto just about yelped, except of course that his voice wouldn't ever be high enough for him to really yelp, but it was as close as he'd ever get.
"I'm just helping him figure out that he is actually smart enough to be worthy of you, without the help of his Puzzle," Harry said, having to close his eyes so that he didn't bust his gut from laughing at the expression on Seto's face. "I know you wouldn't like it if he had to rely on it for everything after all."
"To rely on anything other than yourself is weak," Seto agreed, then scowled. "I do not want Muto Yugi!"
He couldn't hold it in any more, and the laughter burst forth, wild and free and unstoppable until it had run its course and left Harry having to breathe deeply to make up for not having been able to a moment ago. There were even tears in his eyes he'd been laughing so hard.
"The look on your face," Harry said as he wiped the tears away. "But I'm serious," he said, once he was properly calmed down. "I'm just making sure that Muto-san doesn't need his Puzzle. It's made of pure gold after all, any thug would want it just for that, and there's a lot more to the Puzzle than just its material worth."
Seto grunted, agreeing to the point but very put out by Harry's joking around.
After school was over, Harry stood from his seat and he glanced over at Yugi. The boy made excuses to his friends and hurried over to his green-eyed classmate. Together, they left the classroom and the school grounds, which caused some confusion among Yugi's other friends.
Harry and Yugi head to the Kame Game shop, then up the back stairs to where Yugi and his grandfather lived above the shop, and into Yugi's own room. They are here, rather than Harry's house, because the familiar environment should give some level of security and comfort to Yugi, and that would help with what Harry intended to help him do.
"So, what exactly are we going to do?" Yugi asked as he sat down, cross-legged, on his bed.
Harry sat down further down the shorter teen's bed, mirroring his posture and taking his Ring out from beneath his shirt. "The Millennium Items known as the Eye and the Key both grant to their wielder the power to see into the mind or soul of the person being subjected to them. The Eye looks in from the outside, without the owner ever entering your mind. The Key actually allows its holder to totally enter the mind of another. The difference between looking through a window and entering through a door."
Yugi nodded his understanding of this metaphor, and Harry continued.
"In ancient times, when they were made, it was through the use of these Items alone that these feats were possible. Since then, other magical practitioners have learned how to do these things, and how to block such assaults, without them. These days, to be able to search the mind of another is called Legillimency, and the ability to block others from reading into your mind is called Occlumency. I will cast the spell for Legillimency, and that will let me into your mind," he explained.
"Like Shadi did with his Key," Yugi said.
Harry nodded. "And you will be there, because it is your mind, and he will be there," Harry said, pointing to the Puzzle that hung from Yugi's neck. "Because he is part of your mind now, just as the spirit of the Ring will be there as part of me."
If this had been happening four months ago, that would have been risky. The Thief King wasn't keen on the Pharaoh after all, and for a legitimate reason. If it had been four years ago, it would have been an outright bad idea. It had taken a lot of work on the part of his curious teachers at his cram-school – all of whom had been bound with secrecy oaths – to remove the other spirit, the truly malicious spirit, that had also attached itself to the ring. The spirit of Zorc, which had thankfully been resting, dormant, for so many years. But that would have been an unmitigated disaster. Now? Bakura might sneer at the Pharaoh a bit, be a little shirty, but there wouldn't be any attempt at violence on his part.
"Then what?" Yugi asked.
"I don't know," Harry answered, to Yugi's surprise. "I don't know, because I don't know what it's like in your mind. The aim is to tidy up, organise, mend, find lost memories, that sort of thing, but I won't know how we go about doing that until I'm in there -" Harry tapped Yugi's forehead for emphasis, "- and can see what it all looks like."
Yugi nodded his understanding, took a deep breath, and nodded his readiness.
Harry cast the spell.
~oOo~
Harry stood, with Bakura at his side and the Ring hanging around his own neck rather than the neck of the Thief King, in a hallway with two doors. One door is open and Harry didn't even need to crane his neck to see that the floor is scattered with toys. The other door is closed and ominous in a way that is similar to – but more regal than – Bakura's presence within Harry's own mind.
Harry goes to the open door first, knocking on the door-frame and not setting foot within.
"Shokunin-san!" Yugi greeted with a smile. "It worked?"
Harry nodded. "This is your mind, and that," Harry said, turning to face the other door, "is the mind of the spirit of the Puzzle."
"And, who is that with you?" Yugi asked, peering around Harry to see the Thief King.
"Bakura, King of Thieves, tomb raider, and ancient spirit of the Millennium Ring," the dark-skinned, grey-eyed phantom said, introducing himself grandly.
Yugi's eyes, normally large, bugged out at this introduction before he stammered a 'pleased to meet you' and stepped out of his Soul Room properly.
Harry moved to stand in front of the other door in Yugi's mind, and knocked. It opened under his touch.
"It's alright," called the spirit of the Puzzle from within. "You may enter my chamber, if that is what you desire, but I warn you: tread cautiously. I will allow no harm to come to the boy who's vessel I share."
"You mean... this boy?" Harry asked, stepping aside and showing Yugi to the spirit.
Yugi waved, perhaps a little sheepishly, to the other presence that lived within him.
"Yugi!" the spirit yelled, worry suddenly present on his features as he dashed forward to the boy.
"Calm down, your majesty," Bakura said with a slightly sarcastic lilt. "We come in peace. Heck, we come on a mission to help you remember all the stuff the shrimp here says you forgot."
"Civility, however insincere, and a cessation of overt hostility, Bakura," Harry reminded his companion. "That was the deal you agreed to. I know better than to entertain the idea of you ever becoming friends, but do be nice anyway?"
The Thief King sighed, but nodded.
"They're really here to help, Yami," Yugi assured the spirit.
The spirit of the Puzzle sighed. "Very well," he allowed, though he didn't move away from Yugi at all.
"The key to remembering forgotten things will be in your subconscious," Harry said, taking charge of the situation with a business-like air. "Are you able to grant access yourself, or must we search for it?"
"I can open that door for you," the spirit agreed, and with a snap of his fingers the room beyond the door – where they all still stood – changed.
Harry nodded. "This is going to take a while," he said as he looked around the maze of stairs and doors.
"Except that you've still got homework to do tonight," Bakura quipped.
Harry nodded in agreement and raised the Ring, eyes closed as he formed the thought of what he was seeking so that the Ring could guide them. Doing this with magic, rather than without, would speed up the process a great deal.
"You're coming too," Bakura said to the other spirit. "It's you we're helping after all, and I'm sure you'd like to be on hand so remember things for yourself."
"That is interesting," Harry said with a smile as he stepped up to a blank wall. He lay his hand over it and gently pushed. The wall shifted back, then to the side, and a new corridor opened out.
"This is the same corridor that I saw with Shadi before..." Yugi commented, looking up at all the stone tablets with Duel Monsters carved into them.
"That one," Bakura said quietly, pointing to the tablet that held the Dark Magician. "He had the Ring before me. Mahad."
"Mahad?" the spirit of the Puzzle exclaimed. "I know that name! But why can't I remember?"
Bakura snorted in disgust. "Damn Pharaoh," he scoffed. "Not remembering his most loyal subjects when they sacrifice themselves for him."
Harry didn't scold the Thief King about manners again. He was rather of the same opinion.
"Shadi said something about the Dark Magician being loyal only to his Pharaoh," Yugi recalled quietly.
Harry stepped up to stand in front of the stone tablet, and took off the Ring that was hanging around his neck. "Can you remember who you used to be, Dark Magician?" he asked the tablet, holding the Ring up before the figure there.
A hand came forth, tanned and with bands of gold appearing with the wrist. It wasn't the hand of the monster, but of the man he had once been. Slowly, the rest of the man followed until he stood before them, and when he saw Yugi and the spirit of the Puzzle, he knelt before them.
"Your soul remembers our friendship, my Pharaoh, even if your mind has forgotten," the tall man said from where he was bent before the two much shorter figures.
"Honourable Mahad," Harry said from behind him. "It has been centuries, and much has been forgotten. Will you guide your Pharaoh to remember what he has forgotten of himself? Will you aid Muto Yugi in the lessons he must learn?"
Mahad stood and turned his attention to Harry and Bakura. "Will you not? You bear the Ring, as I once did. To guide is the responsibility of those who hold it," the spectral memory, called forth by Harry and the Ring, asked.
Harry shook his head. "I cannot be at their side so often, though I do sometimes offer guidance where I can. You are a memory re-awakened within, and can aid them both far better than I can," he answered.
Mahad nodded. "I am a memory," he said. "And a guard. I shall guide as well as I can."
Harry nodded and turned to Yugi. "Then I'll show myself out. Having others be in your head isn't a good thing for you, and being in your head isn't a good thing for me. Not really. Do you know how to remain here by your own choosing?"
Yugi's expression fell into one of unsure concern, then the spirit of the Puzzle lay a hand on the boy's shoulder. "I know," he answered. "Thank you for your help."
Harry nodded and turned to leave.
"Be careful of your own booby-traps," Bakura called happily as he followed Harry out of the Pharaoh's mind, clearly entertained by the idea of the Pharaoh being squished up something he'd set up himself.
Harry smiled, back in his own body and mind, as he got up from the bed where Yugi remained, still as ever, exploring within his own mind. Harry didn't touch him, and just let himself out, waving to Sugoroku as he passed the old man.
"He'd just better not become unbearable," the Thief King commented within Harry's mind as they walked back to Harry's home. "Yugi's an alright kid. I'd hate to see him get a swelled head from being so closely associated with the damn Pharaoh."
"I'm sure he'll be just the same as he ever was," Harry answered with a quiet chuckle.
~oOo~