A/N: Apologies for the delay in this service from Domino City to Hogwarts – this is caused by sheep on the line at Wool...no actually, it's caused by slowly running out of chapters and facing the daunting task of writing the next duels myself. Any of you splendid readers out there know how to bottle luck?
The delay can also be attributed to Ayacon 2013, which was bloody brilliant! Since links don't work here at all any more, head to the link to my blog (bennusnest) on my profile page for a full report of the convention weekend, along with photos!
Not that many reviews for chapter thirteen...is everybody cross with me, or something?
Bakura: Yes!...oh did I say that out loud?
OOO
Chapter 14: Snakes and Ladders
"I still don't see why we all have to be here, when you could just tell me where Azkaban is, and let me break in."
Harry rolled his eyes. After a year of being friends with Yugi, Ryou and Malik, he was more than used to Bakura's griping. Seeing another black taxi appear in the corner of his vision, he stepped quickly further into the pavement, dragging his friends with him. Bakura was not quite so lucky, and the taxi drove straight through the puddle of water that had collected in the gutter, spraying him full on in the face. An explosion of swearing burst from the Thief King's mouth. He could not understand a word of it, but from the way Hermione's eyebrows were meeting in a frown, she understood the gist of what he was saying.
"Language Mister Bakura," a soothing voice interjected. "I'm sure one of us can dry you off once we arrive at the Ministry."
"Whatever," Bakura grunted at Dumbledore. "And I still don't understand how you found out about this, or why you're here, old man. Don't have better ways to spend your summer holidays?"
"Well I don't know why any of you geeks are here," Kaiba snapped. "I could handle this just fine on my own!"
Ron snorted. "You're a muggle. You wouldn't be able to find the Ministry entrance without help."
"I don't need help," Kaiba growled through his teeth.
"For God's sake!" Tea interrupted, stamping her foot and causing several people exiting Charing Cross station to stare at her. "This is not helping us get Yugi or any of the guys back! Focus!"
Outwardly Kaiba appeared unruffled by her outburst. "Whatever," he sniffed, striding off down Whitehall with his coat billowing out dramatically behind him. Everyone else followed at a brisk pace.
"Why did he agree to come anyway?" Harry muttered to Tea. "I always got the impression he didn't really care."
Tea snorted. "Kaiba does care. It's just hidden under a very thick crust of stubbornness, cynicism and arrogance."
"So if he's all those things, why did he agree to come along?" Hermione asked. Tea gave a long suffering sigh.
"He'll claim it's because Yugi is his arch rival, and being in prison means he can't beat him. But honestly – it's because Yugi's the closest thing he's got to a friend and he wants him out." She gave another snort. "Besides, Kaiba isn't stupid. He knows false imprisonment when he sees it. And on the off chance that the wizards don't want to release Yugi, Joey and Tristan, Kaiba's rich enough to slip a few bribes. He's not the easiest person in the world to get on with, but we do need him."
She checked her watch and Harry could guess what she was thinking. It was half past twelve, and the longer Yugi, Joey and Tristan were in Azkaban, the more anxious she was getting.
When Harry and his friends had arrived just after nine, they had been filled in and spent an hour coming up with a plan to get them back, when Professor Dumbledore had arrived and insisted that they come with him to the Ministry to attempt a peaceful solution before sending Bakura to break in. They had agreed, but not before Harry, Ron and Hermione had made their own plans with Tea and Bakura to sneak off to the Department of Mysteries and see if they could find anything about Oshar. Since Bakura did not believe they could sneak their way into a paper bag, let alone a top secret Ministry department, he was going with them, while Tea, Kaiba and Dumbledore went to argue the case for releasing their friends.
After this had been planned out, an argument had arisen over who would go along with him. Serenity, Mai, Rebecca and Duke had all insisted that they come along too, but Tea had been the one to remind them that the police were still on alert about Malik, and they needed someone to stay at the hotel in case they found anything or he turned up. It was a long shot, but Harry had to admit that they were due for fate to cut them a little slack. A further hour had been spent arguing with Kaiba, which had made them all very twitchy and irritated by the time they set off in the taxi.
They arrived at the telephone box outside the Ministry, and Professor Dumbledore pulled open the door and gestured for them all the go in. Harry scurried in first, followed by Hermione, Ron and Bakura. Tea blinked at it a few times before squeezing in after them. Kaiba just snorted.
"You have got to be kidding," he said.
"If I was, it would make a very bad joke, Seto Kaiba," Dumbledore replied. "Please hurry. Time is of the essence."
"If you think for one second that I'm squeezing into that box for your amusement-"
Harry heard the low growl of frustration coming from Bakura's throat. He felt movement by his side, and saw the thief snake an arm out and yank the CEO in by his trenchcoat. Kaiba stumbled straight into Tea, and Dumbledore swiftly entered the box, closing the door behind him.
"Harry, if you wouldn't mind," the headmaster asked. Nodding, and wriggling a little so that he was in a better position, Harry dialled six two four four two.
"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic," the phone box cooed happily to them. "Please state your name and business."
Dumbledore cleared his throat. "Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley-"
Bakura gave a soft growl, and tapped his foot impatiently. Harry hoped that his temper would hold until they could get Yugi and the others out. He had a sneaking suspicion that sending the entire Ministry to the Shadow Realm would not help their cause.
"-Hermione Granger, Seto Kaiba, Ryou Bakura and Tea Gardner. We are here-"
Frustrated, Bakura interrupted. "We're here to punch your Ra-damned Minister in the face!"
"Thank you," the voice chimed. "Visitors please take the badge and attach it to the front of your robes."
With a clatter, a handful of badges rattled into the coin return slot. Professor Dumbledore plucked them carefully out and handed them around. Harry raised his eyebrows at his own, which read in large bold letters "Harry Potter – assault attempt on the Minister for Magic". He pocketed it. That would not help them by any stretch of imagination.
"Visitors to the Ministry, you are required to submit to a search and present your wand for registration at the security desk, which is located at the far end of the Atrium."
Kaiba scoffed. "If you think for one second I'm letting some crackpot in a robe search me-"
He never got any further, as the phone box began to descend into the ground. Harry felt a sudden sense of vertigo as they plunged into the earth, and he remembered with a jolt the last time he had been in this box with a crush of people next to him. How could he have forgotten that the last time he was down here was when he had lost Sirius? Simultaneously he wished he had not remembered. Now this mission felt doomed to failure, just as the last one had turned out to be.
"The Ministry of Magic wishes you a pleasant day," said the phone box.
The door sprang open and Dumbledore ushered them out into the massive entrance hall of the Ministry. It seemed significantly less busy than the first time Harry had been there, but then it was lunchtime and not first thing in the morning. Harry heard a low whistle and saw Tea staring at the gold text racing across the blue ceiling.
"Not bad..." Tea muttered, which took Harry by surprise. He'd been expecting a far bigger reaction coming from a muggle, but then he remembered that Tea had been to Hogwarts, and was probably getting used to it.
"Just not bad?" Hermione teased.
"Well...I preferred your school," Tea shrugged. "That place felt like it breathed magic...this place feels a little bit...smothering, you know what I mean?"
Harry laughed. That was far more appropriate than Tea would ever know. Interested now, he saw Bakura had arched an eyebrow at the high curved ceilings. Harry had no doubt that the thief was working out a means to climb them. Kaiba's face was completely blank, like he'd just walked into any underground station in London – in fact given the CEO's repeated denials of magic, Harry was willing to bet that was exactly what he was telling himself.
A chuckle came from Professor Dumbledore. "Follow me please."
They hurried through the crowds and towards the golden gates that lead to the elevators. The hall felt extremely empty, and it took Harry a moment to remember that the large space in the middle of the floor had been occupied by the Fountain of Magical Brethren until just over a year ago. It seemed that they had not yet found a suitable replacement.
Harry assumed that Professor Dumbledore would take them to the visitors' desk, but he made no move to stop, so they hurried along past it. Harry felt abruptly nervous. They were nearing the elevators, and they would need to find a way to split up and lose the rest of the group so that they could head downstairs and scour the Department of Mysteries. Something told Harry however that slipping away from Professor Dumbledore would not be easy. He had probably guessed that they were planning something. Harry had the Invisibility Cloak in his backpack, but even if he pulled it out, he could not put it on in the middle of a crowded hallway. And in any case, he had always suspected that Dumbledore could see through it...
He felt a nudge at his side, and caught Ron's eye. His friend nodded at the back of Bakura's head. The thief was patting the deck in his pocket, and a faint warm glow was coming from within. As they watched, Bakura began to drag his feet slightly, slowing their walking pace down and letting Dumbledore, Kaiba and Tea draw ahead of them.
For a moment, Harry did not understand just what Bakura was doing. Then he saw it. Everyone in the hall was heading for the same elevator cramming themselves in almost uncomfortably. Kaiba barged his way in, while Professor Dumbledore just smiled apologetically at the wizards whose toes the CEO had stepped on. Tea squeezed in behind them just as the door shut.
"Guys!" Tea called, as Bakura, Harry, Ron and Hermione finally made it to the doors.
"Meet you upstairs," Harry assured them, but he saw the look in Professor Dumbeldore's eyes, and he knew they had not fooled the wizard. There was no time to exchange any more reassurances, as somebody pressed the button and sent the elevator zooming off to another floor.
"I think he guessed," Harry said grimly. Bakura snorted.
"The old man can guess all he likes – doesn't mean I listen. Now come on. Let's grab another ride."
"How did you do that?" Ron asked, as another door slid back, and they pushed in. "Make them all go to the same lift?" Bakura smirked.
"Narrow Corridor trap card. Been very useful as of late. Now which floor are we heading to?"
"Level nine," Harry reported, closing the door before anyone else could get in. Several people threw up their hands in irritation, but Bakura had already hit the button, sending the elevator plummeting even deeper.
"Not exactly top security," the thief said, leaning casually against the elevator wall. "This is child's play. What did you all do last year? Walk through the front door?"
"Pretty much..." Harry mumbled, trying not to think about the last time he had taken the elevator down to this floor. He saw Hermione and Ron shooting him anxious looks, but he stared resolutely at his feet.
"Sooo..." Ron began nervously. "How's your hangover?"
Harry was confused for a moment, before he remembered the way Bakura had forced down the full English breakfast at the hotel along with about two litres of water. Strangely he had also asked after cabbage juice (apparently it was a remedy from his time in Egypt), but nobody at the hotel had been able to find any.
Bakura rolled his eyes. "Better I suppose..." He was obviously lying.
"My Mum knows a potion that wipes most of the symptoms away in about a minute," Ron said cheerfully.
"Oh great...now he tells me," Bakura grumbled, and Ron finally got the hint and shut his mouth as the lift doors slid back noisily. Bakura was the first to stride out, but he stumbled abruptly to a halt as his path was blocked by something small, squat and covered in pink.
"He hem."
Not for the first time that week, Harry wished the ground to open up – only this time, not to swallow him. The scars on the back of his hand tingled.
"Young man, the courtrooms are that way," clad in this season's most horrific shade of pink, Dolores Umbridge pointed a finger down the opposite corridor. "The juvenile detention room is numbe-" she paused, her eyes going wide as she finally registered the other three still standing frozen in the lift.
"Mr Potter..." her face curved into a smile that dripped honey. "This area is restricted to Ministry employees – this is no place for children."
All words were stolen from Harry's mouth – he had no idea what excuse they could possibly deliver. They were not supposed to be there, and now that she knew, Umbridge would no doubts make sure that they left the building as quickly as possible. Fortunately, Bakura had little patience for obstacles.
"Lucky for you then, we're not staying long." He barged past, taking great care to bang his shoulder into Umbridge. The short witch squawked indignantly, and Harry took the opportunity to scurry past her after Bakura, with Ron pulling Hermione right behind them.
"This is a restricted area! No wandering around!" Umbridge swept in front of them again, puffing herself out as best she could, seemingly a little irate that she only came up to Bakura's chin.
"Who the hell are you?!" Bakura demanded, one hand on his hip while the other rubbed his forehead. Umbridge lifted her chin proudly.
"Dolores Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic."
"She used to teach at our school," Harry finally found his voice.
"Bit generous of you mate," Ron put in. "Teaching would mean that we actually learned something. All I learned was how to sleep with my eyes open."
Bakura snorted. Umbridge shot Ron and Harry a dirty look, before hitching her smile back on her face, and turning to Bakura.
"Now dear I am sure that you are curious as to how the Ministry works, but we cannot just allow children to wander around and get in the way."
Bakura roared with laughter, and Harry could not stop his own chuckles, particularly as he saw the indignation return to Umbridges face, which gave her the look of a rather frustrated pink puffer fish.
"I suppose idiocy runs in your family," the thief finally sneered. "I am more than twice your age, and I will be damned if I let some puffed up toad get in my way."
The toad in question began swelling at Bakura's mocking tone.
"How dare you?! I am Senior Undersec-"
"And I'm the King of Thieves!" Bakura interjected, his eyes flashing with irritation, arrogance, and a spark of mad desire that suddenly made Harry very afraid. Bakura was spoiling for some kind of bloodshed, and for the first time ever, Harry did not want to be around when Umbridge got what was coming to her.
"A thief?!" Umbridge squeaked, before pulling out her wand. "In the heart of the Ministry! Hear to steal secrets no doubt from this department!" her eyes flicked over Harry. "And I suppose Mr Potter is in on this too – trying to stir up more trouble! This I cannot allow!"
Something dark like smoke was curling softly around Bakura's hands, and Harry realised in horror just what he was planned to do. Clearly he was not the only one.
"Hey, Bakura..." Ron began, but Bakura waved them back.
"Allow?" Bakura spat. "Nobody allows me anything. Nobody allowed me mercy or a chance. It was all stolen from me! Now I steal all my chances back!"
The Millennium Ring was glowing, but Umbridge barely seemed to notice, too fixated on the cloud of purple shadows blooming behind Bakura's head, filling the corridor with its oppressive bite. Harry backed away hastily, knowing they did not want to be caught anywhere near the Shadows. Ron and Hermione were stumbling beside him, their gaze fixed on the magic twisting through the hall before them. Too late, as Bakura, Umbridge and the middle of the corridor was swamped in thick smoky shadow, did Harry realise that they were now stuck on the wrong side of the corridor. The Department of Mysteries was on the other side, beyond the blockade of the Shadow Game.
"What do we do?!" Ron hissed. "How long d'you think it's going to be before someone notices that bloody great nightmare, and realises that something's wrong down here?!"
"I don't know!" Harry threw up his hands in irritation. "I don't think he was thinking! He was just really angry!"
"Pst! Potter!"
Turning sharply back towards the lift, Harry was astonished to see a pointed face with sleek blonde hair peering from around the corner of the corridor, his eyes darting in a frightened manner at the purple crackling cloud of shadows.
"Well don't stand there staring!" Draco Malfoy hissed. "Come here and get away from that thing!"
Harry remained rooted to the spot. Six years of mutual hatred had taught him that going anywhere near Malfoy never yielded good results. And yet at that very moment, there was a rattling clatter as the lift began to descend again from above. Any moment now, Harry realised, that lift could stop at this floor, and whoever was in it would see a group of three students down a restricted corridor not far from a murder scene, with what looked like a large amount of dark magic going on behind them.
The rattling got louder, but Malfoy was not paying it any attention, his eyes flicking more rapidly to the Shadow Magic, and Harry realised that he was genuinely afraid of it. Realisation hit like a splash of cold water. It had been so long since he had seen Malfoy that he had completely forgotten that the Slytherin had been involved in his own Shadow Game against Yami and probably recognised exactly what was going on behind them. He was warring with a deeply set fear in order to warn them of danger.
Though his instincts screamed against him, Harry willed his feet to move, darting down the corridor that lead to the courtrooms, where Malfoy waited tense like a cat ready to spring.
"About time!" the Slytherin grumbled, racing away down the corridor with his wand out. Harry tensed, until he saw Malfoy tapping a seemingly random section of wall. To everyone's astonishment, the wall swirled and warped, and a hole appeared in it, just large enough for a person to duck through.
"Down here!" Malfoy urged. Harry heard the lift clatter to a halt on the floor, and he knew they were out of options. Either they waited here and got caught, they went down the corridors and wound up in a courtroom and then got caught, or they went with Malfoy. Harry felt reasonably confident as he remembered that there were three of them and only one of the Slytherin, so he ducked his head and hurried in through the portal.
They appeared to be standing in a long tunnel that reminded Harry of a water pipe, big enough for a man to stand in. Glowing orbs of light lit the way, and distantly he could hear the rumble of something large and heavy moving at a fast pace.
"What in Merlin's name did you think you were doing?!" Malfoy demanded, sealing up the doorway behind him, leaving all four of them standing in the eerie glow. "The Department of Mysteries is restricted at the best of times, but we had a murder there last night! You're lucky you weren't arrested on the spot!"
He shook his wand angrily, and another orb of light lit up the end.
"It's none of your business what we're doing here!" Ron snarled. "If anything, we should be asking you that! Spying for your Death Eater pals were you?"
"Watch your mouth!" Malfoy snapped, rummaging in his pockets for something else. In his own pocket, Harry did not let go of his wand. "I haven't set foot near Death Eaters since the fight at Hogwarts in June! And not that it's any of your business, but I work here. I'm on a summer internship in the Department of Magical Transportation."
"Uh huh...tell another one," Ron snorted, but Hermione held up a hand.
"Wait Ron, I read about these internships in the Prophet – I would have signed up myself if I hadn't been coming to the tournament."
Harry stood, completely bewildered that Hermione of all people was apparently defending Malfoy to Ron – but his bewilderment cleared up quickly as Hermione pulled out her own wand and scowled at the Slytherin. "But even so," she carried on. "The Department of Magical Transportation is on the sixth floor. We're on the ninth, Malfoy. What are you doing skulking around a crime scene?"
Malfoy's cheeks pinked. "I wasn't skulking! This is a project of mine. But that's not important," he waved a hand impatiently. "Look, you all need to get out of here before anyone notices you-"
"We can't," Harry interrupted. "We need to examine that crime scene. And we can't leave without Bakura."
"Well he's in the middle of a Shadow Game right now," Malfoy pointed out. "Who knows how long that's going to take? It can't be important enough to risk getting locked up for!"
"Yugi, Ryou and Malik are important!" Ron burst out. "They're our friends! But I don't suppose that means anything to a ferret like you!"
"Wait wait wait," Malfoy backed away suddenly, holding up his hands, frustration being wiped away by clarity on his pale face. "Malik? What's happened to him?"
His eyes darted quickly between the three of them, demanding an explanation, and Harry remembered too late, that Malik had been something of a friend to the Slytherin at Hogwarts.
"He vanished yesterday morning," Harry briefed. "We think he's been kidnapped, but we don't know by who."
"My money is on his friends..." Ron growled, and Malfoy glared.
"I told you, they're not my friends!" He fisted his hands by his sides. "You don't know where Malik is?"
"No, that's why we're here," Hermione picked up. "They're picking us off one by one, and this murder is the first lead we've had."
Malfoy was frowning and thinking.
"Look, we can probably bypass the people who come to investigate," Harry admitted, thinking once more of his Invisibility Cloak. "But we can't get past the Shadow Game until it's over, and by then it'll probably be too late and the aurors will be on high alert."
"I can help you there," Malfoy interrupted, pulling a scrap of parchment from his pocket, and a crumpled quill. Fumbling with the ink, he hastily scribbled a note. Harry was instantly reminded of Malfoy's words to him on the first train journey to Hogwarts – "I can help you out there" – but this seemed different. Gone was the arrogance and sneering that had put Harry on guard that first time. In its place was a focused young man who almost looked – dare Harry say it – anxious?
"What are you doing?" Ron asked cautiously.
"Coming down with a very bad fever," Malfoy said, folding the paper into a scruffy origami crane. "In fact it's so bad, that I'm going to have to let my supervisor know that I'm going home for the day." He tapped the crane with his wand, and watched it fly off.
"...wait, what?" Ron asked again. Malfoy rolled his eyes.
"You need to get into the Department of Mysteries? And I want to help find Malik. So follow me. I'll get you in."
And he strode off down the tunnel. Harry hesitated, looking at his friends for guidance. Hermione shrugged, and Ron shook his head firmly.
"Come on!" Malfoy ordered, standing at the end of the tunnel and jerking his head in the direction that they needed to go. Hoping he wouldn't regret this, Harry paced after him, not letting go of his wand once.
"Right, just let me get my bearings..." Malfoy muttered, pulling a handful of papers from a deep pocket, and unfolding them. They looked crudely drawn architects sketches, with various lines and markings coming off them. Harry peered a little closer and saw that they were tunnels, spawning from different ends of the Ministry. He wondered just what Malfoy was up to.
"This way," Malfoy pointed off to the right, and pulled them down another tunnel. A rumble went off over their heads, and Harry heard Ron jump in fright. Malfoy checked his watch.
"Twelve fifty six out of Charing Cross," he reported. "Almost lunch time." Seeing their bemused faces he added, "Muggle Underground."
"What are these tunnels anyway?" Ron asked, coughing in embarrassment over how violently he'd been startled. "I've never seen them on any part of the Ministry of Magic floor plans."
"I'm not surprised," Malfoy answered loftily. "These tunnels were put out of commission in 1953. I'll bet only a handful of people know that they exist."
"So how did you find out about them?" Harry asked suspiciously. Apparent change of heart notwithstanding, he was not sure he was ready to trust the Slytherin one hundred percent yet.
"Father," Malfoy was determinedly looking ahead as he spoke. "He mentioned them once, so I poured through all the history books I could find. It wasn't easy – most wizard history books don't talk about muggle wars, so barely any record of the tunnel's commission was recorded."
"Muggle war," Hermione said suddenly. "Do you mean the Second World War? Are these escape tunnels?"
"Got it in one," Malfoy nodded. "The Ministry in 1939 might have been content to just let the muggles fight it out themselves, but it didn't change the fact that bombs still hurt if they fell on a wizard. Added to which, they weren't sure which way the German wizards were going to jump – sit it out, or back Hitler. If they'd backed him, the British Ministry could have been facing war on their own doorstep, and they had enough trouble with Grindlewald starting to mess around."
"So they built the tunnels in case things turned ugly?" Harry asked.
"Pretty much," the blonde Slytherin was nodding. "This is only the surface of the tunnels – they go way deeper than this. Most of them connect to the muggle Underground as a way out. Apparently that was where the muggles use to hide when the bombs went off. Actually, when the tunnels were decommissioned, a few of them were adapted into the muggle underground system." He smirked. "In fact if you've ever been on the Victoria or the Central lines you may have passed through some of them."
"No way," Harry was grinning, sure that Malfoy was having him on.
"It's true!" Malfoy protested. "I researched it myself! Once the war was over the muggles started expanding the Underground again, and they started coming across the tunnels. The Ministry couldn't keep using them – they weren't safe running so close to the train lines – so they just got the muggle ministry of transport to incorporate some them into the Underground."
"So this is what you've been doing all summer?" Hermione asked. "Exploring tunnels?"
"Well," Malfoy gave a long suffering sigh. "It's like Weasley said – there's no documented floor plan of them – anywhere. I've been searching through every archive and raiding every bookstore – even the muggle ones – for any information about underground tunnels and the muggle Underground, but all I get are bits and pieces. This whole network is pretty vast, but I've probably only got about an eighth of it. There is one library that father mentioned was supposed to have full blue prints, but I tried contacting them and just got a switchboard that sent me around in a circle." He pulled a face. "Muggle telephones. I'll never understand them."
Harry gave Ron and amused look, and his friends ears when a vibrant shade of pink.
"So yeah, I've been exploring the tunnels as part of my internship – hence the badly drawn maps," he waved his scraps of paper. "Father had proper ones from ages ago when they were first opened, but I didn't have time to copy them down before they were stolen."
"Stolen?" Harry frowned. "By who?"
Malfoy snorted. "Merlin knows. Barely two weeks went after the end of term, and I had all these people coming around to the house calling in loans and borrowed possessions that they claimed my father had organised over the years. Then three weeks ago, the manor was broken into. Didn't catch them, but they took a load of stuff. Well I'm not stupid. I realised I wasn't safe there. I mean if thieves can break in, it'd be easy for Death Eaters, right? So I took my stuff and moved out. I've been living in London ever since."
He spoke bluntly, and matter of fact, and so unlike his usual smug self assurance, that Harry did feel bad for him. He saw Hermione's forehead creased in a frown, and Ron just glaring resolutely at his back.
"We're here," Malfoy indicated, stopping by a side of the pipe. Unlike before, where they had gone in to the pipes via the strange portal that Malfoy opened with his wand, this exit had an actual door, which reminded Harry of the heavy metal ones you sometimes saw on submarines. It even had a wheel for a handle. Malfoy gripped it and began straining.
"Oh great..." he muttered. "I thought this one might be stiff. Don't think anyone's opened it since the war..."
Tucking his wand in his pocket, Harry took the other side and began to heave. The wheel gave by about an inch with a deafening screech.
"Never thought I'd see the day..." Ron muttered. His ears went red as both Harry and Malfoy stopped to look at him. "You know...you two working together...Malfoy liking us..."
Malfoy gave a humourless snort.
"I don't like you at all Weasley..." He assured him, going back to pulling on the wheel. He stopped for a breath as it gave another two inches. He glared firmly at the rust on the bolt. "...but I don't really think I hate you anymore. Malik was right. There's not really much point to it."
Harry almost let go of the wheel, which would have been the wrong move, as it had finally unstuck and was turning at a free speed.
"Why Malik? What got you two so chummy all of a sudden?" Ron asked, folding his arms. The wheel stopped as it finally finished its cycle, but Malfoy didn't move. He kept staring at his map, but Harry could tell that he was not really seeing it.
"He...gets it, y'know?" he shrugged. "He's not just another good guy preaching at me to do the right thing. He's actually been on both sides of that fence. He knows what it's like to be bad and good. And he chose which one he wanted to be. So if he can do it, it's obviously not impossible."
He heaved his shoulder against the door and it slowly creaked open. They stepped out, and their footsteps bounced off the walls.
Ron whistled.
"It's been a while..."
OOO
The magic twisted and swirled in delight, rushing to caress the newcomers like an intimate lover, and giggling ecstatically in delight. It was finally happening again. They had waited so long for entertainment. For a challenge from the one who called himself their master...
Bakura for his part, welcomed the rush of Shadow Magic that engulfed his whole body, lending strength and focus to his mind. For the first time since losing Ryou, he felt in control of the situation. He felt powerful once more. And he felt his heart beat faster in his chest at the prospect of the hunt and the chase that went hand in hand with a Shadow Game.
"What have you done?!" the witch was screeching, cutting through his near blissful delight. "I demand that you release me from this!"
Allowing himself to smirk, Bakura felt the urging – the call to give the Shadows their instructions. To shape them how he wanted. And he had the perfect game in mind.
"I have merely set a more appropriate scene for our conversation," Bakura almost crooned as the arena took shape around them. "You say I am a child? Well then...a big grown up like you should have no problems playing a game with me."
The Shadows giggled in joy, as the final touches were put in place. They stood at the base of a skeletal tower, made up of four pillars at each corner, with steps leading up in a square between them. Hung across the steps at random intervals, were polished, gleaming wooden ladders, and stone cobras stretching from side to side like the worlds oddest jungle gym. At the distant top of the tower, something glittered. Umbridge backed away a little fearfully.
"What is this magic? Where are we?"
"We are on a game board, Miss Umbridge..." Bakura smirked. "Don't worry. I'll explain the rules slowly so that you can keep up."
Two tiny little imps, who Bakura recognised from Joey Wheeler's Graceful and Skull Dice cards, appeared in midair, both clutching a golden twelve sided dice in their hands. The Graceful Dice imp tossed his at Umbridge's feet, which the Skull Dice imp tossed the other one to Bakura, who caught it with ease. They were both larger than your average dice, both about the size and weight of a garden flowerpot.
"The game," Bakura began. "Is Snakes and Ladders. Muggle children are very fond of it – I don't know about wizards. And this tower..." he raised a hand to indicate. "Is our board. Each staircase is a row of numbers on the board. You roll the dice and whatever number comes up, you take that many steps. Easy right?"
Still poking her dice cautiously with her wand, Umbridge looked up scowling. "I am not a simpleton, young man!" she snapped. "And that's too easy. What is the catch?"
Bakura only smirked wider. "Well, it's called Snakes and Ladders, isn't it?" he nodded to the first row of steps, where ladders were hammered in to the two and six squares, but the tip of a stone snake tail waited on the four. "If you land on a square that has the bottom of a ladder on it, you may climb up it. If you land on a snake head...well, the snakes will do the moving for you." He chuckled to himself.
"This is a ridiculous waste of my time!" Umbridge snapped. "I demand you release me at once!"
"It's too late now," Bakura hissed, allowing the shadows to darken his face. "The game has already begun, and there is no way out but to play." He narrowed his eyes as he saw her lift her wand. "Oh and while I think about it," he added as an afterthought. "None of your silly little magic spells are permitted in this game. You'll have to rely on your luck."
As he spoke, the Skull Dice imp reappeared, snatching the witch's wand from her grasp. She screamed and tried to seize it, but it was already flying up towards the top of the tower. Bakura happily handed over Ryou's wand to the Graceful Dice imp, who floated quickly after his partner.
"The Pharaoh was right," Bakura sneered in disgust at Umbridge's red and angry face. "Take away a wizard's wand, and you have nothing." He tossed his dice in his hands. "I'll go first."
He raised his golden sparkling D12, and blew on it for luck.
"Game start!"
The dice clattered to the floor, and rolled to a stop. Grinning at the auspicious start, Bakura picked up the dice, and walked up, one, two, three, four, five steps. He turned his head and nodded to her.
"Your move, Miss Umbridge."
OOO
"It's been fifteen minutes guys," Tea said, pacing anxiously. In one hand she was clutching a deck of cards – Yugi's deck. Kaiba had to roll his eyes at the way she clung to it like a set of prayer beads. "I don't think they're coming."
"I agree," Kaiba nodded, turning away from the lifts with a swish of his coat. "Let the little freaks fend for themselves. We came here to get Yugi back, and we're wasting time."
Sighing heavily, Professor Dumbledore got to his feet, and vanished the squishy purple armchair that he had conjured for himself with a flick of his wand. Kaiba tried very hard not to jump, and the only give away was a tiny flicker of surprise in his eyes. "Very well. I am sure we will meet up in due course. This way."
He led them down the corridor to a set of three doors. Kaiba scanned the plaques, the first of which read "Percy Weasley – Junior Undersecretary to the Minister". He had to snort. This whole building was so pretentious. They'd already bumped into a number of these 'wizards' all of them dressed like they had just stepped out of the eighteen hundreds. Hadn't these people heard of a business suit?
The next door read "Doloros Umbridge – Senior Undersecretary to the Minister" and the one next to that, with the largest and shiniest plaque was "Rufus Scrimegeor, Minister for Magic".
"What's in the next door?" Kaiba sneered. "A portal to Oz?"
"No need to feel intimidated Mister Kaiba," Dumbledore said with one of those annoyingly serene smiles of his. Kaiba scowled.
"I'm not intimidated by a bunch of freaks in robes," he longed to add that freaks with robes had been pretty much par for the course from the day Yugi Mutou had walked into his life, and not for the first time that day, he cursed the King of Game's existence. But that would probably only provide the old man with fuel to psychoanalyse him, and Kaiba had no patience for that.
Dumbledore raised a hand to knock, but Kaiba also had no patience for pleasantries, and simply barged in past him. The office was neat and ordered, with trays and cabinets storing all papers that usually littered an office and made it cluttered. A pinboard was bolted to the wall, with a map of the United Kingdom, covered in pins and photographs which moved and leered out from it.
"Hmm...ex law enforcement. Interesting," Kaiba thought to himself. This would be no problem. He had plenty of experience dealing with law enforcement after so many of Yugi's little magic tricks to cover up.
"What is this?!" the Minister, a tall man (though not as tall as Kaiba) with reddish hair and bushy eyebrows, was on his feet in an instant, his wand pointed at all three of them. "Dumbledore!"
"Our apologies Minister," Dumbledore said, sweeping into the room behind Kaiba, his tone casual as though they had just run into each other in the pub. "Mister Kaiba is in a bit of a hurry."
"I keep appointment hours!" the Minister growled, lowering his wand.
"And so do I," Kaiba snapped. "Which is why I want this over with as quickly as possible – I have better things to be doing with my time."
Scrimgeour's eyes narrowed as he took in Kaiba properly, his eyes travelling up the distinctly non magical clothing, to the glare that the CEO pinned him with. "Dumbledore, you know the Statue of Secrecy, and yet you flout it by bringing muggles right into the heart of the Ministry."
"You know, the muggles are standing right here!" Tea snapped, her hands on her hips.
Dumbledore eased his way to the front of the room so smoothly that Kaiba had not even noticed him moving.
"Minister, we are here to petition for the release of three people from Azkaban."
Scrimgeour's bushy eyebrows met in the middle, and he slowly sat back at his desk. Seeming to take this as an invitation, Dumbledore lowered himself into another chair, while Tea perched on the edge of a filing cabinet. Kaiba remained standing, never moving his glare for an instant.
"And these people would be?" the Minister asked.
"Yugi Mutou, Joseph Wheeler and Tristan Taylor," Dumbledore listed off. Scrimgeour leaned back into his seat.
"And why should I release them? One of them almost certainly has knowledge of the murder that took place here last night, and two of them assaulted aurors. All three of them resisted arrest, and put almost an entire team of aurors in for medical treatment."
Taking advantage of his impressive height, Kaiba leaned over the desk and frowned at the Minister. He was impressed when the man did not flinch.
"You are the sorriest excuse for a politician I have ever met. They at least try to cover themselves when they make a mistake instead of clinging blindly to their own stupidity. I specifically told your gang of thugs that Yugi was at the hotel all night, and that no less than ten of us could vouch for him." He snorted. "I was quite ready to believe that your entire community of freaks was just totally stupid, but walking through your hallway told me something much worse. You're all just lazy!"
"How dare you?!" Scrimgeour burst out, rising to his feet and glaring back across the desk. "I am responsible for the lives of thousands of witches and wizards in this country! And I happen to take that job seriously! Our aurors have arrested over fifty people known to have connections with Dark Magic in the last month alone, and I call that a very good result – certainly not one brought about by laziness!"
Kaiba snorted. "Fifty people in the last month – and how many of those did you actually have evidence for? Plucking fifty people off the streets without provocation isn't a good result – it's just a result. But I suppose that's all that matters to you. Public image. You have to be seen to be making the world a better place otherwise nobody would support your idiocy."
"Mister Kaiba," Dumbledore's voice was firm. "We are here to have your friends released. Insults are not necessary."
An angry retort hung on the edge of Kaiba's lips, but Scrimgeour interrupted.
"It matters not Dumbledore," he waved a hand. "I was planning on releasing the muggles anyway tomorrow. Truthfully I don't know what I'd do with them. They would have been completely ignorant if they had not assaulted my aurors. Bakura and Ishtar were supposed to be the targets."
"If you actually bothered to call up the City of London Police, you would have been informed that Malik Ishtar was reported missing yesterday lunch time," Kaiba snapped. "Or are you too great and good to go to the police for help?"
Scrimgeour scoffed, clearly finding the idea of going to the muggle police, utterly ridiculous and Kaiba was finding the arrogance of the man, and the general wizarding population, quite difficult to believe. In the back of his mind, he thought he heard a voice (that sounded a lot like Kisara) snicker, and he rolled his eyes. Maybe it was the pot calling the kettle black, but at least he had a reason for his confidence. He had worked his way into a position of power, and all the wizards could claim was that they were lucky enough to be blessed with the ability to point sticks at each other.
"Regardless," Scrimgeour shot Kaiba a disgusted look, and the CEO felt his hackles raise again. "They will be released tomorrow morning, with a fine and their memories wiped."
"Over my dead body!" Tea came to life for the first time, sliding off the filing cabinet and striding gracefully up to the desk. She slammed her hands flat on the surface, sending an audible bang through the room. Kaiba wisely backed away half a step – he'd seen that look on Gardner's face enough to recognise what it meant.
"Even if you wipe Joey and Tristan's minds, we will just tell them everything anyway, so your stupid spell will be pointless!"
For the first time that meeting, Scrimgeour backed away in alarm. "Then we'll just wipe the memories of all your friends," he said, in a controlled voice. "You already know too much about us as it is!"
Tea put her hands on her hips. "And that's your answer to everything is it? To cover it up and pretend it never happened," she leaned forwards again until she was practically doubled over the desk. "You can't hide something like this forever. Yugi and Joey are both famous and so is Kaiba. Half the world knows who they are, and you'd like to suddenly wipe an entire year of their lives from their memories? Oh yeah, nobody's going to think that's a bit weird!" she finished sarcastically.
Kaiba was pleased to see that the Minister seemed largely taken aback by Tea's statement, his eyes flicking quickly over his boots, trenchcoat and haircut as though hoping to see a sign that would indicate just why the CEO was so famous and why he should know him.
"Fine, I can release them with a warning and a fine," Scrimgeour amended. "But Mutou stays where he is until the investigation into the murder has been closed."
"Minister," Dumbledore broke in, gently pushing Tea into his vacated seat, and taking his turn to up to the desk. "You have already been informed that thirteen of Yugi's immediate friends, along with countless competitors and hotel staff, can reliably confirm for you that Yugi was in the hotel all of last night. Miss Gardner herself was sharing a room with him all night, and has informed me that Yugi never stirred once between going to sleep at eleven thirty last night, and waking up at six forty five this morning. Indeed, there is no shortage of witnesses to back this version up."
"Muggle witnesses," Scrimgeour growled. "You know the law Dumbledore – muggles cannot be called upon to speak in defence of wizards! Their lack of knowledge about our ways and methods makes them unreliable witnesses! That's why we have specially trained aurors to take testimonies at the scene of a crime before wiping their memories! It's the same problems you have with asking children to testify at a court case! Their perspective and outlook on events is just not as reliable as our own!"
"Oh and of course our ignorance is totally our fault, isn't it?" Tea said dryly. "After all, it's not like the wizards go out of their way to hide from muggles – oh wait a second..."
"Miss Gardner," Dumbledore's tone appeared calm, but Tea could detect a hint of warning just beneath the surface that reminded her of her strictest teacher, and she sank back into her seat. "We did not come here to argue over wizarding law. The fact simply remains that the Ministry has no evidence to support their arrest."
Eyes narrowing, Scrimegeor reached into a draw on his desk, and drew out what looked like a round crystal ball, until Kaiba noticed that there was something suspended inside. He set it on the desk and leaned back in his seat.
"There's our proof," he said, shortly. "It was found next to the body."
Kaiba's brows knitted into a frown as the object within the ball spun serenely in its containment, the brown back vanishing to reveal the green border, and the ornate blue ankh with the flamboyant crest and red gem set in the middle. A card known by every duellist in the world.
Monster Reborn.
OOO
Bakura was puzzled.
Two rows below him, he could still hear Umbridge making flustered noises. He had got a great laugh out of the first time she had stepped on a snake head, and the creature had swept upwards, scooping her up with its hood and sliding her down its stony body like a child going down a helter-skelter. She had screeched all the way down, and Bakura had doubled over in hysterics. But now the game was progressing further, and watching her slide away every time she made progress had lost its thrill as he began to notice something disturbing.
He was not having the best of luck in this game. True he had not slid down any of the snakes yet, but the ladders remained elusive for both of them, and Bakura's first roll of five had been the highest roll he had received since the game had begun. Low rolls were not too bad, but his progress was slow, and it would not take much for Umbridge to catch him.
Squeezing his D12 in his hand, he tossed it to the ground again. A four appeared. Growling and scooping up the dice, Bakura turned a corner and stopped on number sixty one.
"Better pick up the pace Miss Umbridge," he taunted. Down on number thirty eight, Umbridge scowled up at him.
"You must be cheating!" she said. "Rigging the board so that I always land on snakes!"
Bakura snorted. "There's no cheating in this kind of game. Believe me, Shadow Magic does not take kindly to cheaters."
"Silly child," Umbridge chided. "Magic cannot understand you."
"Foolish woman," Bakura sneered, as Umbridge rolled her dice. It stopped on a seven, and Umbridge nervously darted past another snake, up to the next level. Bakura shrugged.
"You dodged that one. But it won't be long before you go down again."
"Aha!" Umbridge crowed triumphantly. "So you admit that you have been cheating to make me lose!"
Bakura rolled his eyes. "You appear to be deaf too."
"There is no other way I could be doing this badly!" Umbridge declared.
"Oh but there is," Bakura taunted, crouching down on his staircase to peer at the woman. "Tell me, do you believe in Karma, Miss Umbridge?"
The Senior Undersecretary blinked in a bemused manner.
"...I'll take your stupefied expression as a 'no', shall I?" Bakura said, pouring as much mocking into his tone as he could. "Snakes and Ladders originated in India. The element of random chance was meant to convey the concept of Karma, whereby if you do something to harm other people, then the universe shall inflict the same amount of punishment back on you. In other words, you do something good, and a ladder will appear as your reward. You do something bad, and a snake will appear to trip you up." He gave a wicked smirk. "I wonder Miss Umbridge – do you think Karma feels that you need punishing?"
"Karma is a silly muggle notion," Umbridge tittered. "Brought about by those seeking to find excuses for their failures. I do not believe in such idiocy."
"And that may well be your undoing," Bakura promised, straightening up and rolling his dice. It clattered to the ground, the Eye of Horus laying face up. Grinding his teeth, the thief moved one step.
"What is wrong with me?" Bakura thought to himself. "I should be miles ahead of this cantankerous old toad by now. Why is my dice failing me?"
He heard the clatter of the dice from down below, and a sinister hiss. Umbridge gave a shriek as the snake tripped her up and slid her pudgy form down its thick body onto the twenty fourth square. Karma seemed to take offense to Umbridge's statements.
A nasty realisation hit Bakura like a brick to the head.
"Or maybe it's not the dice. Maybe it's me. The Shadows may have labelled Umbridge as having a rotten soul, but I am hardly innocent myself...is Karma punishing me too?"
It was a disconcerting thought, but the more he thought about it, the more he realised that he deserved no more luck than Umbridge was having. He had stolen, beaten and murdered his way through two life times, leaving countless victims in his wake, including his own hikari. He had thought that having a just cause of getting Ryou back would aid him in his deeds, but what if Karma thought he needed to be punished for his many transgressions too?
"I can't stop," he told himself, squeezing the dice before rolling it. "Ryou and everyone else is counting on me to pass this game, and get to that body. I can't let doubt get to me..."
But as the dice clattered onto a two, and the snake on sixty four opened its mouth wide and watched him approach with an hiss, doubt wriggled into Bakura's heart, and he knew his every sin against humanity was about to come back and bite him in the worst way possible.
OOO
"I have no idea where the hell we are," Malfoy declared. "Except the Department of Mysteries, obviously from the floor plans..."
Harry took in the circular room, with its many doors in the wall. He knew just where they were. This was the room that led to all the different parts of the Department of Mysteries. The room that rotated and made it impossible to tell which door you had come through. Harry would never have guessed that one of its many doorways led to the secret passages and tunnels that Malfoy had discovered running all over the Ministry. Currently the room was empty, for which Harry was thankful. He had no idea what they would say if they ran into an Unspeakable down here.
"This is..." Ron struggled to describe it. "Like the entrance room – no don't shut it!" he waved a hand at Hermione, who let go of the door as though burned. "Remember what happened last time?"
"Good point," Harry nodded, and Hermione whipped out her own wand. A quick bit of spellwork later, and she had drawn a fiery T on the back of the door, presumably standing for 'Tunnel'. Gently she closed the door behind them, and the entire room began to turn, the doors whipping past their heads too fast to follow, and finally settling back into place with the tunnel entrance behind them.
"...was that to confuse us?" Malfoy asked.
"Pretty much," Harry nodded. "Guess we'd better start looking for the body. Where was it found, Malfoy?"
"Entrance corridor," Malfoy said. "Just around the corner from where Bakura's having his fun actually. You would have seen it if Umbridge hadn't got in the way."
"Okay, everyone take a door and mark it before closing it," Harry instructed, moving to the one directly opposite them. He gave it a tug, but it remained firm. Frowning in suspicion, he flicked his wand and muttered 'Alohamora!'. It remained inert, and he knew it was the room that Dumbledore had mentioned to him a year ago. The room with the force that protected Voldemort from fully possessing him. He drew a large L on the door with his wand.
"Ugh, that room has a huge tank of brains in it!" Malfoy whispered from across the room, drawing a 'B' on the door before closing it. Ron gave a funny little squeaking noise, and inched away from Malfoy to find a door further along the wall. Hermione pulled another door open and peered inside, before pushing it almost closed. Pressing her fingers to her lips she drew the word 'Time' on the door, before closing it. The room span once more.
"We need to keep our voices down," she warned. "There were people in that room."
Harry almost hit himself in the head for being so stupid. Of course, there would be Ministry staff around this time. Unlike when they had broken in in their fifth year, this was not the middle of the night.
"It's lunch time," Malfoy reminded them. "There should be less staff than usual." He tugged on another door, and the smell of flowers assaulted their noses, along with the chirruping cries of forest wildlife. He slammed it shut again in disgust, drawing a quick 'F' on the door before the room could spin again.
"I think this is the prophecy room," Ron said, peering into the dark chamber beyond his door. Harry yanked open the one next to him, and his whole body froze.
He was staring down into the chamber where they had fought the Death Eaters last June. Though there was nobody else in the room, he could hear the faint whispers of speech, and fluttering serenely in the middle of the room, stood the Veil.
Harry had not even felt himself taking a step over the threshold and into the room. He could still see it playing out before his eyes. Him standing on the dais, about to hand the Prophecy over to the Death Eaters. The Order of the Phoenix bursting in. Spells flying everywhere. Bellatrix laughing. The spell catching Sirius under the arm and sending him tumbling into the Veil.
A hand grabbed his arm firmly, and Harry paused with one foot hovering just above the first step. Ron's blue eyes gazed at him, understanding, but full of resolve.
"Just leave it mate," Ron advised gently. "It won't bring him back."
Harry's every instinct wanted to carry him down the stairs towards the Veil. But if he had trusted his friends and listened to their reason last year, then Sirius may not have died at all. His friends were more trustworthy than his instincts. And that was the only reason he allowed Ron to pull him back up the step and through the door. Hermione and Malfoy were waiting, anxious and curious looks on their respective faces.
"Everything alright?" Malfoy asked cautiously, as Ron marked the door with a 'V' and closed it firmly behind them.
"Yeah..." Harry nodded, jamming his hands into his pockets. Suddenly he did not want to look at any of them. "Let's just hurry and find the body."
Malfoy obligingly went to get the next door, while Hermione continued to study Harry carefully. Ron came up behind him and squeezed his shoulder before moving off to try again.
A yelp of fright from Malfoy, snapped Harry out of his thoughts. The Slytherin had turned violently away from the door, swallowing thickly.
"Found it," he said, taking a deep breath and peering cautiously back out into the corridor, apparently too shocked to step over the threshold.
"Really?" Ron sounded surprised, and barged up behind him. His face immediately went green. "Merlin's beard!"
Concerned, Harry craned his neck to see over Ron's shoulder, and immediately wished that he had not looked.
The body barely resembled a human being any longer. It lay face up in a dark pool of dried blood, surrounded by a magical golden line that reminded Harry of the one that Dumbledore had drawn around the Goblet of Fire, presumably to keep people away from the crime scene. The body was naked, with deep surgical cuts running along the stomach and chest. The fingers, toes and genitals had been removed crudely, leaving jagged lumps of flesh behind where the knife had been forced to saw through sinew. But what was most horrifying was the arms and legs. The skin had been peeled back like a wrapper, exposing muscle and fatty tissue to the elements, all covered in congealed blood.
"I think I'm going to be sick," Ron muttered. Malfoy dug a hand into his robes and produced a paper bag. Extracting the sandwich from within he handed the bag to Ron just in time for the redhead to vomit up his own food.
"When they said there was a murder, I didn't think they meant this," Malfoy admitted, sidling around the body and crouching down behind the golden line to examine it. Unsure if he really wanted to get closer, but remembering that this was what they had come for, Harry leaned down too, and peered at the corpse, breathing deeply through his mouth in an effort to stem the rising need to throw up.
"This wasn't quick or clean," Harry muttered. "God he must have been in so much pain..."
"Doesn't look like spell work," Malfoy said. "Cutting curses – any of them – are much cleaner than this. They don't usually leave the flesh so jagged and rough." He gestured at the tissue around the fingers which hung limp and hacked like a piece of meat. "I think it was a knife that did this."
"Ron, is this definitely Oshar?" Harry thought to ask. White faced and sweating, Ron peered up from over the rim of the paper bag, and nodded weakly.
"Yeah that's him. I recognise him from the tube station."
"Who is he?" Malfoy asked.
"Oshar," Harry reported, trying to scrape together the fragments of information he had been told. "He used to be a Tomb Keeper like Malik apparently. They guarded the Pharaoh's secrets or something. It's all a bit shady if you ask me. Anyway, he sold those secrets to a wizard for money. They published a book about it. Malik was furious when he found out."
"There's more I think," Ron said darkly, determinedly not looking at the body, as he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "Didn't he say in the cafe a few days ago that Oshar was one of the guys who held him down while his father started cutting up his back?"
Harry remembered the conversation, and Malfoy's eyes went wide.
"Wait, Oshar helped Malik's father put those hieroglyphs on his back?!"
"Yeah..." Harry was very surprised. "He...told you about them?" The Slytherin nodded slowly, and for the millionth time that morning, Harry reassessed his opinion of Malfoy. Malik had trusted him with a very personal piece of information...for what reason?
"Is it wrong I...kinda thinks he deserves this?" Malfoy asked. "I mean, he pinned a ten year old kid down and helped another man disfigure him..."
"Well yeah..." Ron was clearly uncomfortable about agreeing with Malfoy, which might have been why he added quickly. "But that's...and this, I mean...it's just sick. No one deserves this kind of torture..."
"I think what Ron is trying to say," Hermione began, shakily moving her way closer to the body. "Is that it's not wrong to be angry on Malik's behalf, but we probably shouldn't cast judgements. Right?"
"Yeah, right," Ron nodded, though Harry got the impression that his point had been a lot more basic than that.
"Okay, let's get what we came for, and go," Harry said, patting his pockets down and groaning.
"What?" Ron asked.
"Bakura's got the camera," Harry remembered, too late. "We can't get photos of the body."
"When did he give you Ryou's camera?" Ron asked, confused.
"When you were helping yourself to another plate of fried eggs at the breakfast buffet," Harry informed him.
"Harry, the Ministry is like Hogwarts," Hermione interjected. "Muggle technology doesn't work here. The air is just too dense. It's like submerging them in water. It wouldn't have worked anyway."
Harry's hopes sank into his shoes. "Then what are we supposed to do?"
Hermione's mouth opened, but distantly, the sounds of a door opening and closing answered for her.
"We'd better get out of here," Malfoy said, getting to his feet, and pulling out his wand. "Back down the tunnels. We'll meet up with Bakura at the other end."
They scurried off back into the revolving room, with Ron closing the door behind them and letting the room spin once more. They found the door market 'T' just as footsteps began to appear from behind the Brain room. Harry hurried after Malfoy and Ron, leaving Hermione to wipe their markings off the doors, before ducking back into the tunnel with them. They closed the door with just seconds to spare. Ron twisted the handle wheel closed again.
"Close one," he said, as the wheel jerked into a locked position.
"No joke," Hermione muttered.
"Is this what you do all the time at school?" Malfoy asked, incredulously. "How the hell are you all still alive?"
"A whole lot of luck," Harry said grimly. "I keep feeling it's going to run out soon." He pressed his ear to the door one final time, before nodding back down the tunnel. "C'mon. We'd better go find Bakura and meet up with the others."
"...are you coming with us?" Hermione asked, frowning at Malfoy as he rustled through his pockets for his badly drawn maps. The Slytherin looked up in surprise.
"Malik's missing and, if that body is anything to go on, he's in a whole lot of trouble. I wouldn't miss this for all the gold in Gringotts."
Harry exchanged a wary look with Ron. The redhead had his arms folded, but he looked a little less anger driven then he had done before, and a bit more willing to listen to reasoning – after all, they had been in Malfoy's presence for almost half an hour, and he hadn't tried to murder them...yet at least.
"Just one question Malfoy," Ron said. Malfoy, having got his bearings, looked up from his maps and nodded.
"...you going to eat that sandwich?"
Malfoy scowled, and squeezed the bulge in his pocket protectively. "Sod off, Weasley! This is my sandwich!"
OOO
A/N: Reviews make the world go round! And don't forget to check my blog!