Short short short. But at least the update was fairly quick, ye?

It had started with a soft knock on the door.

Harry glanced anxiously at the flat expanse of dusty wood. All three paused and listened close. But there was no response, not even a stirring beyond the door. To Harry's left, Hermione bit her lip. This was crazy. A horrible, terrible, awful mistake.

Why was she so determined to do this, then?

Because Hermione had to know, that was why. And maybe, just maybe, to a certain extent, Harry did too. Because as much as everything else had been troubling him lately, if this was as important as Ginny and Hermione seemed to let on, then this was something that couldn't be forgotten about.

It didn't even matter at this moment exactly whether Ryou was a threat or someone who needed help. That much could be determined later. What was important now was finding out what exactly was going on. And considering how very little control Harry had over the current goings-on, finding something like this that Harry could have an impact on, regardless how remote, was extremely refreshing.

Harry just wanted to do something. He was sick of being useless, out of the loop, unknowing. And if joining Hermione on this little adventure would change that, then sure, why not? Although…

"Remind me again why we're doing this now?" Harry whispered, trying to keep his voice low. The walls had a tendency to have the auditory inhibitory properties of paper, the doors even less so (all save the kitchen, of course, which contained every sound of the meetings perfectly anymore) and the last thing Harry wanted to do was wake anyone who should not be woken (read: Ryou).

The three of them were standing outside of Ryou's door, trying to keep from stepping on patches of flooring that were generally acknowledged to be overly creaky. It was a challenge. But they hadn't heard any stirring yet from Ryou's room, which could have been a blessing or a curse.

Hermione pressed her ear to the door, then looked back at Harry. "Because it's the only time we can. You know why now."

Harry sighed. Mrs. Weasley had asked them to check up on Ryou. But Harry knew that Hermione had her own reasons for agreeing. She'd listed them as they'd climbed the stairs. It worked out well enough. If Ryou was awake, they had a nice, tidy little story to tell him that was completely true. If Ryou was asleep, it gave Hermione the perfect chance to snoop around.

She was fixated on the ring that had been mentioned back at St. Mungos. Ever since Ginny had brought it up, Hermione had been trying to spot it on him. Not a lot of progress was made with her methods. The closest she came was glancing at his fingers and at the pockets of the slightly-too-tight jeans he wore one day. Ryou blushingly said that they had been a gift from a friend with an affinity for tight leather trousers and were the only pair clean that particular day, but it had given Hermione enough of a chance to see that the only things he kept in his pockets were a cell phone that didn't work inside of the house, a wallet, and his silvery wand. There was very obviously no ring tucked away anywhere on his person.

The only place it could be was around his neck, hanging from the leather string they had never paid attention to before and hidden under the thick sweaters Ryou wore daily.

"He might take it off when he sleeps," Hermione had reasoned. "If he does, he probably puts it on the bedside table, the way you do with your glasses. It'll just take a second to see if it's got a ring on the end."

Ron wasn't sure why exactly they needed to see the ring at all, and Harry found himself agreeing to a certain extent. Seeing the ring wasn't going to make any difference on what they knew, only confirm that he kept a ring with him, which they already figured was likely considering the Mungos trip. But Hermione was insistent.

And anyway, the wouldn't know unless they tried, right?

Hermione knocked once again, barely brushing her knuckles against the wood. They heard nothing beyond. She took a deep breath and turned the knob on the door, pushing it open slowly. It creaked audibly, causing the three to cringe.

But as the breadth between the frame and the door widened, it suddenly became very obvious that the bed was completely empty. The blankets were ruffled but mostly made up, laying fairly flat to the bed. The bed didn't seem slept in, only disturbed.

"Where could he be?" she asked, stepping inside.

"Bathroom?" Ron asked.

Hermione shook her head. "We would have seen him as we came up, or at the very least the bathroom would have been occupied."

Harry frowned, following her in. "Maybe he's in the library. He spends more time in there than you do."

"I know that," she said, shaking her head once again. "But I was in there this morning, and he wasn't there. And again, we'd have seen him go in. I don't know where he is." She sighed. "And there isn't any ring by the bed."

That seemed to be the most depressing part of all of this to Hermione.

Harry's eyes traveled slowly over the room. It looked about the same as the other rooms in the house, only unlike Harry's room, it lacked a snarky empty portrait of a previous headmaster. The trunk was open to one side, clothes flung out about a foot beyond it. Ryou's effect on the room was minimal.

Harry glanced back at the barely-rumpled bed, grimacing. His eyes narrowed. "What's that?" he murmured, taking a step closer. A faint line of white curved slightly out from under the bed, almost completely hidden by the draping blankets and bedding. The others took steps closer, following him, when a savage, hissing voice ripped through the room.

"Ssssstop where you are. Leave now!" the voice demanded in sibilant tones. Harry whipped his head around, searching for the source of the unfamiliar voice, but saw nothing.

"Uhhh Harry, snake!" Ron said, stumbling backward.

Harry glanced down. A tiny green serpent, perhaps a foot long, was lifting itself up like a cobra. Even its neck flattened into a thin ruff around its head, and it held its fangs out and at the ready.

That explained a lot. Like, for instance, why only Harry seemed to understand the words, although the demand seemed as though it was translating itself pretty well without knowing parseltongue.

"Who are you?" Harry said, not taking any steps closer, but refusing to step back at the same time.

The snake looked surprised for a moment. "You undersssstand me assss well?" it said. "I wasssn't aware that there were othersss…"

"What's it saying, Harry?" Ron asked, but Hermione gave him a withering look, and he quieted down.

Harry blinked at the tiny snake. "Are you saying that Ryou can talk with you?"

"Of courssse," the serpent said, giving Harry what was perhaps the most disrespectful sort of glance that a reptile could muster. "He is my massster now. And you are intruding in hiss private affairsss. Leave now, before I am forcsssed to take… agresssssive action."

"Where is Ryou?" Harry asked. "We just wanted to know where he is."

"Clearly," the snake shot back. "That iss none of your bussinesss."

It slithered several inches forward, glancing between the three. Harry waited a moment until it was looking back at Ron and Hermione, and he reached forward quickly, grabbing the snake by the head the way he had seen in nature shows. It writhed in his fingers, and Harry almost dropped it in shock.

The snake wasn't just green. It was emerald, in the literal sense of the word. Somehow, its entire body glistened like gemstone, something that hadn't been immediately visible in the gloom cast by the bed frame. But as Harry held it up to the light filtering in through the window, beams of light refracted through its body, glittering green. A gold eye symbol gleamed at the back of the snake's neck, right in the heart of where the frill was.

"Do you have a name?" Harry asked dubiously, frowning at the serpent. Ryou seemed the type to give it a name, if it didn't have one already.

It struggled in his grip, barely managing to open its mouth enough to mutter the words. "Namessss have power. You won't get mine sssso easily."

Harry sighed. "This is Ryou's snake, I think," he said to the others. "I mean, it called him master, so I think it's safe to assume."

Hermione nodded, taking a few furtive steps closer. "Since when has he had a pet?"

"Why does it have to be a snake?" Ron groaned.

"What did it say?" Hermione asked.

Harry shook his head. "Nothing that helpful. Except… did you know Ryou is a parselmouth too?" Both shook their heads. "Apparently he is…"

Harry took a few steps closer to the bed, and the snake started fighting harder to free itself. The tail whipped up and smacked Harry's wrist hard enough to leave a welt, and he almost dropped the snake. As it was, he took a sharp intake of breath and winced. Gingerly, Harry held the snake's head in one hand, the tail in the other, and tried to ignore how much more powerful the snake was than it should have been.

"There's something under this, I think," Harry said, motioning towards the bed. The snake fought even more vigorously.

"Noooo," it said. "Why can't you leave well enough alone!?"

All three crouched down, peering under the bed. Hermione lit up the tip of her wand with a quick lumos.

What was this? Below the bed, there were lines and swirls, concentric circles whirling through and strange symbols all throughout. Everything seemed to be drawn directly onto the floor in chalk, etched with an innane amount of intricacy involved.

"These are Egyptian," Hermione muttered, leaning closer to one particular rune. She struggled to hold back her hair so that it wouldn't disturb the lines. "I think this is one for… I'm not quite certain. I think it means shadow. Maybe."

"Can you read any others?" Ron asked. He shivered suddenly. The room was starting to get colder. Harry had thought it was just him, but apparently not.

Hermione made a dissatisfied noise in the back of her throat. "Maybe, but I can't promise it'll be any help. Ancient runes can be tricky at times, and we haven't talked about Egypt in a while."

"Why does Ryou have Egyptian runes under his bed and a snake that looks like its made out of emeralds? Not to mention the Egyptian eye-thingy on the back of its neck." Harry extended the snake out so the other two could see it. Uraeus tried to snap again, but it wasn't successful.

Hermione's expression became even more confused.

"I think-" she started, when the chalk lines began to darken.

There was almost no way to describe it. It was as if the shadows themselves were moving, sliding along the floor and gathering underneath the bed, heaping themselves up along the white lines until they were thick and black, veined through with strange purples and greens and blues.

The temperature in the room suddenly plunged, and it felt like ice had flooded through their very cores, freezing their blood and bones.

The bed dipped sharply and creaked in protest as weight was abruptly added, the bottom of the bed colliding rather painfully with the top of Harry's head. Twin umphs could be heard from above. He dragged himself out from underneath, Hermione and Ron following quickly.

There, on the bed, two pale figures were tangled together, as though they had landed painfully on top of each other. The smaller of the two had yelped in pain. It looked like Ryou, but then, both of them kinda looked like Ryou.

"Ow, Bakura, that hurt!" Ryou said.

The larger one rose slightly, glancing down his nose at Ryou. "Huh. Look at that, Yadonushi. Kinda fucked up that shifting." He ruffled Ryou's hair a little rougher than was probably necessary, but even though Ryou looked slightly uncomfortable with the gesture, he didn't push the hand away for a long, lingering moment, even smiling slightly to himself in a way he probably didn't even notice.

Ryou started to free himself, muttering, "Please don't swear," as he did so.

The big one, this 'Bakura' as Ryou had called him, grinned and retorted with a quick, "Like hell."

Ryou pushed aside a medium-sized, slightly-rumpled, gift-wrapped box, finally moving further away from Bakura.

"Uhhh…" Harry couldn't help the noise, but that didn't stop Hermione from giving him a small jab in the ribs with her elbow.

Harry didn't know how the two had gone this long without seeing them, but it was only going to be a matter of seconds before they did anyway.

And when Ryou saw them, his eyes widened comically, something akin to genuine terror in his expression. "Uhh… You're… in my room," he choked.

Ryou couldn't hardly believe his eyes. Harry, Ron, and Hermione were in his room, equal measures of shock, wonder, and raw curiosity glittering in their eyes.

Ryou whipped his head between them and Bakura, who looked fairly surprised himself.

/Bakura, get out of here!/ Ryou said, panicking.

/You sure?/ he asked, one eyebrow lifting slightly.

/I'm sure! Just… oh… God this is horrible!/ Ryou cried.

To his immense relief, Bakura vanished in a wisp of darkness, becoming invisible to everyone but Ryou, although he stayed put on the edge of the bed.

"What- what are you doing in here?" Ryou demanded, his voice entirely too shaky to ever command anything akin to respect.

"What was that?" Harry asked.

"Who was that?" Hermione asked.

"Where did you come from?" Ron asked.

The three started asking questions faster than Ryou could manage to process them, asking him so many things that it was making his head spin. Who, what, when, where, why, how? He clutched his forehead.

"Just- please, give me a second!" Ryou cried. He was on the edge of hyperventilating, or perhaps slipping into an anxiety attack. He wasn't sure which, but something was happening at the moment, as he struggled to catch his breath and his sanity seemed only a few threads away from snapping. He struggled to calm himself down.

An insubstantial hand found its way to Ryou's shoulder, and he chanced a quick glance towards it. Bakura's red eyes were steady, bright. Comforting, though they glittered with malice. /Do I need to kill them?/ he said very seriously.

Ryou choked back a tiny sob, clutching himself tight. He shook his head softly. /No… I can do this. Just… let me take care of it. I'll think of something./

/Well, killing them is still on the table if you ever need it/ Bakura said, and though Ryou knew he was being completely, one hundred percent serious, it was comforting to know that Bakura was at least trying. It spoke volumes, even more so than the present which had caused this entire situation.

He looked back up at the three. "You have him, don't you? Uraeus?" He managed to steady his voice remarkably in the following seconds, and his words were level.

"Heeeerree!" Uraeus yelped. Harry lifted his hands, struggling to hold the violently squirming serpent. Uraeus broke free and flopped onto the bed, making immediately for Ryou. "They grabbed me and attempted to interogate me, but I told them nothing!" he said proudly.

"Are you okay?" Ryou asked, now more concerned than anything else. He picked Uraeus up, studying the snake carefully. Uraeus snorted.

"It'll take a lot more than that to do me in!" he scoffed. Then Uraeus blinked. "Oh. And that one can underssstand usss." He flicked his tail towards Harry. Ryou looked up at him, startled.

"You can speak to Uraeus? How?" he asked suddenly. Harry froze up, looking immediately sheepish.

"I guess I was just… born with it?" Harry said, but he didn't look entirely certain about that. "Uraeus. That's… the snake's name?" he asked. Harry glanced over at Hermione and Ron. Some private understanding seemed to pass through them, but what it was, Ryou would never know.

/I don't like this. Oh… this is so bad.../

/Do you regret your present?/ Bakura asked.

Ryou shook his head savagely, ignoring the strange looks that the three sent him. /Never! It was absolutely perfect. Thank you/ he said, his tone so deadly serious that it made Bakura double-take.

Bakura grinned. /Good. Glad you enjoyed it. Still… Are you sure you don't need help?/

/No… I think I know what to say/ Ryou replied. He knew Dumbledore had told him that he could share his little secret, but he couldn't bear the thought of them knowing this secret. How they would react to Ryou being the vessel of a 5,000 year old spirit from Ancient Egypt that had the power to command the shadows the same effortless way he commanded words… It would be horrible, he knew.

"So… your questions…" he trailed off, looking at the three. "I guess you're wondering who that is… or… was. Uh… that's my brother. Bakura. Well, we're both Bakura, but… uh…" Ryou trailed off, thinking quickly. "He never really did like his first name, so everyone just calls him by his last name. So to avoid confusion, that's why I just want to be Ryou. Because I'm Ryou, and he's Bakura." Ryou grinned.

/You are a master of bull shit/ Bakura said, and Ryou was ninety percent sure he was being sarcastic. /Noooo, never! Me? Sarcastic?/ Bakura laughed.

"But…" Hermione said. She was frowning. "How did he get in here? Where did he go? Apparating makes a loud popping noise, but he was completely silent."

"Uh…" Ryou said.

/Got an answer for that?/

/I'm thinking!/

/Don't hurt yourself/

"He's just… always been able to do that. I don't know how he does it…?" He trailed off into a question. Not entirely convincing, but he couldn't think of anything else. "Uhm… Any more questions?"

"What is the circle? The one under the bed?" Hermione asked. She brought up a chalk-stained finger, and Ryou gasped sharply.

"Did you break the circle?" he asked, and Hermione looked startled.

"No, I just brushed it. Why? What's the circle for?"

Ryou calmed himself again. "It's… an OCD thing. I can't sleep unless it's under the bed. It's just a silly occult thing. That's all." He forced an easy grin onto his face and hoped they bought it. "I used to be afraid of the dark, but my sister used to do whatever she could to help me get over it. The circle is just a way I… try to remember her?"

/You sound unsure. Not good lie form/

/It's not as though I make a habit of this./

/Hey, don't get upset. I'm just glad you've finally got the good sense to try and keep me a secret. You've been telling far too many people about me lately. Getting a bit annoying, that/

/Sorry.../

Ryou tried to gauge their expressions, but the three seemed unfathomable. They stood slowly, and Ryou held the snake a little closer to his heart.

"What was that that… uh… Bakura called you? Ya- yado-" Hermione tried, but the word was gone.

"Yadonushi?" Ryou asked. "That's just an old nickname." He let a little fake laugh slip out. "It means little brother. I always called him Koe, which is just older brother. Just a Japanese thing."

Hermione nodded slowly. "Yadonushi… Koe…" she repeated, frowning. Then she smiled as well, and Ryou felt instantly relieved. "I see now! Sorry we bothered you, Ryou. You were just visiting your brother for Christmas, weren't you? You must miss him, not getting to see him while you're at school and all."

"Yeeaaahh," Ryou said. "Exactly. He was just giving me his present. I… uh… you're not going to tell the Order about this, are you?"

"Were you not supposed to see him?" Ron asked. Hermione's eyebrow rose.

Ryou backpedaled. "Of course I can see my own brother! I just… wasn't supposed to go while I was here? I was going to go during Christmas, but then… the whole thing with the Ministry happened, and…"

"Yeah… about that," Hermione said. "What was that? I've only actually heard about it third- and fourth-hand from others. It'd be nice to hear what happened."

"O-oh," Ryou said. "You… want to hear about that?" He paused, then blinked. It was an excuse that hadn't worked in years, but it might just work now. "I don't remember?" He blinked and stared straight ahead, as though trying to focus, then shook his head sadly. "Yeah. I can't remember any of it. I know I woke up there, but what happened is all a blur. I came too just in time to see Mr. Weasley covered in blood. And I tried to help him, but then… uh… more blurs. I can't quite recall…"

He glanced down sadly. "I'm so sorry I can't be more help, Hermione." He looked up. "But… ah… since I've told you so much, do you think you could tell me one thing?"

"Sure," Harry said. "What do you want to know?"

"Why were you three in my room in the first place?" Ryou asked as politely as he possibly could. It was rough, trying to keep that tiny edge of frustration out of his tone, but he barely managed.

"Oh! That," Hermione said. "Mrs. Weasley wanted to know if you wanted to come down for breakfast! You were so quiet last night, and you didn't eat the food she'd set aside, so she was worried about you. If you're not feeling up to it-"

"No! I mean, of course! I'm feeling so much better today," Ryou said. "I'm actually quite hungry. In fact, I think I'm almost completely over whatever it was I had. I'll see you three downstairs in a minute. I just have to get dressed real fast…"

Ryou glanced down at his clothes, flushing at the realization that he was still wearing the shorts and t-shirt from yesterday. And, of course, the new gold bracelet glittered innocuously from his wrist.

The three seemed put-out from the less-than-subtle dismissal from their room, but Ryou needed them gone. As they nodded and left, Ryou fell backward onto the bed and let out a huge sigh he hadn't known he was holding in. "That was horrible!"

"You actually didn't do too badly. For a terrible liar like you, I mean," Bakura amended, and Ryou sighed again. Couldn't Bakura just give him a real compliment for once in his life?

"You know that's not how I work," Bakura chuckled, solidifying once more. "Aren't you worried that they'll see through your lies, though? You left quite large gaps in them."

"Gaps?" Ryou asked.

Bakura nodded. "Yes. For instance, the meanings of the nicknames you gave them. While you came up with a good excuse for what they mean, a simple look at a Japanese-English Translator Dictionary should reveal that everything you told them is a massive lie. You know, the kind of dictionary that's in the Black family library. And you repeated the word for her, rather than just let it fade from her memory. Bad form, there."

Ryou sat upright abruptly. "Oh, no, you're right!" He threw something else on as quickly as he could and bolted down for the library, making for where he knew the dictionary to be. A sinking feeling built up in his chest when he found the massive empty gap in the shelf where the hefty tome had once stood.

"Darn it! At least I didn't give her the kanji for the words…" he muttered. "Her odds of finding them in there without knowing at least the hiragana… probably not good. Right…?" He asked, trying to look hopeful.

Bakura gave a noncommittal shrug. "I want to know why they had that book in here," Bakura said.

Ryou might have actually had an idea or two. His letter writing had come from somewhere, and that somewhere had been his mother. And Ryou knew for a fact that while his mother was fluent in Japanese, the rest of her family was not. And while writing in Japanese was a great way to keep people from prying into your private letters, it made people that much more suspicious.

If someone saw a letter sitting around, and perhaps got curious, it wasn't that much of a stretch to wonder if someone hadn't gotten the book for the sole purpose of nosing around in his mother's private life. He'd heard stories in his youth of how his relatives had enjoyed prying into matters that were not their own.

That would be why there was a Japanese-English Dictionary in a pure blood's library, if there was ever a reason. Why the book was here, though, when Ryou was almost positive his mother had never lived here… that was a mystery unto itself.

Ryou clutched his arms close to himself. If this story fell apart because of his stupid little lie about the meaning of the nicknames… This is why he didn't lie. Far too easy for everything to be torn down around you.

He could only hope that, if Hermione really did have the book, it would be useless to her. Which, if Ryou had to admit, his odds weren't entirely bad. Speaking Japanese wasn't so hard, although Ryou might have been a touched biased, having grown up around it as much as he had English. Reading it, on the other hand, was slightly more difficult, and even Ryou struggled at times just from the sheer number of kanji.

He could only cross his fingers and hope for the best. With a dark groan, he trudged downstairs for breakfast. He was starving.

Hermione very nearly threw the book at the wall, and, failing that, dropped it unhappily on the floor. Harry, Ron, and Ginny fought to stifle gasps. They'd never seen her intentionally mistreat a book so.

"What was that for, Hermione?" Ron asked.

"It's this book!" she said. "I can't get anything out of it. It's not even a normal translation book. There's no organization, and most of it isn't even recognizable characters! He probably knew the whole thing was written in Japanese symbols. But I know he's lying!"

She glared at the book and sighed. Throwing it on the ground wasn't doing any good. She picked it back up and started going through it again.

"There's English here in the back, but I would have to go word for word and see if I could find anything that translates to what he said, which would take days or even weeks. And that's if its even in here, which is no guarantee, because something this size can't possibly have everything in it," she said, partially distracted.

"Why don't we just figure out what we do know?" Harry said.

"He said he couldn't remember the Ministry trip," Ron said.

Ginny's eyes flashed. "See, I told you."

"That's not proof, though," Hermione said. She flipped through another page, scanning quickly as she could.

"Close enough," Ginny said. "You said that the double was in the Ministry with him, and he doesn't really remember the Ministry happening."

"Except he seemed pretty aware of himself when his double was there in the room. Ryou didn't look that afraid of him. Well, maybe uncomfortable when the double ruffled his hair…"

"It touched him?" Ginny asked. She frowned. She wasn't so sure of herself anymore.

Hermione kept flipping. "There was the snake. That was the 'Uraeus' name that we saw on the map."

"Except most animals don't show up on the map," Harry said.

"Mrs. Norris and Crookshanks do, don't they?" Ron asked. Hermione nodded absently.

"Yes…" Harry said, thinking. "I mean, it makes sense. Hermione, you said it yourself that Uraeus means cobra in Egyptian-"

"Arabic," Hermione corrected, eyes still skating over the page.

"Arabic, okay," Harry said. "So maybe it's a literal name. But the snake is definitely Uraeus. And that… Brother, or whatever he is to Ryou, is probably 'Bakura (Akefia)'."

"Yes," Hermione said. She paused, looking up at them. "There has to be an easier way. Maybe if I…"

She paused, then flipped quickly to the first page. There, on the front, was a chart of hiragana and katakana. "Yes, there is! Okay, this will work! I just have to…" She ran her finger over the chart. "Ya… ya… Okay, that's the first one," she said, flipping forward a few pages.

"There is an organization in here after all!" she said, suddenly delighted. "Ok, ok, I… Ro… Ha…" She flipped further, consulting the chart at the front regularly, until she found the word she was looking for. "There, Yadonushi. Oh… Oh wow," she muttered.

"What's it mean?" Ginny asked.

"A moment…" Hermione said, flipping through. "Koe, koe, koe," she said. She froze when she found it. Very slowly, she looked up at Ginny. "You're right," she said. "He might actually be possessed. Ryou was lying to us."

As much as I would rather write Ryou POV, I've found that I don't mind writing Harry POV as much when it's not just summarizing what happens in the book (which I hate). Original scenes like this are actually kind of interesting. But I know you all prefer the Ryou scenes, don't you? Hahaha.

Actually… which POV is your favorite? I'm actually really curious now.