A/N: Okay, here's chapter 28. I guess you could say that this is the 'aftermath' of chapter 27...
Chapter 28: End of the Beginning
Bakura stared up at the high dungeon ceiling above him.
He didn't want to get up, but today was the day. He had to go.
Bakura rolled over and put his feet on the floor. As he pulled back the curtains, he saw that the other Slytherins were getting up as well. No one spoke, all avoiding one another's eye.
They all changed into black, formal robes and Bakura, who was ready before the others, went through the small passageway that led to the common room on ahead. As he went through the common room, his eye lingered on the elaborately adorned fireplace on one side of the room, before he wrenched his gaze away and went on to the dungeon corridors.
Dumbledore's funeral. Today was the day...then everyone would be sent home from the school, many likely never to return.
Bakura wasn't sure what to feel. Once they were sent home, what would happen? Would things just go back to normal back in Domino? He wanted to think that he and Yugi wouldn't really be so changed by this. As painful as it was now, life would move on. Yugi and the pharaoh would find a way to defeat the spirit and things would all be fine.
Yet if Bakura's considerable experience of how his personal world actually worked had taught him anything, it was that there was no way it could ever really be that simple.
For the past few days, Bakura had been in a lethargic state, lying in bed all day long as he turned these hopes and doubts over and over in his mind. He occasionally went down to meals, for he found he didn't have the energy or the motive to do anything else. Ever since he'd found out what Severus Snape and Draco Malfoy had done, he wondered to himself if, had he reported the strange behavior he had seen Malfoy show to someone, it would have made a difference. The spirit's words, "He's been planning on it for some time" sent chills down Bakura's spine.
But at the same time, the spirit's comment that had seemed at the time, strange, almost out of place, in a voice that held a touch of irony, "And no matter what you think, I didn't kill the people in your dreams either, host" gave Bakura a feeling of unease, too. He kept thinking of the boy in his dream and prayed that what he was beginning to think was not true. So long as it wasn't true, the lines of good and evil, enemy and friend, could still be drawn with ease. There would be no doubt of who they had to defeat, or who it was that ultimately deserved Bakura's mistrust and hostility.
Bakura walked up the staircase to the main floor and headed slowly for the Great Hall's doors, keeping his eye on the floor. As he entered the room, he forced himself to lift his head and glanced over the area, naturally searching for Yugi. He found Yugi already sitting at the Gryffindor table, too busy staring down at his untouched food in a gloomy languid state to have noticed Bakura's entry.
Sighing, Bakura headed slowly toward the Slytherin table, his gaze automatically sliding up to the staff table, as it had done every day since that night a few days ago to see the large throne-like chair. This chair had been empty many times before when the Headmaster would leave for unknown reasons, but it had never been as lonely and empty as it was now.
Next his eye slid to the place Professor Snape had used to sit and was a little startled to see that, unlike the last few days, there was someone sitting there.
It wasn't Snape—Bakura didn't recognize the person—but he felt his lips move down into a small frown as he let his gaze drop to the floor. Turning on his heel, Bakura walked over to the Gryffindor table and seated himself next to Yugi. Would anybody really care if he sat at this table, just this once? Snape might have cared in all his unfair ways and dislike towards Gryffindor, but he was gone now. Gone. And a traitor to all of Hogwarts.
"Hello, Bakura." Yugi smiled bleakly up at him.
"Hello, Yugi," replied Bakura.
They sat in silence, a silence that blended in nicely with the quietly tense atmosphere that had settled over the Great Hall.
No one seemed to be all that hungry and it wasn't long before Professor McGonagall got to her feet and, as Headmistress, gave the word that they would all be going outside now, to where the funeral was going to be held.
When Bakura heard her tell the students to follow their Heads of Houses, Bakura gave Yugi a mournful sort of wave before weaving back toward the Slytherin table, going around the back of the hall to keep himself a little inconspicuous. But his efforts lacked their usually careful zeal as he found he didn't care all that much about being out of place or noticed. Not today.
They walked out into the summer sun which shone bright and warm upon the crowns of their bowed heads. Bakura felt the warmth on his cold hands and unconsciously rubbed them.
The funeral service went on for what seemed like an indefinite period of time and every time his mind wandered even the smallest bit from the man who was speaking up front, he forced himself to concentrate even harder. It was selfish to be distracted at a time like this, he told himself. After all, a person who had put so much of his life into helping people had died at this school; the least Bakura could do was listen to an hour talk about this man's life.
But truthfully, Bakura didn't like to think about Dumbledore. He had not known Dumbledore as the great Headmaster everyone else had; he had barely even seen the man, barely even heard him speak. All he could hear was the spirit's cruel laughter as the man's body lie broken at the base of the castle. Seeing Dumbledore or thinking about him made his insides churn with guilt, as though it had been the spirit who had murdered him. To murder, to laugh at murder—what was the difference?
He tried to tell himself how he ought to feel. For the sake of a man who had touched so many lives, Bakura knew he out to burn with righteous anger at the spirit for his blasé attitude. The spirit had killed people before this, and so he ought to have earned the despise of everyone.
And Bakura was indeed disturbed, even horrified by what had occurred, despite not knowing the Head Master well at all himself. Yet he was consumed with the sense that his feeling on this matter should be stronger than that. After everything, he ought to hate the spirit, hadn't he? Ought to feel a fire rise up in his chest at the very thought of that being. However, whenever the word 'hate' crossed his thoughts, his mind would unconsciously go back to that scene in his dream, of the little boy watching his neighbors die. For Bakura, no matter what he tried to think or believe, it was an endless cycle of guilt, of hating the spirit, or not hating him.
The only conclusion he could come to in the end was that it was better not to think about any of it.
The speaker eventually finished the woeful speech and as the man returned to his seat, Bakura lifted his head and watched with a dull eye. He was waiting for the next person to go up to make yet another speech, probably by someone like Bakura, who had probably not known enough to fully appreciate the greatness of the man.
However, he was snapped out of his stupor as the table Dumbledore's motionless form had being lying on a moment before abruptly burst into flame. There were shouts and a few screams as people looked on in alarm.
Bakura watched the fire in awe, neither frightened nor upset, at least in those first few moments, when his mind was blissfully blank in surprise. For a brief moment, he irrationally thought that the flame meant Dumbledore was still alive. This show of magic was just like a powerful wizard, right?
But the spark of hope that flickered once in the depths of his mind was soon extinguished by a wave of emotion that was not his. He felt a pulse of anger and—fear? It was an out of place feeling, like a sudden interruption in the flow of his thoughts. But it was gone the moment it came, as was his thought that the flames were Dumbledore and he watched as the flames disappeared and left nothing but a marble white tomb in its place.
There was a moment of respectful silence before people started getting up and moving around. It was understood that that funeral was now over.
Bakura glanced back in the direction where most of the Gryffindors were sitting together and spotted Yugi, still in his seat and staring at the tomb.
Bakura slowly got to his feet and, instead of heading to where Yugi was, walked slowly over toward the lake. He gazed out over the waters, rippling gently and glistening in the bright sunshine. Despite the warmth and light of the beautiful summer day, Bakura felt cold. It didn't matter how much he thought or meditated; there was always something he was missing, something that confused him. He wanted more than anything to hold true to his beliefs and values, but they were submerged in murky water and every time he reached out to grab them to see and remind himself what they were, they slipped away from him.
"Bakura?"
Bakura turned to see Yugi standing next to him, a tired sort of smile on his face.
"Yugi," replied Bakura softly, and could not stop his own small, weary smile. When Yugi was there, for some reason the burden of all these things did seem a bit lighter though, less important. Perhaps that feeling would be enough to help him to just keep trying his best to do what was right, even if he didn't fully understand everything.
"I was just talking to Ron and Hermione," said Yugi, still in a soft voice. "Ron's brother's getting married this summer and they invited me to come. They said you could come too."
Bakura looked down at Yugi, a smile still on his lips. He answered in the same soft voice as Yugi, "Really?"
Yugi's smile broadened and he looked a little less tired. Cheering him up and being cheered, perhaps it could ebb away the loneliness Bakura felt when he looked up at the Headmaster's tomb.
Yugi laughed a little and said in response to Bakura's gently hopeful expression, "Let's go back to Domino. Then this summer, together we can—"
He cut himself off. It took only a second for his smile to vanish and his insides to knot as he saw, with his own eyes, the way Bakura's eye suddenly narrowed and the warm brown cornea shrunk and tinted with a blood red color. His pale face split into a smirk that disfigured his soft, normally innocent features.
Yugi started to take a frightened step back, but then he stopped, straightening. He stared coldly, defiantly back at the spirit of the Millennium Ring.
"So I take it this means you won't be coming to the wedding," said the pharaoh, not a trace of warmth or curiosity in his voice.
"Very perceptive," answered the spirit, not breaking eye contact.
There was a silence before the pharaoh commented, "This is the most careless you've been around me so far—our first real talk since Battle City, I would say."
"Careless," said the spirit, his lips still upturned in that amused sort of way. "What ever do you mean by that? I don't think I've made an announcement that there was any particular reason I didn't want to talk to you."
The pharaoh decided to take a chance. "I know you forbade Bakura in some form from talking to us about you," he said quickly. "Why do that if you aren't avoiding me for some reason? Though, truthfully, you've done a pretty pitiable job of hiding yourself so far no matter what Bakura might have said."
The spirit grinned broadly for a moment, his pupil shrinking in an insanely excited sort of way before his expression softened back to normal and the regular smirk was back. "Oh, that," said the spirit loftily and putting on an air that seemed remarkably at ease for someone talking to his rival of three-thousand years. "Well, I must admit that it's admirable you figured out about my forbidding Bakura to mention me," he said, and the pharaoh gritted his teeth as he felt the spirit's patronization dripping off every word, "but I think you may have missed the reason why I did what I did."
The pharaoh was a little caught off-guard by this and couldn't stop the confusion from creeping into his voice as he asked sharply, "What do you mean?" His head moved unconsciously closer to the spirit's, his curiosity treacherous.
"Well, to put it bluntly," the spirit began, clear enjoyment in every line of his pale face as he leaned forward, lowering his voice as though about to divulge some great secret, "it was fun watching him squirm."
The pharaoh pulled his head back sharply, and glared furiously at the spirit. "You," he said with growling venom, "sicken me."
The spirit tilted his head back and surveyed the pharaoh with his single eye. His mouth opened and he looked as though he were about to laugh, but then it faded and his expression became calm, tranquil. He watched the pharaoh for a moment, thoughtful, and the pharaoh thought he saw a dark, almost angry flicker in the depths of that cold eye. "I assure you, the feeling is mutual," he said lightly, but his eye told a different story.
The spirit turned his head to gaze out at the glimmering lake and the pharaoh followed his gaze without really thinking about it. The pharaoh remained tense; he didn't know what it was, but something had changed. The playful, twisted pleasantness was gone and the spirit was now just as serious as he was.
"A man who cannot remember his own past should not be so quick to pass judgment," the spirit said after a long moment. "Or is he willing to risk finding out he's a hypocrite?"
The pharaoh felt a flash of anger. "Don't try to get inside my head. Your usual mind-games won't work on me."
"Mind games, you say?" the spirit repeated, so quietly that it was almost more to himself than the pharaoh. "Mind games. You've always been so defensive for someone who supposedly knows exactly what he believes—for someone who's supposed to be a representation of justice. If you're so sure you're right, then why are you always acting as though you're afraid someone might contradict you?"
"I'm not defensive," said the pharaoh, not backing down. "I'm telling the truth. Someone has to, so that those who do wrong can have an opportunity to change, to find a better life before their misdeeds destroy them and countless others. If you think that you can convince me of your ways, you're sadly mistaken. Since we already know what a liar and manipulator you are, all of your usual weaving and twisting is useless."
The spirit chuckled humorlessly, looking up at the sky and watching the white clouds roll lazily by overhead. His voice was still unusually quiet, almost pensive. "No, I doubt I could dismantle your beliefs anymore than your preaching about love and friendship would dismantle mine." He paused. "Interestingly, you and I are really not so different. Each thinks only his way of viewing the world is the only truth. This battle between the two of us will be decided by our wills in the end—the one whose arrogance to presume the world is only as he sees it is greater. The one with the strongest will, the strongest heart, as in all the Shadow Games."
The pharaoh did not make any reaction, though inwardly he silently disagreed. Certainly, the one with the strongest heart would win. But he did not think that will would necessarily come from arrogance.
The pharaoh continued to watch the spirit with suspicious eyes as he tried to figure out where this was going.
"However," said the spirit softly, his eye flickering back down to the pharaoh, "that definitely won't be you."
The pharaoh gave the spirit a hard look, but again did not open his mouth to argue.
The spirit's eye went back up the blue sky and he continued, "It can't be you, because your will is torn. Despite what people think, justice is not something that is clearly defined. It is something that changes with the person. Every individual has a different view of it...but yours is that of a hypocrite. Your 'justice' is to protect the weak from harm and to not use the tactics of 'evil' to win. But when it comes down to it, you people do what you have to to claim victory in the end."
The pharaoh didn't answer, watching the spirit intently but his mouth felt dry. He couldn't speak.
"My justice is to kill those who get in my way, or threaten me. There is no hypocrisy in that. While you flounder and struggle between that thin line you call 'right and wrong,' I will forge ahead, getting more powerful all the time, without being hindered or confused by such trivial details. And you...you will be lost."
When the spirit had finished speaking, the pharaoh stared at him resolutely and when the spirit's eye finally came back to rest upon his face, the pharaoh said, "No, I have already tested the boundaries of good and evil." He closed his eyes as that memory of he and Kaiba standing up on that castle so far away on Pegasus's island and Kaiba's threat that he would gladly die if Yugi attacked. He'd rather die than lose, that was the strength of his resolve. The pharaoh knew why he'd been wrong back then to go through with the attack.
The pharaoh's own confident smirk spread across his face as he said, "I do know where the boundaries are."
"You think so, do you?" said the spirit softly. "We'll see...We'll see." He had a softly pensive look on his face as he stared out over the lake. The pharaoh flinched as the spirit suddenly grinned wildly, apparently back to his old self when he turned to look back at the pharaoh once again.
"Despite all your bragging about having figured out I was here, you really don't know much of anything about the time I spent at this place, do you?"
The pharaoh snapped out of the quiet reverie of philosophies the spirit had led them into and glared at him. He was even more obnoxious when he was right.
"I'm much more powerful than before," said the spirit and he paused, as though waiting for the pharaoh to ask him about it. When he didn't, the spirit continued on, "You're probably thinking that you've learned everything I have, so it's nothing to be impressed over." He smirked as the pharaoh's eyes narrowed. "And you are correct—at least about what we learned here at this school." He pulled his wand out of his pocket and casually examined it, turning it over in his long, thin fingers.
The pharaoh watched, tense as he waited for what the spirit would do next. The spirit was unpredictable.
"Magic tricks," sneered the spirit, pocketing the wand again and looking back at the pharaoh. "While useful, that is all they are."
The pharaoh frowned questioningly.
"The darker side of this world extended its hand to me," said the spirit simply. "And because of it, I'm stronger than ever."
"What does that mean?" the pharaoh asked. "How?"
The spirit shrugged. "Guess you'll just have to find out for yourself, won't you? I've been pretty generous to tell you this much, so I'll leave the rest up to you. Or perhaps, just as you're on the verge of death—" The pharaoh could not help the chill that shot down his spine—"I might decide to tell you a little more."
For the first time, the pharaoh's eyes dropped away from the spirit's and he glanced around at the students still meandering around after the funeral, some already leaving as they got ready to board the train that would take them home.
"What is your plan for this world of wizards exactly?" the pharaoh asked, looking back up. "You want to be the king over this place too? You want even more power to be either adored or feared by everyone?"
The spirit turned away from the pharaoh to look up at the sky overhead and the pharaoh hesitantly followed his gaze. Instead of answering, he asked, "Do you see it, Pharaoh? That soft, clear blue...Does it make you happy seeing it? Does the warmth and natural beauty give you a pleasant feeling of peace?" His lips curled. "Because I'm going to make it mine, and I'm going to make it a different color...that's my plan for this world. My plan for this world is the same as my plan for yours; to me, the wizarding world and the so-called 'muggle' world are the same despite what the arrogant wizards think. I will turn your blue sky to black and I will turn this lake shining with life to crimson. What will you do then?"
The pharaoh continued to stare a the beautiful azure sky and then his eyes dropped to the clear, glittering lake.
"That's your prediction," he said finally. "But a mere prediction is nothing. Because I'm here to stop all of it. As long as I'm here..." But as the pharaoh turned to look at the spirit, he saw that the tomb robber was gone.
The warm breeze of the balmy day blew from the lake, tussling the pharaoh's hair as a feeling of unease settled over him. He stared at the place where the spirit had been standing a moment before, then clenched his fist at his side and his look of quiet shock melted into one of determination.
"Yes, no matter what, I swear I won't let your justice become a reality, Spirit of the Millennium Ring. Your twisted dream for the future will fail. That is my prediction."
And so he turned on his heel in the thick emerald green grass and set off back to the castle.
Meanwhile, far underground the spirit sped along, grasped securely in the clutches of the great beast that resided within his soul, Diabound. He'd make one last stop at Hogwarts for a quick change of clothes before he went on with the rest of his plans.
The spirit would kill the pharaoh eventually as his revenge for all that pain he'd endured those many years ago, but for now, he needed to concentrate on making sure this wizarding world didn't get in his way. Their magic had proved, of course, a great deal weaker than his own, but those who had near mastery over their magic could be problematic. Fortunately, Dumbledore's death had already been arranged for him. There was one other dangerous wizard on the spirit's list however that wasn't in any position to conveniently get himself killed just yet, though.
It would take some calculated interference on the spirit's part to get him out of the way. Then at last he would be free to fulfill his true ambition, to utterly destroy his most hated enemy.
"And soon this city, too, will drown in blood and you will be the one to spill it."
A/N: So far, this fic has followed basically the same timeline of events that HBP did. However, with this chapter, the parallel with book six officially ends. In my mind, this fic has two parts: the part that follows book 6, and the part that comes afterward and follows a projected version of book 7. For better or for worse, the second part is less angst and more action than the first 28 chapters, and Harry & company finally get to play a larger role.
Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who reviewed for your support and input! If you get the chance, please r and r! (:
