A/N: I'm so sorry! I know this is a million and a half years after my last update, but...I just couldn't get myself to post this. (Although it has been pretty much done for two and a half months now.) But I guess you can consider it a late Christmas present. (Or whatever holiday you celebrate.) And for those of you that lost interest in this story way back in the fourth month of no updates...know that I'm really sorry.

Chapter 37: Grimmauld Place

The dark London street of the small, almost rural town was quiet and deserted in the early morning gloom. However, the sound of four consecutive 'cracks' temporarily broke the silence and four figures appeared, standing on the dark sidewalk next to the street.

Without speaking, Harry started purposefully down the sidewalk, knowing exactly where he needed to be. He didn't look behind him.

Hermione and Ron, who could see by his tense shoulders and stubborn silence that he was clearly angry, glanced at each other and then at Yugi before following.

Yugi trailed behind them, ignoring the rather unwelcoming atmosphere.

It didn't take long for Harry to find what he was looking for. Coming to a stop in front of the area directly between the two regular houses of eleven and thirteen, he turned to face the houses. Of course, anyone not from around the area probably wouldn't have noticed that the number twelve house was missing, but that was exactly what Harry expected.

Harry thought of the words, 'Number twelve, Grimmauld Place' and the familiar house that had once belonged to his godfather appeared out of nowhere, pushing houses number eleven and thirteen out of the way.

For the first time since they arrived, Harry glanced back at Yugi and saw Yugi glancing around the place they were standing, his eyes falling on everything except the house right in front of them.

It occurred to Harry that because Yugi didn't know to think 'number twelve, Grimmauld Place' that he wouldn't be able to even see the house, let alone get inside. Harry immediately felt relieved; now they could go in and do what they came here to do without worrying about accidentally letting something slip that would clue Yugi in to anything important.

"Well, I guess we should go in now—" said Harry, and he started toward the door, but Hermione touched Harry's arm. Harry glanced at her and she gestured vaguely at Yugi.

Harry shrugged his shoulders in an "oh well, his problem" sort of way and stubbornly turned toward the door again.

However, Hermione grabbed his arm and said to Ron and Yugi, while Harry shot Yugi another cool look, "Just a second, Harry and I are—are going to go check something. Can you two wait back here for a minute?"

"What? What are you checking?" Ron asked suspiciously, while Yugi surveyed them with an unreadable expression.

"Something—" said Hermione, looking rather distracted as she attempted to keep Harry from removing his arm from her grip. "Just stay here and we'll be back soon." Without waiting for Ron to argue, she proceeded to pull Harry a ways down the street. They turned a corner and Hermione stopped and turned to Harry with a look of determination mingled with a little nervousness, as though afraid Harry might blow up at her.

However, she didn't give him time to as she said quickly, "Harry, we have to let him come with us."

"No," Harry replied immediately, not sure he was surprised by Hermione's take on things or not. "He shouldn't even be here." He turned away. He didn't add that he was afraid that Yugi would be so busy trying to keep them out of danger that he'd keep them from doing what they needed to do; Hermione probably wouldn't believe that. After all, it wasn't Hermione Yugi had been gazing at with those confident, violet-crimson eyes as he had said, "You didn't resent my help when I took care of that tiara."

Instead, he decided to try a logical argument. "Besides, we can't just tell people where the headquarters of the Order used to be. Think about it. The Order might be coming back, now that they know the place was passed to me and not Bellatrix—"

"But Snape knew where it was and how to get in," Hermione said softly. "And now Dumbledore isn't the Secret Keeper anymore..."

Frowning angrily, Harry looked away from her. He knew she was right, but that didn't mean he wanted Yugi coming in with them.

"Besides," Hermione went on, "we can't just leave Yugi standing around out here while we search. He's still wearing the robes he had on for Bill and Fleur's wedding, so he'll attract attention when the sun's up a little higher and people start getting up and going about their day. Unless Yugi Apparates back before that, he'll draw all kinds of attention. Judging by the way he's been so far, I'd say he won't be Apparating. Harry...is it really worth the trouble?"

"We could take him somewhere else, then Apparate back here and leave him behind," Harry suggested half-heartedly, but he was already beginning to see that he was fighting a losing battle.

"But he already knows what the place looks like," Hermione pointed out. "He'd just come back here as soon as we took him somewhere else. And it's getting light, so someone might see him appearing out of nowhere—or see us, for that matter."

"Well..."

Apparently seeing Harry's growing sense of defeat, Hermione added, "Besides, we don't really have to tell him anything. What we're actually doing can still be a secret, just like Dumbledore wanted."

Harry sighed, and nodded. "Okay. But remember, don't tell him anything you don't have to. And, we'll have to be careful what we say, even when we think he's not listening."

"Right," said Hermione.

They went back around the corner and down the street to where Ron and Yugi were still waiting in front of the hidden Number 12, Grimmauld Place. When they got back, Ron immediately asked, "What was it? What were you checking?" but Hermione just shook her head.

Hermione went over to Yugi and glanced around several times before she leaned over, looking as though she were on the verge of whispering something into his ear, but, looking nervously around at the empty street and dark windows once again, apparently changed her mind. She got a piece of parchment and quill out of a purse she'd been carrying and Ron made a joke about how Hermione was probably suffering not to be able to carry her textbooks around to do homework with.

Harry wasn't listening however and he frowned at Yugi's back, while Yugi remained preoccupied with watching Hermione write.

As though sensing Harry's eyes on him, Yugi lifted his head and turned to look back at Harry over his shoulder. However, his expression didn't alter at all as he saw Harry's look of displeasure. Yugi didn't look angry or abashed, only...calm. The way Dumbledore had almost always seemed calm whenever he spoke to Harry, despite any kind of horrible circumstance he was in. The way he'd acted when he'd been facing death on the astronomy tower, until Snape had arrived...

Thinking of his affection for the deceased Headmaster, and at the same time his hatred for his erstwhile Potion's Professor, Harry turned away from Yugi. Yugi turned away as well as Hermione handed him the small piece of parchment, instructing him to memorize the words.

Harry glanced at Yugi again, though with less anger. He wished Yugi hadn't insisted on coming—it complicated everything. Dumbledore hadn't wanted anyone to know and Yugi might be putting himself in danger—or end up putting them all in danger. If only Dumbledore hadn't been so blind as to be fooled by his own double agent.

Harry blinked, and had a sudden thought. He studied Yugi with a pensive expression while Yugi gave the parchment back to Hermione, who vanished it with a flick of her wand.

"Let's hurry," Hermione said in a low voice as she started toward the stone steps that led up to number twelve. "The sun's getting higher."

Yugi evidently had no trouble seeing the dirty old house now and followed her.

It couldn't be. Yugi couldn't possibly be like Peter Pettigrew or Snape. A servant of Voldemort wouldn't actually destroy a horcrux just to gain their trust. No way it would be worth such a high price. But maybe, if the tiara had been a fake...

Harry shook his head. 'No way.' He had no reason to suspect Yugi of anything. Yet.

Hermione tried the doorknob and shook her head. "It's locked," she whispered.

"Here, let me try that," said Ron, pulling out his wand. "Alohomora!" he hissed, pointing his wand at the doorknob, but nothing happened.

"That won't work, there's no keyhole," said Hermione, pointing. "If you can't unlock it with a key, you won't be able to unlock it that way. Oh, what are we going to do?"

Harry stared at the silver door knocker fashioned to look like a serpent and tried to remember his first trip to this place.

Without a word, Harry passed Hermione and Ron and, pulling out his own wand, he tapped once on the front of the old door.

"What are you doing, Harry?" Hermione asked as the door still did nothing.

Harry shrugged. "That's what Lupin did before when we were here. He used his wand."

"He must have been doing some sort of spell," said Hermione in disappointment as she glanced over in the direction of the quickly-rising sun again. "Oh, what'll we..."

"We'll look pretty stupid if we came all this way and we can't even get in," Ron said grimly. "But maybe if we broke down the door, or blew it up with something—"

"I don't think that's a good idea," Hermione said quickly.

Yugi had been so quiet all during this time that they'd nearly forgot he was there and looked over at him in surprise when he spoke. "If that's what it takes, I'll be happy to help," he said, reaching into his robes for something they couldn't see.

"You wouldn't," said Ron, his eyes bright and a grin on his face. "Would you?" He looked positively gleeful at the prospect of seeing the big blue monster cause some more destruction.

"R-Remember, we don't want to attract attention," said Hermione, not missing Yugi's rather pleased look at this and began squeezing her purse nervously. She shot Ron a quick disapproving look and turned to Harry for support. "Isn't that right, Harry?"

But again, Harry was so busy thinking about the problem that he wasn't listening to the three's conversation. It was unbelievable to think, Harry thought, that they'd come here thinking that they might have the lead that they'd been afraid they wouldn't get, only to find that they couldn't get into the house. Especially a house that supposedly belonged to him.

"Um, anyway, we can't just stay here," said Hermione, determined to drive the subject away from violence and building demolition. She looked eastward again, where over half of the fiery white sphere could now be seen on the horizon, shedding light on the many buildings of the area so that they cast long shadows over the street. "People will be getting up soon if they aren't up already, and they'll see us. Come on, Harry, if we go now, maybe we can ask someone in the Order."

Harry suddenly looked startled, having just gotten an idea.

"Can they really see us?" Ron asked. "If they can't see the house..."

Without telling his idea to any of them and without bothering to look around the street to make sure no one was out or watching them, he called softly into the dim morning light, "Kreacher?"

While Harry and others were still on the verge of beginning their search of the abandoned house, someone else was beginning an early-morning search of his own. Amongst the sounds of ocean waves crashing against a jagged rock line, a sharp 'crack' broke the steady rhythm and a figure dressed in a long black coat appeared on one of the many rock outcrops below the high cliff above.

His single eye gleamed in the darkness as he scanned the area around him, until his gaze fell on a deep fissure that scarred the side of the cliff. He made no movement save the small smile of victory that spread across his lips as he silently beckoned to the monster within his soul. Then, swiftly and silently, his position still remaining perfectly still as though he were standing on an invisible escalator, his form moved up off the outcrop and floated down silently toward the crevice.

However, just as it seemed he would come within range of getting inside it, he halted in midair, observing the crevice from above. As a line of sunlight began to form on the eastern horizon and for a moment, thick gray scales of an enormous creature looming behind the man glimmered into view. Then, a slight sneer on his face, the spirit moved straight into the side of the cliff, content that he was not so confined as to have to swim through the cold dark waters inside the crack below him.

He emerged into the open area that the fissure below expanded into and he had Diabound set him down on the dark slippery rock at the very entrance to the cave. He didn't bother to look around him, as though he'd gone this path a thousand times before as he strolled to the opposite side of the cave.

He stood in front of the wall of rock, casually looking it up and down. Yes, this was indeed the spot.

Suddenly, his slow, fluid motions broke into a flurry of movement and a dark sticky substance splattered from the spirit's hand onto the rock wall next to him. The outline of white light that appeared around the doorway illuminated the grotesquely pleased look on the spirit's face as he licked the crimson substance on his hand and the slow, almost lazy movement of his other arm as it flicked the same substance from the sharp metallic edge of his duel disk.

Then the silver lining vanished, along with the rock door that it had silhouetted a moment before, opening the way to the unnatural dark of the other room.

"Only fools rely on the help of the desperate."

A/N: Sorry...I know this is a short chapter. D:

Some notes:

When I first wrote the rough draft for this, it occurred to me that I didn't really know what happens to the Fidelius charm when the secret keeper dies. I looked it up on the HP lexicon, but at the time it said that it wasn't known. Then I started to get rather worried, because when I actually started to think about it, I realized that if the charm didn't lift, then nobody could have told Yami how to get in since the Secret Keeper has to personally give that information (or be the one to send the note), and if the charm is lifted, then Yami would be able to see it, wouldn't he? So I was considering cutting that whole scene out and just making him able to see it, but then it was explained in book seven. It somehow worked out better than I could have hoped. (: Of course, it made sense, since they talked about how even if the Secret Keeper died, it wouldn't help Voldemort. (It did say something like that, didn't it?)

Most everything in this chapter didn't end up being changed a whole lot from my original rough draft. The part where Ron suggested that they couldn't be seen while standing near the house was inspired by book 7, though. I never really thought about that; I always just assumed that you could be seen until you actually entered the house.

Thank you so much everyone for reading and reviewing! (Even though I haven't been replying individually to them as of late; I don't think I'm supposed to reply before/after chapters like I used to—rather, authors are supposed to use the "reply" button in the review section. And since I don't want to spam anyone's e-mail account, I've only been answering questions here and there...) I'm really appreciative of how patient you've been with me and I love getting your thoughts on the story...I still intend to finish this, I just don't know how much time it's going to take. X3

Posted 1/7/09, revised 9/10/11