Of Lost Swords and Shadow Magic

by Vaasth

In his efforts to find an edge over Albus Dumbledore, Lord Voldemort seeks out a magic only known to Wizards in myth and lost to time. Now, as targets of a madman halfway across the globe, the bearers of the Millennium Items find themselves thrown into a foreign war as an ancient relic brings an unexpected third player to the table.

48. Guilt

/Text/ Spirit to Host

/Text/ Host to Spirit

---

Chapter 48: Guilt

"How long do you think they're going to be in there?" asked Yugi, wringing his hands together in his lap. He sat with Harry and Ryou, on chairs Professor Snape conjured just outside Dumbledore's office.

They had all watched gobs of black magic siphon off Kaiba's body in long, fast drags in the Room of Requirement, and he had collapsed immediately after, staying down until Dumbledore did something with his wand to bring him back around.

Time was short, Dumbledore had said, and summoned some sort of ghostly phoenix apparition. He spoke to it, his voice quiet and firm, but Yugi didn't pay him any attention. He was too focused on his rival's deep, pained, labored breaths. Of eyes still tightly squinted shut, and of the gruesome bloodied and blistered skin along his left palm, that also stained through the sleeve of his right arm.

The phoenix vanished.

Dumbledore turned back and brought out his wand again, but before he could cast or do anything, the Millennium Puzzle activated around Seto's neck, brightening the dim torchlights along the wall, and Yami phased out.

They are gone, the Pharaoh had said, but Kaiba's mind – his soul room – has been severely damaged. It's already started to repair itself, but it is slow work, and he needs to rest and time to heal.

To Yugi's surprise and horror, Dumbledore only seemed to pay attention to the first half of Yami's statement.

Which was how the three of them were sitting outside the Headmaster's office, not two hours after the whole fiasco began. Did Kaiba receive treatment for his burns and an order to go straight to bed?

No. Instead he was ushered into Dumbledore's office to be ganged up on by Professors Snape, Umbridge, and McGonagall – and two serious-looking Ministry officials, who stormed up the spiral stairs about twenty minutes after the others had gone inside.

It had been quiet ever since.

The only consolation, if anything, was that he had the Puzzle back, but even the Pharaoh didn't seem keen to talk about what had gone on in Kaiba's mind. He had retreated back, deep into his labyrinth and requested some time alone to recuperate.

"I don't know," said Ryou, "But…if they were going to be there this long, I wished we could have just waited in the Hospital Wing. I'm worried about Hermione."

"I am too," said Harry. Hermione hadn't regained consciousness since Se –Voldemort, cast that orange curse. Dumbledore managed to protect the rest of them from it, but she was far too close and took the brunt of the damage. It reminded him eerily of Dolohov's curse from the Department of Mysteries seeing as she didn't appear physically hurt at all, but Hermione had barely survived that one, and Madam Pomfrey had her on a huge cocktail of potions in order to recover.

He wished he had the same bit of nerve as Ron, who sat himself down next to Hermione's bedside, looked right up at Professor Snape and Professor McGonagall, both of whom had come to collect them, and refused to leave her side.

Professor McGonagall, thankfully, didn't argue, but still ushered the rest of them out and past the gargoyle guarding the entrance to the tower.

Ryou glanced down and fidgeted with the center-most prongs dangling from the Millennium Ring. There was no use hiding it from sight anymore – the professors all saw it and the Shadow Realm during the Quidditch match. If there was anyone that Dumbledore hadn't told, other than Umbridge, the secret was out now.

"How much trouble do you think we're going to be in, for using the Millennium Items?"

Harry snorted. "If you two get blasted for trying to save the school, then maybe it's time you throw hands and just leave. Because whatever hope Dumbledore and the Ministry have for you being here to help us isn't worth it for the way you're being treated."

Ryou sighed. "I know. But now Umbridge knows and –"

"Umbridge already suspected something the day of the Boggart, remember?" said Harry. "Maybe even earlier than that. And really, if she gives you guys anymore grief we can just remind her after all this is done, that for however long Seto was running off of Voldemort's arsenal of spells. None of the stuff he was hitting us with were things we learned in class."

Yugi let out a huge exhale. "Somehow…I don't see that working too well."

The heavy office door swung open and Professor Snape stood in the doorway. Harry couldn't get a good gauge if he was scowling down at them specifically, or the overall situation at hand.

Snape didn't say anything, instead merely gestured them inside and into a side room off to the side of the main chamber, almost hidden amongst all the bookshelves.

This, Harry realized, must be where Dumbledore's living quarters were. The sofa and armchairs were the same style as the ones from the common room – which made sense, he supposed, since Dumbledore used to belong to Gryffindor House.

Professor Umbridge sat beside Pius Thicknesse in two of the squashy armchairs on one side of the room. The Minister of Magic was in another. But Seto was nowhere in sight, and neither was Professor McGonagall.

Dumbledore emerged from a separate room and gestured them to the sofa. "Have a seat, gentlemen." He gestured to the two Ministry wizards. "May I introduce Rufus Scrimgeour, the Minister of Magic, and Pius Thicknesse, the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

Ryou gave them the meekest of smiles in greeting and looked nervously about the room, and purposely avoided Professor Umbridge's eyes. "A-are we in serious trouble, Professor?"

"No," said Dumbledore, "You are not."

"Even though the Sp—I used the Shadow Realm?"

Dumbledore held up a hand. "It is all right, Ryou. I'm afraid at this point, the cat is out of the bag. They may join us, if they wish."

Yugi was both surprised and not that neither The Pharaoh or the Spirit of the Ring emerged from their Millennium Items, and he settled down between Harry and Ryou. "What happened to Kaiba?"

"Professor McGonagall is escorting him to Gryffindor Tower…." said Dumbledore, and Harry had to raise an eyebrow. They were sitting around the entrance to the office and neither of them passed by to leave. Was there another more secret exit that no one knew about? Was it even on the Marauders Map?

"…For now," Dumbledore continued, "We have some questions over this morning's events."

Ryou nodded numbly. He expected questions – mainly from Umbridge – about the Spirit in the Ring, but was not going to complain about Dumbledore giving him a free pass on the Shadow Realm.

"We'll do what we can," Yugi began, "But there are things I'm sure that only Kaiba could tell you."

"We have already spoken to Mr. Kaiba," said Umbridge, "But his responses have been…ahem, less than stellar."

Yugi forced himself to huff as quietly as possible. /Gee – I wonder why that is. Did no one really think that, after everything, Kaiba just wouldn't be well enough to answer their questions?/

/I know/ said Yami. He moved to stand in the doorway from his soul room, arms crossed angrily while he stared blankly out at Yugi's open door. /Remember that this was what they had tried to do when he first returned to the school? They would have succeeded then, had it not been for Roland's consistent interference./

/The fact that there's no…ugh…no care! And I don't think Dumbledore is to blame – honestly I think this has Umbridge's fingers all over it, even though she had no stake in anything the first time around. I don't know…this whole thing just leaves me with a bad feeling deep down and I can't shake it./

"Okay…." Harry said hesitantly. If nothing else, he'd expect Seto to be tightlipped just because Umbridge was in the same room.

Snape seemed to prefer to linger near the doorway, so Dumbledore took the last remaining seat in the room. "Yugi, Ryou – you two are his roommates. Did he give any inclination that something was wrong with him before now?"

The three of them looked at each other before Ryou cleared his throat awkwardly and began to speak. "He came to me, once…after he got back, and mentioned he was hearing a voice, telling him there was work to do…but I think at the time he didn't know what it all meant."

"Did he confide in either of you?" asked Dumbledore, "About this voice?"

Yugi and Harry both shook their heads.

The Minister leaned forward. "Would you consider that unusual behavior for him?"

"I mean, maybe a little," said Ryou, scratching at the back of his head, and stared down at his lap. Everyone's eyes were on him, and he felt so incredibly uncomfortable. "Normally, I'm not his go-to person if something is wrong. But…I really didn't have much to tell him either. I suppose…I just assumed he was having trouble adjusting to being back, and dismissed it."

"…I see," said Dumbledore.

Yugi quickly jumped in before Ryou could say anything else. "We're just going to add that Kaiba doesn't have a go-to person he'd be willing to talk to. He just won't."

"Then what?" asked Snape.

"I started getting text messages on my phone," said Yugi, "and –"

Umbridge let out a haughty sort of snort. "Another one of these infernal things? How many of them are there?!"

"Alright." Dumbledore held up a hand. "Dolores, that is neither here nor there. Yugi, please continue."

Yugi exhaled loudly and didn't bother to hide the infuriated glare he shot at Umbridge – one that probably would have made Kaiba proud, had he been here to witness it – before he crossed his arms and leaned into the back of the sofa. "So…I started getting weird text messages in the middle of the night by an unknown sender. On the surface it seemed like a bunch of random letters and numbers. I wanted to ask Kaiba about them in the morning, but he had already left to go back home for the week and I didn't want to bother him with it while he was gone."

Yugi took another long breath and looked at Harry. "That's…probably when everything went downhill, huh?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah. Pretty much."

"So…I sent a message back to my Domino friends asking what the coded stuff might mean, if any of them recognized it, and well, in doing that we found out that…Kaiba never made it home."

That certainly got Dumbledore's attention. "Explain."

"We were talking to his brother," said Harry, and he jumped in before Yugi could continue any further. He had to be careful with how they explained everything. The Marauders Map, as far as he knew, was still up in the Astronomy Tower. Explaining how they knew Seto was still in the castle would also get him on Snape's hit list (again) because no doubt someone would ask about the Room of Requirement….which would transition to him tailing Malfoy. "And he got worried because Seto never arrived back in Domino."

"We tried reaching out to Kaiba, and he said he didn't leave here to go to home in Japan, but to the United States on business…but we later found out that that wasn't true either," said Yugi.

"It turned out he went…elsewhere…for work," said Harry, "but we all got suspicious because we caught him in such a huge lie, and normally he wouldn't just make something like that up, so we, uh, sort of snooped through his things. We found what looked like the notes that he took during the first month he was here…only…."

Harry looked to Yugi. He was worried Yugi might say something to incriminate his stalking of Malfoy…but if he said too much…would the Ministry try to confiscate Seto's notes – or even worse, his technology over this mess?

"Only what?" asked Snape.

"…Only it was a second set," said Yugi, "Similar, but not quite the same. Hermione recognized it because she found Seto passed out asleep in the Library working on it one night…and he didn't remember going to the Library in the first place. So we borrowed it to try to figure out what all of it meant. Around the same time, our friends in Domino figured out that the text messages were a coded transcript of one of my Duel Monsters matches."

"And what does any of this have to do with the issue at hand?" Umbridge asked flatly.

Yugi closed his eyes and inhaled sharply.

/Easy, Yugi./

/UGH. I think I now understand how she sets Kaiba off so easily./

"It matters," Yugi snapped, "Because during that match, a friend of mine was possessed by the Mi—by an evil cult, and it took everything we had to break him out of it. And the coded texts came from Kaiba's laptop while he was away, so he purposely sent us a clue that wouldn't alert Voldemort to what he was up to, and added to the duplicate research we found, it didn't take a lot to put the two together."

"Where is this research now?" asked Pius. "I'd like to see it, to make sure he didn't damage anything else beyond the school wards."

"Again, he didn't break the wards down," Ryou said irritably.

"I will say that in all of my years studying all forms of magic, I have never seen the spells he cast today," said Dumbledore gravely, "So while it may seem like he was unsuccessful, we would like to err on the side of caution."

"Well, the research is gone," said Harry, "Hermione disintegrated it in the fight. So unless you plan on asking him nicely…."

"That's quite enough cheek, Potter," Snape snapped at him.

"There is an alternative solution for that," Dumbledore said, "It is not quite as thorough as what I would like to have, but it should be sufficient. Now, moving on – did he exhibit any other unusual behavior up to this point?"

"I mean, he punched a mirror and put himself down for a nap yesterday," said Harry. "Other than that he's just…seemed ill. Not sleeping, hardly eating. The no coffee stint he was on was rather telling. We were lucky if he said more than 10 words to us over the course of a week."

"How did you know he was going to act today? Did he give you any forewarning?" asked Scrimgeour.

"No," said Yugi, "We sort of just…figured it out. It made the most sense during the Quidditch Game because the school would be empty, and we guessed that the Astronomy Tower was the easiest and most secluded place in the castle."

"Hem, hem."

"…Yes, Dolores?" asked Dumbledore.

Umbridge shifted in her seat before smiling at the three of them on the sofa. "Boys, I know it may not seem like we are grateful, but we are, that you managed to discover and at least hold off this plot until help could arrive. But I'm afraid I am concerned – with this knowledge that your friend was in such trouble, why did you not come to me or any of the other staff, or even the Aurors around the castle? We are far more capable of taking care of this sort of magical attack."

Three sets of eyes turned to glare at her and she quickly added. "Not that your efforts were unappreciated. But you have studied magic for far less time, and were clearly unequipped for such a fight."

Yugi balled his hands into fists. "You…want to know why we didn't tell anyone?"

"That's right," said Umbridge. Her voice oozed the false sweetness that fell flat halfway across the room. "I'm sure today could have been avoided in its entirety if we were simply alerted to what was going on from the start!"

"What would you have done then?" asked Ryou. "Say we ran to your office first, Professor Umbridge, because you are the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, and said that Kaiba was possessed by Lord Voldemort and was plotting a massive attack on the school. What would you have done, truly, that would have stopped him?"

"You wouldn't have done anything," Harry said hotly, before Umbridge could even answer, "Because for one – the two of you didn't get along in the slightest, and two –"

"A concern of this nature would have been thoroughly investigated!"

"Come on!" Harry rolled his eyes. "He fooled everyone! For weeks! Okay, so you investigate – but what's he doing in the meantime, huh? Still working a way around the little setback you made, because he's being forced to do it. And even if you believed us on the first cry for help and I dunno, arrested him or something, that wouldn't have gotten Voldemort out of his head."

"Look," Yugi said, and got to his feet. He gave a hard look at Harry, and then out at all of the adults in the room, landing last on Dumbledore. "You want to know the real reason why we didn't say anything? We weren't worried about if Professor Umbridge or Professor McGonagall or anyone else would believe us. The fact is that Kaiba lost his trust in all of you to do the right thing when he was abducted.

"And in some aspect, I think we all did too. But I've gotten through to my friends before when they were in predicaments like this, and I knew how to get to him this time too. We could have warned anyone this was going to happen, but honestly, I didn't trust any of you enough that Kaiba wouldn't get hurt or worse in trying to free him.

"Were we in over our heads? Yeah! That's why we sent Bakura to find you. We didn't know that Kaiba was going to be flinging the whole Dark Arts arsenal at us. But what matters now is that he's safe, Hogwarts is safe, and Voldemort's gone. Nothing else."

And with a huff, he crossed his arms and plunked back down onto the couch, purposely staring down at the Puzzle and avoiding eyes with everyone else in the room.

"I understand you are upset," Dumbledore said calmly, "and I believe we have let things get a bit out of hand. We should have everything we need to know."

Yugi nodded and was the first of the three to get back onto his feet, Harry following right after.

"What happens now?"

"The Quidditch Match, I'm sure, has ended," said Dumbledore. "I would advise you all return to Gryffindor Tower, and join Mr. Kaiba."

It was then the Minister that spoke next, and Harry couldn't help but notice that Umbridge was grinning ear to ear at his every word. "…Where he will stay pending the conclusion of our investigation."

Yugi's eyes shot open wide and he exchanged shocked glances with his friends. "What!? Why?"

"A very serious breach of magical security has taken place here today," said Scrimgeour. "Not only did Mr. Kaiba attack and seriously injure one of his peers, but by bringing down the protective measures around Hogwarts, he put every person in the castle at risk."

"But the wards didn't come down," Harry all but shouted, "He never made it that far!"

"And he didn't do any of this on purpose!" Yugi said hotly, "You don't honestly think he would have willingly attacked us, do you? Voldemort was controlling him!"

Yugi thumped his head against his side of the corridor. /I-I don't get it. How much clearer do we have to make things?! Are they…really just incapable of listening?/

Yami stepped forward and placed a hand on Yugi's shoulder. /They are just doing their job, Yugi, as frustrating as it is./

/I want to punch something. They're treating him like a criminal when it was the exact opposite! No wonder he thinks so poorly of the wizards!/

"His success – or lack of, in this matter is irrelevant," said Scrimgeour. "It doesn't matter if he was being controlled or not. The fact is that one person, with an extremely limited magical knowledge, managed to discover how to breach the strongest protective spells we can cast. We need to dig deep down into what he did, and seal any cracks we left behind."

Yugi's hands shook against his sides, and felt his cheeks redden. "And how long is this supposed to take?"

"As long as it needs," said Scrimgeour.

"He may go to and from the tower for meals, but that is all," said Dumbledore. "I'm afraid this matter is out of my hands now. Believe me, I do not like it either, but for his safety, and for that of everyone else, it is necessary."

"Is it?" Yugi scowled back at him. "For someone who cares so much about the welfare and safety of this school, you really do let it slip by. Whether Voldemort planted him back here or he escaped on his own, you all just couldn't wait to start interrogating him. He had been tortured, and you were more concerned about your own agenda than letting him recover.

"And today? He just ran the greatest mental gauntlet of his life. The Pharaoh said right in front of you that he needed time to rest – that Voldemort severely hurt him – again – and instead of letting him, you forced his eyes open and dragged him up here. Did anyone even treat his injuries?"

He then glared at Umbridge. "He had his mind torn to pieces. I'd like to hear you give 'stellar answers' after going through something like that."

Yugi shook his head and started for the doorway back to the main chamber in Dumbledore's office. "I'm honestly not sure which prison is worse: Voldemort's…or yours. At least we knew where to stand with him."

And with that, he spun on his heel and stormed out of the sitting room, pausing only briefly on his way towards the office door to stare at Dumbledore's desk.

Nestled between a stack of heavy books and a number of parchment scrolls sat Seto's wand.

---

Ron startled awake at the creaky sound of the mattress shifting beside him, and glanced over to see Hermione eyeing him through sleepy, half-lidded eyes.

"R-Ron?" she whispered.

He nodded and scooted his chair around to face her better. "Yeah. I'm here."

She blinked a few times and tried to shift to sit up.

"No – don't do –"

His words died off before she could even get enough leverage under her. The moment she dug her elbows into the mattress and started to move, she shut her eyes and a small whine snuck out as she winced and fell back into her pillow.

"Are you alright? Where does it hurt – I'll get Madam Pomfrey and –"

Hermione didn't open her eyes and just sighed.

Ron jumped up. "Just – hang on a second."

Hermione smiled mildly and tried to laugh, only to end up wincing instead. "I-I –oh…I don't think you have to worry about me going anywhere," she breathed. She squinted her eyes shut even tighter to wait out the rolling, stabbing feeling moving through her midsection, and heard his chair scrape along the floor as he shoved it away and ran across the infirmary towards Madam Pomfrey's office.

Ron stood off to the side, two beds away, and waited for Madam Pomfrey to finish up from the other side of the little privacy wall. He watched her go to and from her potions stock cabinet twice already, and he lost track of how many she magically summoned and returned back to the shelves after that. He stared down at the floor, lightly shuffling his feet left and right for lack of anything better to do.

Harry, Ryou, and Yugi were still up in Dumbledore's office, and he didn't see Seto at all, not after hurrying Hermione off to the Hospital Wing. The corridors were still exceptionally quiet. Perhaps the Quidditch Game was still in play.

"You can go back now," said Madam Pomfrey, and he snapped his head up.

"Is she okay?" he asked. "What did that curse do?"

"Quite enough," Madam Pomfrey said stiffly. "She needs rest. One of her potions will tucker her out shortly, but you are welcome to sit quietly with her. Do you understand? Quietly."

Hermione didn't look any more awake when he returned to his seat, in fact the opposite. Her eyes were closed, and he chewed on his lower lip. Was she asleep already?

Ron reached forward to grasp her left hand, and she blinked her eyes back open again and stared sleepily at him.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey. You gonna be okay?"

Hermione started to move her right arm across her body to pat at his hand, but winced and decided against it. "Oh…that's sore."

"She fixed your wrist?"

Her nod was so slight he almost missed it. "Yes…it still has a little mending to do, I think. But then…I think…." She yawned. "…So does the rest of me."

Ron eyed the alarming number of bottles sitting on her bedside table. "How long are you going to be here?"

"I…I'm not sure," she said, furrowing her brow, trying to think. "I…don't remember if she said…?"

"It's alright," Ron said soothingly and squeezed her hand. "As long as it takes. You know she won't let you out of here if you even sneeze in the wrong direction."

She laughed again – or tried to – only for a tiny whimper to escape out of her lungs instead.

"Sorry!" Ron quickly said, horrified. "I'll…try to stop making you laugh!"

"It's alright," she whispered and took a deep breath. "What…what happened to everyone…in the tower?"

"Everyone's okay," said Ron. "They're in Dumbledore's office at the moment, probably getting the riot act for using the Shadow Realm and everything. But we're all okay."

"And…Seto?" she asked.

"He's, err…I reckon he's not as well off as the rest of us, you know? But You-Know-Who's gone."

"H-he is?"

Ron nodded. "Yeah. We won."

Hermione couldn't help but smile and her eyes fell shut, the lids too heavy to stay open anymore as the promise of sleep loomed over her.

---

"Y-you're still here?"

Ron set the potion bottle he had been reading the ingredients off of back onto the table and twisted around. "'Course I am," he said. "Where else am I gonna go?"

He could have gone several places: to the Astronomy Tower, if he wanted to help clean up the mess they made, or Gryffindor Tower, or even to the Great Hall, where dinner was currently being served.

The others appeared from Dumbledore's office not long ago, and he was too afraid to ask how it went, judging by the unusual levels of rage oozing out of Yugi. Harry and Ryou didn't seem to have much to share on what went on, other than it was a big fact-finding mission gone horrendously down the toilet. Now they had gone off to dinner, with the promise of bringing him back a plate before the House Elves cleared the tables for the evening.

"How d'you feel?"

"Sleepy," she said, and despite the admission, one he expected anyway, Ron was at least pleased to hear there was now a touch more life in her voice than before. "And – oh – everything hurts. A lot."

"Well, try not to move too much then," Ron said, feeling rather awkward. This was probably the first time they got to talk – truly talk – without fighting since…before Christmas. It was weird. And hopefully, a nice change from their norm. Hopefully, he wouldn't say something dumb to get her all riled up and him kicked out of the Hospital Wing.

At the same time, he also wasn't sure of the right things to say, after their long silent streak.

Hermione was also staring at him as intently as she could manage, and he couldn't tell if it was because she was trying to focus through a drowsy haze, or if she was expecting him to say something first, or if there was something that she saw that no one else noticed. And…why did she look almost hurt while doing it? Did he need to find Madam Pomfrey again?

"What?"

"I…" she began and lifted her arm off the blanket and up towards his face. Ron reached up to catch her hand but she drew back. Only when he lowered his arm back down did she continue up, and with her index finger traced the thin barely-visible scar down the side of his cheek. There used to be more of them from the night after the Quidditch match, but all the others had long faded away.

"I-I did you a huge wrong, and I-I'm sorry."

Ron merely blinked at her.

She bit her lip. This was probably not the smartest moment to make this confession, but it was just the two of them. Harry and the others were not around. Lavender was not here.

Seto's abduction, and perhaps even the entire mess that followed were both a blessing – was that the right word?, she thought. Probably not – and a curse. She had been so overcome with worry these last few weeks, mainly for him and his wellbeing, especially once they knew just what was happening. But she couldn't also shake the guilt that followed – not for Seto, but for Ron.

Through thick and thin – and there have been plenty of thin moments over the last few years – he was her best friend. And she raked him over the coals and treated him like dirt over what – her roommate?

This was the same sort of jealousy she had gone off on him about when he made a total fuss at her with Viktor back in their fourth year – only this was worse because she got violent! In the end, she felt like nothing but a hypocrite, and a fool for letting this drag for so long.

Hermione let her hand drop down onto the bedcovers with a light thump. "I…should never have attacked you like that." She sighed. "I was angry and hurt…but t-that doesn't excuse what I did, or that it took me until now to own up to it."

"Well…" Ron began. The uncomfortableness he felt before was only growing. This was not how he expected the night to turn, and he certainly wasn't prepared for this conversation. "I, uh…think that maybe we each have a little blame to share, don't we?"

He ran a hand through the back of his hair. "I…um…guess I deserved it, even a little, huh?"

Hermione dug her left arm into the mattress and forced herself to sit up. "What!? No!"

Ron gently pushed her back down. "Hey, don't overdo it, okay?"

She fed him the most exasperated look she could muster but didn't try to sit up again. "Ron, please!"

"Look, I get it," he said, and settled himself back in his chair. "I know I've been a bit of a prat lately…over the years even. I…I get jealous easily. Look where I come from, okay? Look at me, compared to all of my brothers! Almost everything I own once belonged to one of them. So yeah…when everyone is fawning over Harry…or, or Krum…or…."

He glanced down at her and cringed. "…well, I can't help but feel slighted, you know?"

"But – it's not like that—" She struggled to sit up again and this time swatted Ron's hand away when he tried to stop her. "Please, Ronald."

Ron sighed, defeated, then twisted behind him to the nearest empty bunk, grabbed the pillow off the bed and shoved it behind her back so she could sit up. "Better?"

"Yes, loads," she said, relief evident in both her voice and on her face. "I feel like we can have a conversation now that I can look at you properly."

Ron quickly peered behind him. "Don't be too loud though or she's gonna kick me out. You're supposed to be sleeping, aren't you?"

"I'll sleep later," she said flippantly and she fought back the yawn that tried to escape and prove his point. "This is too important."

"No," Ron held up his hands. "You need to get well again so you can whack a newspaper over my head and tell me off for being your favorite dunderhead when I complain about Potions essays."

Hermione let out a loud sigh and turned away from him. "That's just it," she said quietly. "If…if we don't let out how we feel now, we won't at all. Something will always come up."

Ron was quiet for a minute and stared down at his lap, and Hermione wasn't privy to whatever dilemma he knocked back and forth in his head. "…You're right," he said softly. "Go ahead."

"I…I don't have siblings," Hermione said, after a pause to collect her thoughts together. "So I don't know what it feels like to have that sort of pressure all the time. To have that, that standard to live up to within your own house, or to feel like you're being compared to everyone else for how successful they are…."

She looked back at him. "But that hardly means I'm choosing them over you, Ron. You have a heart greater than anyone I've ever met, and honestly, I'm grateful every day that you invited me into it."

Ron cringed. "There's a 'but' coming, isn't there?"

Hermione reached for his hand. "But…I wish you would stop feeling so inferior. I don't love you any less because I've also found other friends."

Ron swallowed hard. "I know," he said. "I…just…didn't want to lose you."

She tilted her head at him. "I haven't gone anywhere. Neither of us have."

"…Right…" He took a deep breath. "I…suppose you've made your choice then."

She furrowed her brow and suppressed a shudder at the sharp sting that spread up across her stomach and squeezed down hard on her chest before fading away. "About what?"

Ron's shoulders slumped. "I mean…you had the nerve to stand right in front of him, and not back down, you know? That curse hit you right away, no reaction time. Imagine if…."

He looked down, thumbs fidgeting, not even wanting to finish his sentence out loud. Instead, he reformulated his words into the next thought that passed through his head.

"How did you know that he was going to break out of it?"

Hermione's eyes widened. "I…well, like Yugi, I believed he could do it. Seto's a strong person. I could see it before, when he was tryingto hide the fact that something was wrong. But I was just doing what I could to help."

Ron raised an eyebrow at her. "By standing right in the path of the fire?"

"Wouldn't you?" she asked quietly, "If instead, it was Harry holding the wand?"

Ron drew back, mouth agape.

"If standing in Harry's way was the only way you thought you could get through to him, to stop him from hurting anyone else and get him to come to his senses, wouldn't you do it, without hesitation? For your best friend?

"I wanted to help him because he's been through enough," she continued, "We're his friends, even if he won't admit it, and we're all in this together. This was our last chance to help him before everything went downhill, and I wasn't going to let him push us aside again. And even if we couldn't stand up to him in a wand fight, if our words and actions managed to help him break through the hold V-Voldemort had on him, then that was enough."

She sighed and played with the edge of her blanket. "I…I know why you're upset, Ron, and really, you shouldn't be. I'd have done the same thing, had it been you in his place. But you and I? We have someone, whether it's Harry or your family, or Yugi and Ryou and their friends. Seto doesn't have that here, at least not as well as the others do. So even if I'm alone, I'll still stand up and fight for him, the same way I would for any of you. It's just more noticeable when you're by yourself."

Her next words died out when the same piercing feeling flared up again. Hermione sucked in a sharp inhale and started to curl in herself, eyes firmly shut, and tried to ride out the sharp wave coursing through her with a vengeance. Ron grabbed at her hand and she squeezed down as hard as she could.

"One of these has to help," Ron muttered, and twisted around to eye all of the potion bottles without letting go. "You know which one she gave you before?"

"N-no," Hermione moaned, "T-there was a bunch of them…."

Ron ran a hand through his hair and shifted back to face her again. "O-okay," he said, his voice uncertain. "I'm…I'm going to get Madam Pomfrey."

"D-don't. Don't go." Her eyes finally opened and Ron felt his whole chest tighten at how she stared pleadingly up at him. "P-please."

"But—"

"I-I'll be okay," she winced mid-whisper.

Ron got up, moved the extra pillow he stuffed behind her aside, and eased her back down. "Please, Hermione, you need to rest. I'm only making things worse."

He could see her already starting to protest and put his other hand over the two interlocked together. "It's okay," he said. "I think…I think we owe each other a fresh start again, huh? No more fighting. It's…it's not worth it, after everything that happened." He gave her a small smile. "Think, er, think we can do that?"

Hermione gave her head a slight nod and closed her eyes; the spasm finally reached the end of its run.

Ron nudged his chair closer to the bed without letting go of her hand, and stared out the window behind her bed, feeling a growing wave of relief wash over him. Perhaps now everything would be a little less awkward.

Relief didn't last long. Within moments, something else raw and painful took over, twisting his insides into a pretzel. The timing of their truce couldn't be any worse, but…was he really doing it just because she had been hurt by You-Know-Who and he was just afraid?

They barely spoke for weeks, and it only improved somewhat when Seto was taken. But was it because she felt guilty about pushing him away over a petty thing like his dates with Lavender, when there were much bigger problems at hand?

Or – and he felt an ache form deep in the pit of his stomach at the thought – did Hermione, despite her insistence to the contrary – feel she needed him now, because she couldn't lean on Seto like she did in the past? Was he merely a placeholder for someone better?

He sighed, heart heavy. There was a lot he wanted to say, and to ask – despite feeling terrified of the potential answers. But this…this wasn't the time or the place.

Ron leaned in again. "I'm gonna get her, okay?"

Hermione didn't respond to him this time; deep breaths slowly going in and out. She fell asleep again.

He carefully dislodged his fingers from her hold, got up as quietly as he could manage it, and slunk off towards Madam Pomfrey's office, and couldn't help but shake the tiny little feeling lingering deep in his gut, that even a clean slate would not return them back to the way things were.

It was just a fight – you've had plenty of them before, said a nagging voice in his head. And you both have gotten over them. This is no different. In a few days this mess will be completely behind you.

He wished he could believe it.

---

Sunday

Yugi sat on the edge of his bed and pulled on his socks with a frown. He had a massive headache, and he was certain it was from his outburst in Dumbledore's office.

So much for sleeping it off.

"How do you feel this morning?" he asked aloud, and the Pharaoh phased out of the Puzzle to float beside him.

"Better," Yami admitted, "I feel stronger today. The fatigue from yesterday is behind me now."

Yugi sighed. "I wish it was on my half of the mind."

He glanced to Ryou's bunk. The curtains were open and the bed neatly made. Ryou must have already gone downstairs, not unusual for him on a Sunday morning. Sometimes he met with his Divination friends for an early breakfast before they got started on their work.

He reached down to grab his shoes and at the same time, a familiar buzzing noise sounded through the otherwise quiet dormitory, and he looked across the room.

Seto's phone vibrated along the edge of the bedside table, going for another couple of seconds before the screen darkened and it fell silent.

Yugi stared at it for far longer than he probably should have before returning his focus to the shoes he had been trying to put on the wrong feet. "How much you want to bet that's Mokuba again?"

Yami hung his head. "It may very well be – but it is rather early for Mokuba to call. I'm sure by now he's aware of the difference in time between here and Japan."

"Yeah…you're right."

Yugi pressed his palms flat into his mattress and leaned back. He had to intercept Mokuba's call yesterday, and give him the vaguest answer of 'I'm sorry, Kaiba went to sleep early with a migraine' to placate him. Probably not a stretch of the truth at all, but it hurt to have to make up an excuse. Kaiba had gone through so many hoops to put on the air that everything was fine for so long, and he even lied to his brother in order to do it.

There was no way he was going to put Mokuba into a panic by telling him that the new wizard supervillain had his brother's brain in a headlock. For weeks.

Seto's phone buzzed again, only once this time.

The curtains around Seto's bed were only partially shut, and Yugi crossed the room to peer down at him. Seto was still in yesterday's clothes, still asleep in the same position he found him in when he returned the dormitory after visiting Hermione in the Hospital Wing.

Yugi looked away and at the phone, waking it quickly just to see the notifications on the screen before turning it back off. It wasn't his place to pry, but if it was Mokuba, he could at least send a message along that his brother was still sleeping off his headache.

One call, and one voicemail, from Roland.

/You think he's okay?/

/I hope so,/ said Yami. /I can't say I know how long it will take for his mind to recover, having never gone through something like that before. And there's no one else we can really ask./

/But you said his soul room was damaged…/

/Yes, but I also saw witness to it mending itself before you took the Puzzle back. It is a slow process, but it will get there. Just have a little faith./

Yugi nodded, and walked each side of the bed, pulling the curtains shut; he knew Kaiba preferred his privacy.

"A bit hard to hold onto faith right now," he said, and with a final look towards his rival's side of the room, left the dormitory.

He found Harry and Ron sitting all the way at the far end of the Gryffindor table and took the seat opposite them. Never before had they sat so close to the High Table, and it made him feel oddly uncomfortable. The professors were of course still well out of earshot against the chorus of echoing chatter in the Great Hall, but it still put him off to be so near to Umbridge who after everything was sitting up there smiling into her breakfast.

Yugi tried not to pay her any more attention; if she was happy then something was up. "Hey," he said, "Ryou's not here. Study group Sunday, I take it?"

Ron nodded. "Yeah, he and Lavender went off to find Hannah and Ernie, and they're…I dunno, helping some of the underclassmen this morning with tea leaves. That wonky stuff we did in our first lessons, remember?"

Harry snorted quietly. How could he forget, when Professor Trelawney kept predicting his death in every class?

"How's Seto?" asked Harry. "I take it he hasn't tried escaping the dorm yet. He's probably living it up huh, with the free time to work on Kaiba Corp now."

"No," Yugi sighed. "Honestly, I think he used up the last bit of energy he had climbing the dormitory steps because he's still conked out in the same position I found him in yesterday."

"What – bloody shirt and all?"

"Uh huh," said Yugi. He at least found bandages wrapping Kaiba's palm and disappearing under his sleeve. His worry during yesterday's outburst turned out to be unwarranted.

"That's…that's good though," Harry said, and he gave a sneaky side-eye glare up towards the High Table. Dumbledore predictably wasn't up there. "Maybe by the time he gets himself up again, the Aurors will have finished their investigation. I can't imagine he'd be happy to know he's stuck up there."

Yugi poked at his breakfast half-heartedly with his fork. "Honestly, I would imagine he already knows."

Harry sighed and glanced across the Great Hall. He faced the Slytherin table, and Malfoy had just entered and sat himself down between Crabbe and Goyle. From inside the Great Hall, there was no way of knowing which direction Malfoy had come from, but he wanted to bank on the upper castle. More specifically – the Room of Requirement.

Unfortunately, for now, his stalking days would be on pause. Just before dinner yesterday, he had snuck back to the Astronomy Tower to find it restored. All of the cracks and chips in the stone walls? Gone. The bits of ceiling that had fallen around them during the shockwave blasts were repaired. Any and all telescopes that became collateral damage in the crossfire? Back and whole again.

But the Marauders Map – that for the entire duration of the battle sat hovering along the sidelines and was spared from every ricocheting spell bouncing around the tower?

Nowhere to be found.

---

Tuesday

Harry felt naked without the Marauders Map as he left breakfast with Ron to return to the common room. Especially since Malfoy didn't show in the Great Hall this morning. As much as he wanted to march back up to the seventh-floor corridor and park himself down under the Invisibility Cloak, Ryou made a very good point before disappearing off to lead the third year's Divination study group.

"The Map didn't get wiped clean, right?" he had said, "Which means whoever has it would be able to know where you are and what you're up to. So maybe until we figure out who has it…you should just stay low for a little while and not do anything that will get you into any hot water…."

"Assuming the Map wasn't destroyed," Harry had countered, but deep in the back of his mind he could only hope that someone plucked it out of the air and it was just in someone's office. Professor McGonagall's would be the most favorable…but it really didn't matter. Odds were that he wouldn't be getting it back.

So now, instead of trying to see what his Slytherin rival was up to – a perfect use of his completely free Tuesday, he was going to have to spend it working on Professor Sprout's essay on Venomous Tentacula.

Oh, what fun.

"Could always work on a new outline plan for the next Quidditch Practice," Ron offered as they stepped off the moving staircase. "No better time to work on it, really. We have a match coming up in the beginning of March, and we're gonna have to be at the top of our game if we're going to beat Ravenclaw, because that'll put us exactly where we need to be to enter the final. And if Slytherin beats Hufflepuff – which we know they will, we'll have to face them for the Cup."

"Right," said Harry, "And we both know that Professor McGonagall will want to rub it in Snape's face to have the cup in her office for another year."

He barely registered Ron giving the Fat Lady Portrait the password; his legs were moving on autopilot, but they both stopped short once they passed through the narrow passage and into the heart of the common room.

All of the fifth-years and under were off in class, and there was a pair of seventh-year students that Harry never bothered to learn their names sitting at a small table in the corner. But that wasn't what caught his attention.

Seto was sitting at their usual table near the fire. The slim briefcase was propped open next to the laptop, and one tall steaming mug of coffee rested on the other side.

This was the first either of them had seen of him since Saturday.

He was talking, not to them, but whoever had to be on the screen, though from this angle they couldn't see who it was or hear what was said back to him. By the tone of his voice and the small bits of conversation he could catch, Harry doubted very much it was Mokuba. As they passed by to head up the boys' staircase, they caught a small rectangular device nestled along Seto's right ear.

"Well," Ron began, once they reached the sixth-floor landing. "He's alive and he flat out ignored us when we walked by. I think that's as close to normal as it's going to get around here."

"Yeah." Harry dug through his trunk to find his Herbology book. He stared at it for a few seconds and drummed his fingers against the edge of the spine.

"What're you thinkin' of, mate?"

"I was just thinking…"

Ron snickered. "I know – if you did it any harder your face would freeze all awkward and everything."

He laughed and ducked away when Harry swung the book out at him.

"No, but really," said Harry, "I was…I mean, we're gonna be poor substitutes for an actual tutor but…you think Hermione would appreciate us going over some stuff she missed yesterday? Think of all the times she had to reteach us everything from History of Magic because only she was capable of staying awake in Binns's class? Maybe we could, you know, return the favor?"

"You know, that's not a bad idea," said Ron, and he started going through his bag for his own Herbology notes. "So long as she's up for it, you know? And if not, I think she'll appreciate the visit anyway."

"And you know she's missed way more than Herbology," said Harry. "I know Yugi brought down her Arithmancy stuff yesterday…but there's everything from Defense Against the Dark Arts to catch up on too."

Ron wrinkled his nose as he stuffed his bag. "You know all we did is take notes for Umbridge yesterday, right?"

"Yeah," said Harry, "But Hermione broke her arm, remember? You think she wants to copy two whole chapters of material?"

"Point taken."

They passed Seto by once again on their way back out of the common room, and like before, cold blue eyes didn't rise up from overtop of the screen to acknowledge them.

Hermione was sound asleep when they made it down to the Hospital Wing, but that wasn't enough to deter Harry from his mission. He set his Defense Against the Dark Arts book as carefully as he could manage it against the edge of the bed and started copying his notes.

---

Yugi practically skipped the steps two at a time to reach Gryffindor Tower. Upon leaving Ancient Runes, he found Harry and Ron in the Hospital Wing, who told him that Kaiba was up and awake, and not that he didn't believe them…but he needed to see this for himself.

Seto, dressed like he belonged in his boardroom and not in a magical wizarding school, was in the same place that Harry and Ron described him to be, abusing the keys with such furious rigor that Yugi could hear the rapid clattering all the way from the portrait hole.

The corner near the fireplace had enough tension in the air that he could cut it with a knife, and the rest of the Gryffindors in the room could feel it too, which was probably why everyone else was giving him a ridiculous amount of space. No one chose to sit in any of the plush seating, and instead huddled on the far side, nearer to the staircases going up the tower.

Yugi stayed in his spot standing just beyond the narrow walk into the common room and just observed the dragon in its natural habitat for several more seconds before he parked himself in the chair opposite him.

Seto didn't look up from the laptop. "Yugi."

Yugi propped his elbows up along the edge of the table and rested his chin in his hands. "Kaiba."

Seto stopped typing and dug into the briefcase for a very specific bundle of papers that he set in front of the laptop. He flipped open to the first page, grabbed a pen, and started to read. Every few seconds, the pen would get pushed and twirled around his fingers until he found something to cross out and annotate in the margins.

He flipped to the second page. "…Is there something you needed or are you just so incredibly bored that watching me work is the highlight of your day?"

"I just finished with class," Yugi said mildly, "And wanted to say hello and see how you're doing."

"I'm alive," Seto said in clipped tones. "And busy."

Yugi drew back a bit. This didn't seem like the Seto Kaiba that he shared a dormitory with for the last five months. Kaiba's cold air was far more reminiscent of pre-Set days, when he streamlined his focus down on three things: his brother, his company, and dueling. But he was well used to Kaiba's moody days, and pressed onward, unfazed. "We were really worried about you, you know, after staying in bed for three days. But I'm glad you're alright."

"'Alright' is relative," Seto said, still without meeting Yugi's eyes. "At one point there were four different voices in my head, tearing my brain apart. I slept for three days because I have a massive headache."

Yugi frowned. The spoken have and not had was rather telling. The first defensive thought to come to mind was 'No, Kaiba, the Pharaoh wasn't there to hurt you', but he decided against it. The extended nap didn't seem to do him any favors – Kaiba was just as irritable as ever.

So, instead, he blurted out the second thought that popped into his head as he looked his rival over from the faint circles under his eyes down to the unnecessary white-knuckled grip he held on his pen as he made another vicious black strike across the page.

"You're, hm, rather polished, for…er…"

"…For being locked in the tower like some fragile little storybook princess?" Seto snapped. "I had a board meeting today. And since it seems I have nothing better to do for the foreseeable future, I was – for once – able to attend."

Yugi cringed. "What did they say? …The Ministry, I mean, when they told you to sit around up here?"

Seto's grip tightened enough on the pen that Yugi was sure he heard it start to crack apart, and the arctic glare shifted upwards. "That I attacked my peers and professors and nearly got the entire school killed. Something along those lines. You'll forgive me that I don't quite remember their exact words – I had just obliterated my soul room getting rid of a pair of parasites. They were lucky I was walking on my own volition, let alone holding a conversation."

"We had to go to Dumbledore's office too," Yugi began, completed unintimidated by Kaiba's frigidness. "And speak with the people from the Ministry. They mentioned something about an investigation, but I don't see what they're going to be able to find. Hermione destroyed all the research you did on…everything…so there's nothing left."

"They're going to interrogate my wand, or some other magical stupidity," Seto said, "I have no idea what that entails. In the meantime, until they're certain I'm not the harbinger of the next apocalypse, I'm confined to Gryffindor Tower."

Yugi wrinkled his nose. "How do you interrogate a wand?"

Seto's only response was an indignant huff as he turned to the next page.

"…Did they say how long it would take?"

"No, but Umbridge proposed the idea so she's probably holding it hostage for as long as humanly possible."

Yugi's face fell. "…Oh."

Seto reached for his now-cold coffee. "If she thinks this is some sort of punishment, then the joke is on her. I'd rather be doing this than transcribing her ridiculous textbook in triplicate."

"Even trapped up here…with a headache? You could try and…well…sleep it off I guess."

"Right." Seto sighed and pinched at the bridge of his nose. "Because that worked so well for the last three days."

"Why don't you go see Madam Pomfrey?" asked Yugi. "They have to let you out for meals, so why not detour to the Hospital Wing? She might be able to give you something so it's not as bad."

Seto merely let out a noisy exhale and returned to staring at his document.

"…And I'm sure Hermione would love the visit. She's been worried – every time we see her and she's awake, she asks after you."

The pen suddenly stopped twirling, and blue eyes suddenly blinked upwards onto him again – all focus on work abandoned. "What are you talking about?"

Yugi paused; he felt Yami even snap to attention from somewhere deep in his own soul room. Did…did Dumbledore and the other Ministry wizards…just not tell him of what happened after the Puzzle was thrown around his neck, and up to when he woke up and was marched off to the Headmaster's office?

"Hermione is in the Hospital Wing," Yugi said slowly, "She's been there since Saturday…."

Seto's eyes narrowed down at him. "For a broken wr—"

Yugi bit his lip as the pen fell and bounced against the tabletop. Kaiba stared down at his hands. Yugi could practically hear the gears slowly turn behind his eyes, frantically trying to piece back together whichever memory was eluding him.

Or…would he even know? What if he was so internally invested in getting rid of Voldemort and the Shadow Magus that he had no idea of what had transpired outside of his mind.

Should he tell him, or let him discover the missing puzzle piece on his own?

He sat across from him, and patiently waited, until the blue eyes that rose once again to greet him were no longer the pained, irritated ones from when he first sat down, annoyed by having his catch-up on Kaiba Corp work interrupted. They weren't the ones that seemed to mellow, just a tad, as their conversation went on, as Kaiba sounded a little more like his usual self than the Kaiba of the past.

These eyes held a mix of emotions. Pain. Confusion. Horror.

Guilt.

"What did I do?"

"Kaiba," Yugi said quickly, "You didn't d—"

"Yugi." Seto rose, pressed his palms flat into the top of the table, and loomed over him. "What. Happened?"

---

Wednesday

"There's a sign up in the common room," said Harry. "Next week starts Apparition lessons. It goes for twelve weeks, and it's for anyone who's already seventeen or will be by the end of August."

"Oh!" Hermione said excitedly, "We can all attend it! I think Yugi and Ryou and Seto are all seventeen already, and you both will turn it before summer ends!"

"Yeah," said Harry. "It's going to be on Saturdays in the Great Hall. And if you're already going to be of age by the end of the class you can take the exam here too."

"It just costs twelve Galleons," said Ron.

"That seems a little steep," said Hermione.

"It's the Ministry providing the class, so I'm surprised it only costs twelve Galleons," Ron said. "Someone called Wilkie Twycross is running it. Supposedly he supervised Fred and George's exam, because they kept going on and on about he passed them 'with distinction'. You've met my brothers – I've never seen them do anything 'with distinction'."

He paused. "Except maybe the swamp in the corridor when they escaped last year. I'll give them that."

Harry poked at a rumpled bit of blanket near Hermione's feet. "You'll be out of here by then I hope?"

"Ugh," Hermione groaned and stared up at the ceiling. "I certainly hope so. I want to do something!"

"We got Potions right after lunch," said Ron, "You want to skip off on Madam Pomfrey and go to that with us?"

Hermione shifted to sit further upright and winced. "If it gets me out, I'd be willing to sit in Professor Umbridge's class. If these flareups would just stop…."

She slumped back as the doors to the Hospital Wing opened, and a number of footsteps echoed down the center aisle.

Harry leaned over around the privacy wall and then scowled. "Oh. The Ministry parade is here."

Ron got up just enough to peer over the top of the curtain and then groaned loudly. "Joy."

Harry rolled his eyes. "What are you worried about – you missed the whole mess in Dumbledore's office, remember?"

"Yeah," said Ron, "But here's gonna be part two."

Minister Scrimgeour appeared in Hermione's sights first, followed by Pius Thicknesse, and then Professor McGonagall wearing a look of such anger that Harry wondered if she had recently gotten into another fight with Professor Umbridge.

Umbridge, however, was not present.

Well, that was a plus.

"Good morning, Miss Granger," said Professor McGonagall, "How are you feeling?"

Hermione's gaze couldn't help but stray to the two Ministry officials, and then to Harry and Ron, who were giving her the most discreet head shakes they could. As if to say Whatever you do – don't tell them anything!

"Alright, I suppose," she said finally.

Professor McGonagall nodded. "This is Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeour and Pius Thicknesse, from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. They are here regarding the incident in the Astronomy Tower, and –" she couldn't help but give them a rather vicious side-eye. "—they have some questions for you, if and only if you are up to it."

"I…don't know how much help I can be," said Hermione, "I think I missed the important bit."

"On the contrary," said the Minister, and Pius disappeared around other side of the privacy curtain to the bunk beside her to grab two extra chairs which he plunked down at the foot of her bed. Harry and Ron shifted their own seats on either side closer to her, almost as if to say – 'no, you can't come in here uninvited, leave her alone, you have to get past us first'. "We think you have the answers we need to close out our investigation."

Hermione watched Harry tense up next to her. "Investigation into what exactly?"

Harry crossed his arms over his chest. "They're trying to make sure that Seto didn't deliberately try and kill us all."

"Potter," warned Professor McGonagall.

"What?!" Hermione gasped. "You can't be serious – he was possessed – under Voldemort's Imperius Curse!"

Pius shifted awkwardly in his seat. "That…remains to be seen."

Her jaw dropped, stunned, and she looked to Harry and Ron in complete disbelief. Ron's eyes for focused at his shoelaces and Harry caught her gaze with a deadpanned 'yes, they're being absolutely serious' stare of his own.

"Do you not believe him? How can you really think that he chose to do all of this on his own? Why would he even?"

The only thing that made her feel better – marginally – was the look of absolute outrage on Professor McGonagall's face.

Scrimgeour held up his hands placatingly. "We're just trying to gather facts, Miss Granger. There was a set of notes mentioned in an earlier conversation, ones he drafted when you found him working late one night in the Library. What can you tell me about them?"

"That he fell asleep working on them, and didn't know how or when he arrived in the Library to research them in the first place," she said, "We didn't get a chance to really look at them until much later, after it was already too late."

"Do you remember what they said?"

"Only that they were close enough to the ones he took in the very beginning of the year that they blended in with them…but they're gone," said Hermione.

"What about the original set?" asked Pius. "What was that?"

Hermione stayed quiet, and darted squinted glances back and forth from Pius to Scrimgeour and back again. Her stomach twisted itself into knots. She clenched her fists around the edge of her top blanket and took in several sharp breaths.

"I think…" she said, and Harry caught flecks of icy undertones in her deceptively calm voice, "if you want to know what Seto's notes were about, you'd have to ask him."

"Do they still exist?"

"I don't know," she said flatly. "But I think I'm done answering questions now."

A quick glance in Harry's direction. "Can you please get Madam Pomfrey for me? I – I don't think I feel very well."

Scrimgeour started just as Harry slipped out and around the privacy curtain towards Madam Pomfrey's office. "Miss Granger –"

"I know what you're doing," she said hotly, "with this picture you're trying to paint, and I won't be a part of it. Now please go."

"I assure you –" Scrimgeour started, but this time it was Professor McGonagall who cut him off with a sharp glower.

"I think you have everything you need to know," she said angrily, and all but shoved Pius and Scrimgeour towards the doors that led out into the corridor.

When she finally turned back to Hermione and Ron, her face was surprisingly apologetic. "Do try and get some rest, Miss Granger. I look forward to having you back in my classroom."

---

Thursday

Snow crunched under her feet as she moved away from the school. It felt good to be outside, with the sun warming her from overhead against the biting January air. Her last few assignments brought to her could wait until after dinner, despite having at least one due Monday that she hadn't even started yet.

The walk would help clear her head and organize her thoughts. And it honestly just felt good to be free….

…Sort of.

She begged Madam Pomfrey for a break. The residual painful flares from Voldemort's curse had waned, and she just wanted to get out of the hospital, if just for the afternoon. Everyone else was in class, and she didn't intend to join them, but the desire to visit the Library or just go for a walk was overwhelming.

So, under the guise that she didn't overexert herself and returned to the Hospital Wing immediately if her symptoms returned, she was allowed out for one afternoon – ideally to be in someone else's company to help keep an eye on her. That made things difficult when the others were bogged down with lessons for the day.

Her mind was made up on the moving staircase aimlessly moving her from landing to landing until she finally stepped off on the seventh floor. A quick trip through the common room and up to her room to grab her coat and gloves, and then back out she went, slowly moving towards the ground floor.

Fresh air sounded far better than any room in the castle.

Hermione really didn't have a plan of where she was going, and it didn't surprise her that her feet led her around the side of the castle and down the steep slope towards Hagrid's hut. He (and Fang) were always happy to see her, and she couldn't help but feel guilty for not visiting as often as she could have during the first term.

The last time she saw Hagrid was when she wandered the grounds with Seto and his little brother, the day he escaped from the Hospital Wing, and then she didn't stop long to chitchat. They were on the mission to show Mokuba as much of the school as possible before he went home.

Now that she was no longer taking Care of Magical Creatures, it was a refreshing change of pace to hear how he was doing – how his classes were going now that he was back at Hogwarts following Umbridge's attack during the prior year, if he had any favorite students, and to just talk.

"I'm glad yer doin' alright, after everythin'," he had said, and shook his head. "When I heard what happened up in the Astronomy Tower…"

"I'm on probation," she said, and ran a hand unconsciously against her midsection. "So long as I feel alright today, I should be okay to return to classes tomorrow. Otherwise, if I have any more spasms, I have to go right back."

"Probably fer the best anyhow," said Hagrid, "Get yer rest in while you can y'know? And speakin' of classes, we'll be covering Crups in the fifth-year class comin' up. The one in the pen just had a litter. Come on, I'll show yeh the pups, if yeh got the time."

She nodded. Even if she hadn't just gotten pseudo-released from the Hospital Wing, the only class she had on Thursdays was Charms, first thing in the morning.

"I think this'll cheer you up some," he said, and grabbed his crossbow before leading her out the back door of his hut.

"Is…is that really necessary?" she asked. A frigid breeze picked up the instant she stepped out, and she stuffed her gloved hands into her coat pockets. The warming spell she cast before leaving the castle was only marginally helping.

"Just a precaution," Hagrid muttered. "Can't take chances, with her back up in th' school."

"Surely, with Professor Dumbledore back, she can't try something like that again," said Hermione, "Umbridge doesn't run Hogwarts anymore."

"Don' matter," said Hagrid. "Wit' how much he's been gone this year, 'n how many Aurors are patrolling the grounds?"

The paddock was only a short way from his hut, heading towards the edge of the forest, but still a safe distance from the dense tree line. Hagrid swung open the gate and shut it behind her in time for no less than five small spotted puppies to come running up to her, their split tails energetically wagging back and forth.

"How old are they?"

"Few weeks," said Hagrid.

She scooped one up off of the ground and it wiggled in her arms before reaching up to lick at her face.

"I'd offer yeh one, but they don' like Muggles," said Hagrid. "And it wouldn't get along with that cat o' yours."

"No," she sighed, "Crookshanks is very particular."

"It's the part Kneazle," said Hagrid, "They get protective."

He stayed outside the gate while the cruppies jumped up and tried to climb all over her. The one in her arms squirmed enough that she put it down, grabbed a stick laying nearby and tossed it to the other end of the enclosure.

Five happy waggy-tailed blurs chased after it.

She perched herself on an overturned bucket and watched three of them fight over the stick on the return trot. Another toss to a different end of the enclosure, and away they went with tiny little yips.

After the third round of fetch one of the smaller cruppies decided fighting his brothers and sisters wasn't worth it and climbed up into her lap instead.

"Tha' one seems to like yeh," said Hagrid.

"He's cute!" Hermione said. She gave it little scritches behind the ears.

"You can come visit 'em so long as there's no class," said Hagrid, "And maybe the next time, you'll bring 'Arry an' Ron with yeh." He gave a low chuckle. "They're lil' pups, not Blast-Ended Skrewts."

Oh, right. The Blast-Ended Skrewts. The best part of Care of Magical Creatures in their fourth year, said no one. Thank goodness by the end of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, Hagrid's strange breeding experiments managed to take each other out.

The underclassmen didn't know how well they had it now.

She turned back towards the door to the pen at Fang's sudden growl.

"What is it?"

"Dunno," said Hagrid, and he stared down at his dog. "What d'you see?"

Fang was staring off towards the path that eventually led towards the Black Lake.

Hagrid squinted out, and Hermione couldn't help but notice his hand shifted closer to the crossbow before he sighed and then stopped. "Oh. Aurors."

"All the way over here?" Hermione asked. "I thought they patrolled the edge of the grounds."

"They're supposed to," said Hagrid. "Though, none of 'em are allowed to get close to me hut after last year…."

He beckoned her out of the pen and locked it. "C'mon. If there's somethin' going on, I'll take yeh back up to th' school."

"Stay close," Hagrid muttered. "Yeh got yer wand with yeh, I'm sure?"

Hermione nodded.

They started up the walk but neither of them saw any other Aurors wandering nearby.

"Maybe it was just one, on patrol," Hermione said. "Could Fang just be overreacting?"

"Probably," Hagrid muttered. "Big idiot must've gotten jealous yeh were given all th' cruppies yer attention."

Fang stopped at the split in the path. One went back up the hill, past the Whomping Willow and to first floor's side exit. The other disappeared around a bend of trees and towards the Lake.

"Now what?" said Hagrid.

Fang barked and started off in a run around the trees and out of sight.

"If 'e's chasin' another dang rabbit," Hagrid said and started after him. "Up fer a lil adventure?"

Hermione smiled and followed. Hagrid slowed down to match her pace. They could still hear Fang barking off in the distance.

"He is a bloodhound, isn't he?" she asked. "You think he smells something?"

"Big doof went after a few rodents th' last time," said Hagrid. "Chased him all over th' grounds to find him pawing at some hole in th' ground."

She kicked a stray pebble out of her way. "You know, I remember…five years ago, when we had to go into the Forbidden Forest, after getting caught saying goodbye to Norbert—"

"—Actually, it's Norberta."

Hermione stopped. "What?"

Hagrid booming laughter echoed through the trees. "I heard from Ron's brother Charlie a few months ago, and naturally had to ask about Norbert, ya know. And…well…Norbert's a she not a he, so they changed her name."

She blinked. "Y-you didn't know?"

"I'd never had a dragon!"

That was true. Norbert-a was Hagrid's first and only attempt to raise one. And since they were such heavily restricted and regulated creatures, it wasn't like he could walk into a bookshop and take out a book on 'how take care of your dragon' like she could back home for a new kitten or puppy. Or maybe he could…but she imagined he would probably get a number of curious and suspicious looks for it, considering dragon tamer was clearly not his profession.

"Well," she said, "I remember you calling him a huge coward when we had to go into the forest."

"Oh, he is," said Hagrid, "Me big drooly pup finally got 'imself a spine last year, when I had to flee, y'know?"

He paused. Yesterday one of his third-year students visited him after class with a question about Flobberworms and the poor boy knocking on his front door made Fang jump out of his basket near the fire with a panicked yip!

"Alright – a wee lil one at that."

The Black Lake was just beyond the curve in the path, and down the hill. Fang wasn't anywhere in sight, but they could hear him still somewhere up ahead.

"I think," Hermione said, slightly out of breath, "that he must have run all the way to the water at this rate."

"He would," said Hagrid, and slowed down even further. "How you doin' there, 'Ermione?"

"Alright, I think…" Her chest stung, and she couldn't tell if it was from the journey or a lingering effect of Voldemort's curse. If Hagrid's next class wasn't going to be starting just yet, hopefully they'd stop once they found Fang for her to settle down before they headed back towards the school.

They passed through the last of the trees, stopping just above the decline into the rocks by the water's edge, and Hermione saw Hagrid visibly tense up beside her, and once again start to reach for his crossbow. He didn't remove it completely from where it hung from the strap around his back, but it did swivel forward for him to keep a hand rested on it.

He was watching an Auror, standing just down the path, halfway between them and the beginning of the rocks. Their back was to them, and she couldn't make out just which one it was, and wondered if Hagrid had a problem with all Aurors…or just the ones who specifically attacked him in the unprovoked assault last spring, under Umbridge's orders.

The Auror wasn't patrolling and didn't seem to hear them emerge from the trees. He merely stood with his hands clasped loosely behind his back and seemed to just stare out at the water.

"Weird place for someone to be," she said quietly."

Hermione tilted her head. If the Auror wasn't on patrol, what was he doing here? Did Fang smell him and that's why they were chasing after him all the way to the lake?

And if Fang wasn't barking or growling at the Auror, what was hedoing?

Fang's bark sounded just beyond the rocks and it wasn't the angry growly sound they originally heard before.

"He better not be terrorizin' the Murtlap again," Hagrid said under his breath. He remembered vividly the last time Fang did such a thing, and had to undergo treatment when he was bitten to curb the flames that erupted out of his behind whenever he passed gas.

Thank goodness he only had to deal with that for maybe a day.

Loose rocks shifted under their feet as they made to the bottom of the hill, and only then did the Auror turn around, stare at them with a foul air, and then turn back towards the water.

"Hello to you too," Hagrid grumbled, and then stopped a few feet behind the Auror.

Hermione finished her descend a few steps behind Hagrid and stopped short with a gasp.

Seto was sitting atop one of the larger boulders near the shoreline. Fang sat just at the base of it, tail wagging into the sand, and reached up to paw at his leg dangling over the edge.

"S-Seto?" Her mouth dropped open. What was he doing all the way out here?

Hagrid whistled loudly, startling her – and the Auror. "OI! FANG!"

Fang barked at him before looking back up the boulder again, though this time Seto also glanced in their direction.

Hermione held in a breath. If he saw her around the Auror, he didn't make it known, and after a quick stare at both the Auror and Hagrid, turned back towards the water again.

From what she could see there were no books, no laptop, nothing up there on the rock with him. Had he been just watching the wind ripple across the lake all this time? And for how long?!

She started forward until the Auror held out a hand to block her from passing him by. "Don't."

Hermione furrowed her brow and looked past him to Fang pawing up at Seto again with a high-pitched whine. "Why?"

Hagrid didn't give him the chance to make any sort of answer and instead pointed back up towards the trail. "Yeh can get. I'm sure there's far more important things to do than stalk one kid. And a defenseless one at that."

"I have my orders," the Auror snapped.

"Yeah?" Hagrid stepped closer and towered over him. "Whose, eh? Yer all supposed to be guarding this school, not harassin' the students. And I know fer a fact that Professor Dumbledore wouldn't ask this, and he's the highest authority here."

The Auror jerked his head towards the water. "He—"

"He has a name!" Hagrid roared, "And I bet none of ya, in all yer years, have gone through as much as Seto has in th' last month. And then get screwed over by the same people that were supposed to be protectin' him! So you can take yer marchin orders right back up to the school where yeh belong!"

Hermione tuned out the row in front of her and stepped around them towards the water in time to hear Seto leap from the top of the boulder and land gracefully next to Fang, who got up and danced energetically around him in attempts to lick at his face.

Seto pushed past Fang, shoved his hands in his pockets, and let out a tired sigh. "What are you doing here?"

"Chasing after Fang," said Hermione, "We didn't know you were out here."

Seto glared down at Fang. Fang's tongue lolled out of his mouth as he panted, clearly pleased with himself now that he was down off the rock.

"I wanted to be somewhere quiet," he said, and looked past her to both Hagrid and the Auror, both still arguing over him as if he wasn't standing literally four feet away.

Hermione bit her lip. The tip of his nose and ears were red. She didn't know how long he had been sitting out all alone, but it was clearly a long time. "I'm sorry," she said finally. "I didn't mean to disturb you. Fang just got away from us, that's all."

"'Ermione," said Hagrid, and she turned to him. The moment her focus was no longer on Seto, he turned on his heel and went back to the edge of the water, arms crossed.

"I gotta get ready for me class," said Hagrid, and he nodded to the Auror, "And I'm takin' him along."

Hermione nodded and stole another glance off towards the water. Fang had trotted back to Seto and sat next to him.

"You comin' back with us?"

"I…"

Seto glanced down at Fang and then back towards them, and after a deep breath, gave her the tiniest of head jerks towards the lake before once more turning his back on them.

That was probably the closest to an invitation as she was going to get, and she looked back up at Hagrid. "I think I'm going to stay for a little while, if that's alright. It is peaceful here by the water, and Hogwarts is too noisy with everyone shut in."

Hagrid's eyes darted from her to the back of Seto's head. "Well," he began, a sneaky little glimmer in his eyes. "I suppose now that we found Fang, there's nothin' left to do here. Walk Fang back to me hut when you're done, eh?"

With a wink, he turned on his boot and dragged the Auror up the trail.

Hermione watched them leave, and once they were out of sight, stepped off the rocks and onto the edge of the shore. "I don't want to intrude on you if you really wanted to be alone," she said, "I can take Fang back to Hagrid's…."

Seto closed his eyes and sucked in a long, deep breath. "I don't know what I want."

She looked hesitantly up at him.

He gave a single, dry laugh. "No, that's not true. I do know what I want."

Hermione stepped back as he picked up a number of pebbles near his feet.

"What I want…" he began, and threw the first stone out into the lake. Hermione couldn't tell how far out it actually flew before it hit the water with a plop and immediately sank. "Is to stop being treated like a criminal."

The second stone didn't go nearly as far. "I want to stop being followed."

The third skipped twice over the top of the water's edge before sinking. "I want to get out and see my brother – at home."

He wound up his arm again and the last stone flew a greater distance than any of the others before it hit the water. "And I want people to stop asking how I'm doing."

Hermione started but the look Seto fixed on her – not intense, not angry, halted whatever she planned to say.

"—Not you. You'd actually mean it. I'm tired of insincerity and apathy."

He pivoted and stormed off back to the boulder where he eyed it, and then the path where Hagrid led the Auror away. He really didn't want to have to find a new spot, but at least one Auror already knew where he was. Which meant by the time the man made it back up towards the castle, the rest of them would know too, and he really wanted nothing more than to be left alone and free from all of the nosy adults up at the school.

All thought of returning to the rock abandoned, he gestured up the path. "But as long as these bureaucrats are more interested in their little witch hunt, I won't get any of those things. Not that I have any true interest in going, but I can't attend class. I can't go home. Voldemort could have dragged me back to his secret little lair and I'd still have more freedom than I do here."

Hermione's jaw dropped and she stopped a few paces behind him. "You can't mean that!"

Seto slowly spun on his hell to stare incredulously at her. "I was told in no uncertain terms that I wasn't to leave Gryffindor Tower. That until they were sure I hadn't doomed us all, I had to sit in time out. Forget that I can't do anything productive in this place without a wand, I also couldn't go home because 'it would put my brother and everyone in Domino at risk'."

He picked up another rock from the ground and pitched it into the lake to join all the others. "There's no point in even going home even if I was allowed. Roland took Mokuba into hiding, and he won't tell me where there is. If I was just going to return to an empty mansion, I might as well just stay here."

Hermione moved to stand alongside him and Fang. "I…I understand why that is," she said nervously. "But even if you couldn't go to Domino…there are surely other places, aren't there? I mean, during that time when you were throwing everyone off from where you were, when he was controlling you…you said you were in New York. Could Mokuba just meet you there instead?"

Seto sighed and Fang whined and bopped his nose into the back of his hand. "I can't leave even if I wanted to. Dumbledore and these Ministry fools don't control my travel arrangements anymore, but I still have to alert at least Professor McGonagall – perhaps the only competent adult in this place – to when I leave, and Umbridge and her cronies can still keep the Japanese Aurors off the grounds if they wanted to."

Hermione's shoulders slumped. "Oh…." It all sounded so incredibly overcomplicated. "It's…a shame that you just can't give them dates and just go."

"Even if I could from the start of the year, that opportunity is dead now."

He glanced behind him again, towards the trail going back into the trees, as if mere mentioning the Ministry of Magic and anyone associated with it would summon the Aurors.

Hermione turned to see where he was looking and then back up at him. The tips of his ears were still red and they looked worse off now that she was right next to him. "D-do you want go back inside?"

"Absolutely not."

"Not even just to Hagrid's? You look frozen!"

"I'll live," he muttered.

Hermione huffed with a long, visible puff of air and pulled her wand from the pocket of her coat. "At least…let me do this for you then…"

Seto quickly sidestepped away from her when she raised her wand, and she shifted her hands to her hips and gave him a pointed look.

"It's a warming spell," she said, "So you don't turn into a popsicle out here. Just until you go back. It'll wear off once you're inside Hogwarts."

Seto didn't say anything, eyes still deadlocked on her wand.

"It's perfectly safe," she said, "I've cast it loads of times over the years, usually on the winter trips to Hogsmeade."

Hermione waited until he gave a terse nod before she reached up on her tiptoes to tap her wand to the top of his head. He straightened up immediately afterwards at the weird sensation – like a heavy liquid slowly trickling down his body, warming him immediately from the top of his head all the way down to his toes.

"That's better, isn't it?"

She didn't really expect him to admit to it – this was Seto, after all, and instead stooped down to pick up a bit of a fallen tree branch along the path, and transfigured it into a bright blue ball, which she tossed further up the shore.

Fang watched it sail right over his head, but didn't get up from where he sat between them, and he turned to look at her with a look of 'well, what am I supposed to do with that?'

"You can't be serious," Hermione said, pouting at him. "You had so much energy before!"

Fang just stared at her, tail wagging, but he didn't seem any more interested in chasing after it.

Seto stared down at him and sighed. "Summon the ball."

A quick flick of Hermione's wand and it flew back into her arms moments later, a bit faster than she expected it to and she nearly dropped it into the water. Seto took it from her with a huff, held it out over Fang's head so he could see it, and then flung it ahead of them down the sandy edge of the lake.

Fang took after it with an excited bark.

Hermione's jaw dropped and started after him. "I don't believe it."

"The dog found me half-dead in the snow once," said Seto, "and now won't leave me alone." He fell into step with Hermione and started making their way up the coast.

"Maybe he's worried that you'll collapse again," Hermione shrugged.

Seto scoffed. "I'm not dead." He added bitterly. "Or falling apart."

Well. He wasn't falling apart anymore, at any rate.

Hermione bit her lip and shoved her hands into her pockets and out of the cold. "Do…do you want to talk about it?"

"Hn. Talk about what? How I'm now Voldemort 2.0? How I need to be stalked by the wizard cops and all the portraits in this place to make sure I don't even breathe in the wrong place?"

At the last confession, Hermione raised an eyebrow at him, and he huffed. "I'm not being dramatic," he said angrily. "I've watched that knight from the Grand Staircases follow me down five flights of stairs when I tried to go to the Kitchens – for coffee. And on the way back he goaded all of his friends into doing it too. And let's not even start on Filch's cat who nearly got herself drop-kicked clear across the fifth-floor landings."

"Okay, to be fair, I think we've all wanted to do that at one point in time," said Hermione, but the words didn't come across as a comfort. Just a fact.

"Aurors have been following me ever since I got up this morning. What, do they think I'm going to suddenly go on a killing spree? Without a wand!?"

Fang bounded back and dropped the ball at his feet with a happy little bark. He looked up at Seto expectantly.

With a sigh, Seto picked it back up and threw it again, and started walking once more as soon as Fang bolted after it.

"Hagrid better appreciate that we're giving his hound exercise," he mumbled.

"I'm sure he does," said Hermione. "And I'm sorry – I don't understand why they're doing this to you. It doesn't make any sense."

"Because someone managed to convince them that I personally attacked her, in retaliation for getting under my skin months ago, in a completely separate event that had absolutely nothing to do with the past month at all."

Seto stopped and glared out at the water.

"I was attacked. Abducted. Tortured. Possessed. Tortured some more, and then narrowly avoided permanent brain damage," he said. "But no, I'm the problem."

He picked up another rock off the ground and hurled it into the lake.

The stinging sensation was back in her chest, and she swallowed hard against it, and couldn't help but involuntarily shudder at the chill that wormed its way down her back. Hopefully he wouldn't notice.

He did, and frowned down at her, an otherwise unreadable expression on his face.

"You're not supposed to be out here, are you?" he said.

"That's rich, coming from the one who's supposed to be in Gryffindor Tower," she said with a wince, and then a tiny coy smile. "But I won't tell anyone if you don't."

He raised an eyebrow down at her.

"I'm… 'on leave' from the Hospital Wing," she admitted. "I…just wanted to stretch my legs a little, that's all."

He shook his head with a short humming noise. "Oh, in other words – what I did a month ago."

She couldn't help but laugh through her pain. The stinging feeling was starting to dissipate again. "Madam Pomfrey trusts me to go back to the Hospital Wing afterwards. I didn't need a chaperone."

"Hmph."

Seto glanced behind him. They were a fair way from their starting point, and a long walk from any entrance in the castle. The Aurors would likely not be back this way. The trees were blocked off, separated from the shore by more boulders up against the sand.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Hermione shudder again.

"Here," he said, and stepped over to one of the larger rocks conveniently under the shade of the trees directly behind it. She followed him over and couldn't help but squeak and her face reddened when he easily hoisted her up and onto the rock and then climbed up to sit next to her.

They sat in silence; Hermione watched the sun glitter off of the waves, unsure of what else to say. Seto didn't seem to be eager to start off with anything either. He appeared to be content stewing in silence while the wind blasted cold air right through them.

When the silence became too unbearable, she wrung her hands together in her lap. "So…what happens now, exactly?"

Seto rolled his eyes and picked a stray bit of dog hair off of his coat. "I'm supposed to twiddle my thumbs until they're done with their bogus investigation."

"It's been almost an entire week," she said, "I don't see what they could possibly still be up to."

"Interrogating my wand, apparently," Seto snapped, "Are they expecting it to speak? To roll over and confess by what, threatening to send it through a wood chipper?"

Hermione shook her head just as Fang returned with the ball and dropped it at the base of the rock with a whine, unable to reach his human companions' hands for pets, and decided to nudge his nose against the bottom of Seto's shoe. He waited for Seto to either lean over and scratch behind his ears or pick up the ball again, and when neither of those happened, settled down beside the rock and laid his head over his paws.

"There's a spell," she said. "Remember we tried it in the dormitory, when we thought you used your own wand to get back to Hogwarts?"

Her brow suddenly wrinkled. "Wait. Did they say that was all they were doing?"

"I honestly don't remember," Seto said flatly. "Why?"

Hermione sighed. "It's…just that it doesn't take days to interrogate a wand. Harry's was interrogated once, back just before our fourth year, when the Death Eaters caused a lot of havoc at the Quidditch World Cup. In the confusion, a house elf managed to steal his wand and summon the Dark Mark, and the Ministry used Priori Incantatem to go back and see what happened. It took maybe a few minutes, at most!"

She felt Seto completely tense over and he turned to face her. "…Are you telling me," he began slowly, "that the Ministry has been playing me for a fool?"

She bit her lower lip and looked up at him. "If they were only using Priori Incantatem, you could have had your wand back on Saturday."

"And it's Thursday," Seto said flatly.

"HEM HEM."

Umbridge's voice rang out as if she spoke through a megaphone, loud enough that Hermione jumped and nearly lost her balance on the top of the rock. She gasped, and braced her hand against the chilly stone to peer around Seto in time for her chest to feel like it was starting to tighten up once again.

Fang rose at the sound of her voice too, and bared his teeth in a low growl. Professor Umbridge was still a short ways off, but continued to make her way down the shoreline to them.

Seto saw her approach through a quick side-eyed stare before he closed his eyes and took in a sharp breath. His jaw visibly twitched.

Umbridge stopped, a safe distance away from Fang, and gave them both a sharp questioning look, her brow raised. "What are you two doing?"

Seto didn't react. Eyes still stayed closed, jaw locked, and Hermione took a deep breath, only to feel the painful flutter before she could finish. "Just…enjoying the weather," she breathed.

Fang barked.

Hermione sighed. "And we're walking Fang."

Umbridge didn't look convinced at all, and crossed her arms over her chest. "Oh yes," she said, "I can see that much."

"We took a break," said Hermione stiffly.

"Well, be that as it may," said Umbridge in her disgustingly smug voice, "but agreed upon by the Minister of Magic and Professor Dumbledore, you – Mr. Kaiba, were not to leave Gryffindor Tower."

"Funny," Seto snapped. "I don't remember agreeing to any of that."

"You don't have to," said Umbridge, "but there were a roomful of witnesses that can attest to it. Now get down. We're going back to the castle."

Seto turned to glare down at her. He towered over her normally, but here, on the top of the boulder? He felt like a giant. "I'm not some petrified first-year you can just order around. And furthermore, by your own laws, I'm a legal adult. You don't have any power over me."

"As part of your agreement with Professor Dumbledore –"

"Your farce of an investigation has gone on long enough," Seto shot back. He got up and dropped down to land on both feet in the sand. "It should have ended days ago and…."

The shore in front of her suddenly turned on its side and Hermione squeezed her eyes shut. She felt herself grow hot despite the chilly air blowing around them.

Seto and Umbridge continued to argue back and forth, but she couldn't get herself to focus on whatever it was they were saying. The slow stabbing pain in her midsection that had been running its little on-again, off-again game was on the rebound.

She pitched forward with a gasp with her arm pressed in against her stomach, as if it would keep the burning, stabbing sensation from spreading any farther. It didn't, but she opened her eyes, blinking past the spots appearing in her vision and slid off the rock.

Her landing wasn't nearly as graceful as Seto's, and she tilted against the cool stone in attempt to keep herself from falling completely over and pitching face-first into the sand.

Once she felt steady enough to straighten up, the overbearing heat she felt vanished almost as quickly as it had arrived. It left her and took all of the warmth she had with it, and Hermione was left suddenly shivering despite the warming spell she placed before leaving the castle.

Hermione didn't realize Seto had stoppedshouting at Umbridge until she felt a hand lightly ghost around her arm and she lifted her head up. All of the anger Seto had projected out towards Umbridge was gone. His eyes were unnaturally wide, and…afraid?

She took a shaky breath. Fear was something she was not used to seeing on him, but there was no point in trying to reassure him – or Umbridge – that she was alright, because even if Umbridge chose to be oblivious to what was right in front of her face, Seto was not, and he could clearly see she was not well.

His grip against her forearm tightened just a little, grounding her, and he leaned down. "Hagrid's?"

The Hospital Wing would be far more preferable, but deep down, she knew she probably wouldn't make it all the way back up to the school before the next spasm hit.

Hermione shuddered, nodded, and wiped a thin trickle of sweat from her forehead. How did she get so clammy all of a sudden?

"I–" she started, and swayed in her step.

Umbridge said something from behind them, and she couldn't catch what it was. She had to focus on getting herself up the hill and through the small stretch of the trees to get to Hagrid's. One slow step at a time. Hopefully once they reach there, Hagrid would be able to call for help.

Hermione stumbled, a hand pressed hard against her chest as the same invisible force that plagued her for days tightened its hold on her. The coast started to spin again, and before she knew it, she drifted away to the sound of Fang's panicked barking…

…and came around to the sound of a quill against parchment and the smell of a very familiar dark roast.

Hermione took several long, deep breaths and slowly fluttered her eyes open. She was back in the Hospital Wing. Sunlight poured in from the windows on the opposite side of the infirmary, basking the entire room in warm, inviting light.

The coffee smell wafted past her nose again and she heard something heavy set down onto a tabletop, and she turned to her left.

Seto sat in the lone chair by her bedside with a small tray table set up in front of him. On top sat a textbook and a roll of parchment. The black and silver quill that Yugi picked up for him from Hogsmeade flittered back and forth across the page.

"H-hi," she said.

"Welcome back," Seto said quietly. He shifted the table out from in front of him and off to the side.

Hermione blinked sideways at him once his focus was back on her. The fearful look she remembered on him last, down by the lake, seemed to be replaced by something else that wasn't normal for him. She couldn't put a finger on any one feeling, but he appeared upset, and she was surprised he wasn't even trying to hide it.

"W-we're not at Hagrid's….?"

"No," he said. "We're not."

Clearly she was missing some vital information. Hermione pulled herself up into a sitting position against the metal headboard and looked Seto over. Even without the wool overcoat, scarf and gloves, she could see he wasn't in the same clothes from outside by the lake. And thankfully now his pale skin had a little more color. He looked far more alive, much less frozen.

With how attached Fang had been, she almost expected him to be laying near the foot of the bed, but Hagrid's bloodhound was nowhere in sight.

It took another several seconds to realize that the strange uneasy feeling that prefaced all of her spasms? Gone. She sat, tired certainly, but whole. Her stomach didn't feel like it was trying to knot itself or set itself ablaze, and nothing squeezed down over her lungs. She could breathe easy.

Weird.

"I…" Hermione began, then swallowed. "I'm a little lost. I thought…we were going back to Hagrid's?"

The corner of Seto's lip ticked upwards, but only briefly, and then it was gone. "We did." He leaned forward. "Yesterday."

"W-what!?" she spluttered, "I-I've been out for an entire day?"

"Just about," he said. "The others were here earlier, but they're in Potions right now." He twisted around and grabbed a potion bottle from the cluster, one Hermione hadn't remember seeing before.

Seto took the empty glass from the table and started to pour the potion into it with all the narrow-eyed focus of a scientist needing an exact measurement, lest their experiment otherwise go up in flames.

Seto looked away from her and sighed. Hermione was an anomaly that he hadn't quite figured out yet. A bit like Yugi, who went and befriended all the people who tried to harm him over the years.

For reasons he would never understand, Yugi was on decent terms with Pegasus. He was friends with the Ishtars. Dartz's three stooges hadn't made a reappearance yet, but Yugi would probably welcome them with open arms.

Heck – Ryou's crazy spirit tried to kill Yugi and the Pharaoh what, twice now? And Yugi was still best friends with him – and by a long extension, the tomb robber.

Meanwhile, he wanted nothing more than the bare minimum when it came to both Pegasus and the Ishtars, and there was no way he was going to ever entertain Allister if he showed up one day at Kaiba Corp with a peace offering.

But here? Now? He could count the number of times he tried pushing her away from him, for her own good, and yet she persisted. What was it she saw in him, really? He damn near killed her, and instead of high-tailing it back to Hagrid's – the sensible, safe option – she still wanted to spend time with him and be the ear he needed to let his aggressions out.

It didn't make any sense, and he didn't know how to take this.

Hermione was staring at him, expecting him to say something, to answer all of the questions she hadn't bothered to ask yet. He could figure what a couple of them were – how she got back to the school, or if she missed anything major while unconscious, or if the others were alright – if he was alright, and what happened with Umbridge down by the Black Lake.

Now though…didn't seem like the right moment to answer questions.

"I…" he started, and wished he hadn't begun to speak at all. The words jumbling together in his head didn't seem to make any sense, and they certainly didn't sound anything to what he would normally say. It left him feeling unprepared, and he never went or did anything without a plan plus at least two contingencies. Hesitation and uncertainty were a sign of weakness, and it was a side of him he refused to show anyone, especially now, because dammit, I'm not weak!

A snide little voice in his head snickered. But you're sitting here because you weren't strong enough to stop Voldemort from trying to take over the school. You weren't strong enough to keep him from blasting her. You weren't strong enough to stop the Shadow Magus from his attacks earlier in the year. You weren't strong enough to break out the mind control they placed on you – the Pharaoh had to do it for you. Because you are weak.

He locked his jaw, eyes glaring angrily down at the unassuming glass trapped in his hands. The Pharaoh didn't get rid of Voldemort or the Shadow Magus – he did. Was he grateful – even a little grudgingly – about not having to do it alone?

…Maybe a little.

But that was also a battle stacked so high against him that there was no way for him to win on his own. He had tried and tried, and, like all of his infuriating attempts to just defeat Yugi in a game of Duel Monsters, his best just wasn't good enough.

…He'd have to find the Pharaoh later. He wasn't one to shower gratitude on others…but Yugi was deserving of it.

As was Hermione. And, all of them, if he was honest with himself.

But Hermione was different from Yugi or Harry or anyone else he'd met. Without even being forceful about it, she found her way through some secret little side entrance in the fortress he built around himself. Every time he found himself in her company, she never once tried to force the walls down. Instead just opened a window.

And he found that he didn't seem to mind it so much; considering how much he wanted to walk and work alone, he preferred her presence over most everyone else.

Yugi aside, she fought harder for him during this fiasco than anyone else. That had to mean something, though at the moment he wasn't sure what.

"I'm relieved that you're doing better," he finally said, and handed her the glass. "No one told me you were hurt this much. I…."

He cringed awkwardly. "I really only remembered breaking your arm."

Hermione gave him a slight smile. "You didn't –"

"Hermione," he said, surprising even himself at how sharp his voice suddenly became, "It was my foot. I stomped on it. And…it was my wand that put you in here."

Hermione shook her head. "No. It may have been your wand, or your foot – but you weren't in control of your actions – you didn't do this to me."

"My inability to stop him almost got you killed." Seto got to his feet and started pacing the short length from the bedside table to the end of the privacy wall and back. "I wasn't strong enough to keep him – either of them – out of my head. My mind was just an open book to them – you think it was a coincidence that he targeted you?"

Hermione didn't say anything, and clasped her hands together around the cup while she watched him reach the end of the wall, pivot sharply, and start his way back.

"He knew just what to do – he held Mokuba over my head, and I can't even begin to count the number of times he brought you up – just because you were trying to help."

He dropped back down into the chair feeling defeated. "Do you have any idea what it was like…to be a prisoner in your own body? To shove him out of the way and take command only to end up trapped anyway? Do you know what I came back to?"

Hermione shook her head, eyes wide.

"It was you," he said, and finally looked up at her. "Standing there right in front of me, with your wand in the wrong hand, in a stalemate while everyone else just fed feel-good words that didn't mean anything. Oh how easy was it to just stand there off to the side like one of Yugi's little cheerleader friends waving the 'Keep at it! You can do it!' signs like they're watching a carefree duel."

She looked taken back for a moment before she reached forward to take his hand. He jerked out of her light grip with several fast, deep breaths before he relaxed his arm again, and didn't have a kneejerk reaction against her the second time.

"It's not that they were using empty words, Seto," she said, "We were just trying to help you find the drive you needed to overcome them."

"A bit hard to do," Seto muttered, "when you're already giving everything you had – and then some – just to keep him from using one arm. And it still wasn't enough. If he had his way, you'd be dead."

He sucked in a shaky breath. "And that is something I'd have to live with – that I wasn't strong enough to stop him, that I was too weak. That you would have been gone – and I…."

Seto closed his eyes and hung his head. "I…you mean too much to me."

His jaw twitched and he pulled away from her. His hands balled into fists and he purposely stared out at the center aisle in the room. There – he said it. The words sounded foreign rolling off his tongue in his own voice; the Seto Kaiba of two years ago would never flat out admit something like that to anyone. Not when Mokuba was always a target. And Kaiba Corp has been threatened almost enough times to completely tally off on one hand. He spent too much time fighting to keep the precious few things in his life that mattered most, and a part of him almost couldn't bear to invite anything else in.

But a lot had changed since the close of Battle City. He was not the Seto Kaiba of yesteryear, but that didn't keep those fears from rolling away.

"Hey," she said, and he heard the rustling of the blankets. Hermione swung her legs out and over the side of the bed to face him properly and he didn't fight her when she raised a shaky arm up to gently turn his head back to face her. "I'm still here. And I can't begin to guess what it was all like for you…to go through all of that…but you can't be so hard on yourself. Whatever happened while he was in control of you is not your fault and you can't be blaming yourself for what did or didn't happen."

Hermione watched him open his mouth, probably to argue her point, but he stopped and instead focused rather intently on flexing his fists.

Hermione bit her lip and waited for any sort of answer, but Seto stayed still. And quiet.

"I…I know you're tired of hearing it," she began, "but I hope, after you've had the chance to let some of that out, that you feel a little better – not just from that, but overall."

He looked up at her.

"Yugi mentioned in one of his visits that your mind was…." She trailed off, brow furrowed, and tried to remember just what it was that he said. "…knitting itself back together? I don't quite know what that means?"

"It means…" Seto began, and saw where she left the glass, untouched on the bedside table. "…that I needed rest."

He picked up the glass and handed it to her. "And so do you."

She took the glass back with a sigh. "I don't remember this potion…"

"They weren't treating your injuries properly," Seto said, "We figured it out last night. That will help fight off the lingering effects of what he did to you."

Hermione looked quizzically at him. "How –?'

"—A story for when you wake up. …Along with, I suppose, how soul rooms work."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "I am awake, Seto."

Seto nodded at the glass. "Not for much longer."

He waited for her to drink it and then got up and readjusted the pillows behind her. "Don't worry, I'll still be here when you come back."

Hermione nodded and set the empty cup back onto the table, and as she shifted back underneath the warm blankets and laid down, Seto reached around and brought back out the tray table he was using. His movements were slower than what she was used to, and now that he wasn't bundled up against the cold, she saw the bandages wrapped across his hand that went up and under his clothes. Perhaps she wasn't the only one still recovering from Saturday's fight.

"Seto?"

He paused, hand halfway to his quill still nested in his ink bottle.

Hermione bit her lip. "Are…are you sure that you're alright? I mean, really, alright?"

She watched him close his hand just before it reached the quill and he stared down at the parchment. Eyes closed. Deep breath. Eyes opened again.

"…No," he said, with an uncertain, shaky tone. "…But I will be."