A/N: Today – May 12, 2021 – marks the story's 4th anniversary! Thank you all for reading and for all of the reviews! It truly means a lot and the journey to get this far into the narrative would have been a lot harder without all of the support along the way.

Enjoy the new chapter!

/Text/ Spirit to Host

/Text/ Host to Spirit

Chapter 49: Prediction

Bellatrix Lestrange entered the study and pulled a small cloth-wrapped bundle from her robes. The Dark Lord hadn't visited the room in days and it sat unoccupied, save for the glowing chunk of a sword sitting on the far table. She knew the box on the mantle had Seto Kaiba's fancy golden staff in it, and that contained an ancient spirit, but he hadn't stirred and tried to escape since the mysterious Dark Priest chained the box shut with purple-hued magic.

"You'll be pleased to note that this was recovered in the middle of absolutely nowhere late last night," she said to the empty air, "But he doesn't think you deserve it, after your blunder at the finish line."

The sword on the table flared, and started oozing dark, wispy shadows until the Shadow Magus appeared, towering over her.

I told him on countless occasions that Seto Kaiba was resistant to mind control, even without the direct aid of the Millennium Rod. He chose not to listen.

Bellatrix crossed her arms, hugging the bundle close to her chest. "You couldn't keep him there another moment longer? Do you realize just how close he became to gaining access to the school?"

Even if I had the strength to keep him planted, it was a losing battle. The Pharaoh and his friends were prepared – and fighting Dumbledore took too much energy. This was a setback, not the end of the fight.

"Well," she scoffed, "the Dark Lord doesn't seem to think so. And I hope you know we were all disappointed when he returned not only without Dumbledore's head, but the boy as well."

A low chuckle. Everyone was disappointed? Or just you?

Bellatrix raised an eyebrow and gave him a sly smile.

The Shadow Magus turned and glided off towards the unlit fireplace. I find your tastes both disturbing and fascinating.

Bellatrix waved her hand flippantly. "All we have to show from this adventure is the little staff, but we can't get to it because you locked it up."

He nearly destroyed Kaiba's mind on his little vendetta. I cannot take the risk of the Millennium Rod finding a way to sneak out before I can delve deep into it.

Bellatrix didn't look impressed. "So why haven't you then?"

The Shadow Magus slowly turned back, Eye glimmering in the dark. Because of the little present in your arms.

"Oho," Bellatrix smirked. "But the Dark Lord doesn't wish for you to have it."

He can wish all he wants. But if he did not want me to have that, he would have stopped sending his minions through the desert, and you would not be standing there teasing me with it.

Bellatrix tilted her head curiously at him. This was the first she really held a conversation with the Dark Lord's mysterious new ally. At the first news of him, she wasn't impressed. A ghost hiding in a broken relic? What good could that really bring?

But then the spirit slowly became more useful – and stronger, once they managed to find an additional piece of the sword.

She still didn't quite understand the Dark Lord's fascination with the Millennium Items, but they had to contain some great secret. One big enough that, despite their best efforts, the tomb keeper they collected managed to take to the grave.

"And if I was? Just here to tease."

A waste of time. I could just take that fragment from you.

Bellatrix grinned. "Then why haven't you?"

The golden eye flashed again. I already know you're going to hand it over.

"Oh, is that the 'all-seeing eye'? Going to tell me that you were a Seer in a past life?" She cackled. "Go on then! Prophesize something!"

The Shadow Magus, claws emitting their Shadow Realm-hue, picked up the box off the mantle. Your 'Dark Lord' is about to lose his new trophy – and rather soon, in fact.

"And what makes you say that?"

The Millennium Eye flared and a shockwave of golden light flared out from the box and disappeared through the walls of the study.

We're going to have company.

Bellatrix's laughter subsided and she darted looks from the Shadow Magus to the box and back. "You…" she started, still trying to catch her breath, "You're wanting those little heroes to come and try to retrieve it, aren't you?"

We don't need Seto Kaiba anymore, he said to Bellatrix's immediate pout, not when we have the Millennium Rod. But there is a much greater prize to be had by creating a homing beacon. Dangle one Millennium Item on a rope, and the others will follow.

He held out a hand for the bundle.

Bellatrix laughed again and didn't make any move to give it to him. "Tell me something that I'd want to know."

The Shadow Magus clenched his open palm into a fist. So demanding. He should have just taken the sword piece and blasted her out of the room at the first opportunity.

Your Dark Lord will not step foot in Hogwarts for at least one full year.

Bellatrix scowled. That was hardly the good news she was anticipating. "So…this mission – Draco's instructions…"

The boy will perform as expected. He will not gain access to the school. But you will.

Bellatrix's arms loosened up a little. Now she gave him her full attention. "That's it?"

Yes.

"Not quite the personal enticement I was looking for," said Bellatrix, puffing her lip out in an overdramatic pout. She waved the bundle in front of the Shadow Magus before starting for the door. "And here I thought it was going to be something thrilling."

The Shadow Magus suddenly blinked in front of her and she stepped back, the Eye glowing bright against both the dim hallway and the study. What if I told you that your little obsession will be sated exactly one year from now, in your family home?

She snorted. "I'd say you're mad."

This time it was the Shadow Magus's turn to let out a raspy laugh of his own. He vanished – with the bundle – and reappeared beside the table. The sword piece – a small, uneven chip off of one side of the blade – sidled out of the cloth wrapping and connected into its proper spot.

We'll see about that, won't we?

"We're going to have to find a way to squeeze in another practice," said Harry as he, Yugi, Ron, and Ginny stepped off the moving staircase on the seventh floor. "Between Christmas break and all the snow we got these last few weeks, we've all lost form."

"Sorry," Ron mumbled.

"Ron, I don't know why you're so mopey," said Yugi, "You caught almost everything in drills!"

"All except mine," Ginny said with a cheeky smile that quickly morphed into a snicker.

Ron rolled his eyes. "Oh, sure. Maybe if you aimed for the goal. Can't catch what doesn't come near me!"

Harry paused halfway down the corridor and glanced back towards the Grand Staircases. "Oh…I forgot to check what the sign up post looked like for the Pitch before we left."

"Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw have it booked for the next few weekends," said Yugi. "I checked because I wanted to try and get some extra practice in. I feel rustier than everyone!"

"Damn," Harry sighed and started on again towards the Fat Lady's portrait. "Well…maybe we can corral the team together in a free evening."

"Uh huh," Ginny said flatly, "And when's that going to be – May? We're not allowed outside the school after sunset, remember?"

Ron groaned loudly.

"We'll think of something," said Harry, and turned to the Fat Lady. "Oddsbodikins."

Yugi balanced his broom over his shoulder and climbed through the portrait hole. "Well…do you think maybe there's an empty classroom or something we can…uh…practice passes? Even just throwing a Quaffle or something that size back and forth while just hovering. I don't know if it was just the cold today, but I wasn't able to keep a grip on anything out there."

Ginny wasn't sold on the idea. "Yeah – and when Umbridge catches you on a broom inside the castle and has traumatic flashbacks to Fred and George's flight for freedom, she'll ban you from the team."

Yugi stopped mere steps away from the opening into the common room. "You can't be serious."

Ron clapped a hand onto his shoulder. "Honestly? If it involves Umbridge, the more ridiculous it is, the more we're gonna get into trouble for it."

Ginny snorted. "If you areinvolved, it doesn't matter how ridiculous it is. Umbridge will find a way to get us into trouble."

"Wow. What's gotten you all in a funk?" asked Ron, wrinkling his nose at her.

Across the common room, two of her fellow fifth-years waved her down from their places by the fire. She waved back and then turned to face Harry and Ron.

"Alright, look," she hissed, and Yugi took a quick step back at the sudden shift in her voice. "I don't think you realize just how easy you all got off from that stunt last weekend – and don't give me that look, Ron, you think the portraits and the ghosts actually keep secrets around this place?"

Ginny huffed. "Anyway – you three are lucky that Seto took the total fall from the Astronomy Tower mess because there were whispers that Umbridge might throw all of you off the team if she had any say."

Yugi's jaw dropped. "What!?"

"We weren't even on the Pitch!" Harry said, a bit too loudly, and quieted down when a couple of second years playing Exploding Snap both gave him weird looks. "We didn't attack her. And this was about saving Seto – and Hogwarts!"

"Umbridge doesn't control the school anymore, but she can still punish you, like any other professor here," said Ginny. "You all pretty much destroyed the Astronomy Tower and think of what would have happened if you actually failed – while being too big-headed to tell someone what was going on in the first place! You know there are Order members here at Hogwarts."

"You wouldn't understand," Ron said quickly, "You don't know everything that was going on…."

Ginny shrugged her shoulders. "Fine. Whatever. But now is really not the time to push the envelope and bend any more rules. Keep your heads down and quit getting into trouble." And with that, she spun on her heel and marched off to join her friends.

Harry sighed and stepped further into the common room. Seto and Hermione were sitting at one of the larger tables near the corner under a window with books and parchments spread out all over the surface. Ryou sat across from them with his Potions book perched precariously along a corner – the only unclaimed space, and got up when he saw them enter.

"There you are!" he said brightly, "How was practice?"

Ron groaned again.

Ryou's face fell. "Oh. That good?"

"It was dreadful," Yugi said, "Well, Ron was okay, but man, I'm terrible!"

"Out of practice," Harry corrected him, and then looked at Ryou. "We all were."

Yugi bit his lip, looked at Ryou, then past towards the table he had just left. "So…uh…how are the waters over there?"

Ryou twisted to glance behind him. Seto and Hermione both had their backs to them, and were bent over whatever they were furiously writing.

"Now's as good a time as any, I supposed," he shrugged. "Though I haven't a clue to what they're doing. Arithmancy stuff. I lost track of all the numbers they're playing around with, but he's not in a bad mood, if that's what you're wondering."

"Not yet, anyway," Yugi muttered.

Harry's eyes darted between Yugi and Ryou. "What aren't we in the loop about?"

"Well…" Yugi said slowly, "we had mentioned this once before…but now that Kaiba's recovered – for real, this time – we should bring up the Millennium Rod again. I know we know Voldemort can't use it, but it's safer for everyone if we can just find a way to get it back. Before he manages to find another Millennium Item."

He blinked at the back of Kaiba's head. "And it's something we never brought up with him before, and a good thing too, since Voldemort was lingering in his head."

Ron peered around Yugi and then raised an eyebrow at Ryou. "Mate, I'm surprised they even gave you a corner of the table."

"Oh, it's alright," said Ryou, "I didn't mind." Someone had to give them all the notes he took from Snape's lecture. Hermione was released from the Hospital Wing only a few hours ago while the others were at practice, and as far as he knew she had glued herself to her classwork since.

"Well, it's time they came up for air…even if it's for five minutes," said Yugi. He crossed the common room first and took one of the empty seats opposite Hermione. Neither of them even noticed him. "Welcome back, Hermione!"

"Oh!" Hermione jumped, and spilled her ink bottle over Seto's homework. "Oh no! No-no-no!"

Seto jerked his arm away from the table before the ink could stain his shirt and reached on reflex for where his wand would normally sit beside his books, but his hand came up empty. Hermione snatched up her wand and one well-placed Scourgify later, the pool of ink siphoned itself back into the bottle.

"Sorry!" she said, looking his arm over, and once satisfied she didn't actually spill anything onto him, she sighed, and then turned back to Yugi, exasperated. "Hi…and thanks. Sorry…I'm just…trying to catch up on, well, everything before Monday."

Brown eyes fell on her thoroughly-scratched parchment and she couldn't help but pout down at it. "It's…not going too well."

"Maybe you just need to take it a little easier," Yugi said, "I think the professors will give you a little slack after spending a week in the Hospital."

Harry and Ron both pretended to cough.

"Umbridge."

Ryou rolled his eyes. "Alright – professors who matter."

Hermione shook her head and looked to her copy of Defensive Magical Theory currently utilized as a prop for her Arithmancy text. "No – after the other day, I need to make sure I have all of her work finished."

She could already hear Umbridge's argument in her head. "If you were well enough to leave the Hospital Wing and go for a leisurely stroll across the grounds, then you can complete your assignments on time!"

Sighing, she leaned back in her chair and looked from Yugi to Ron to Harry. The three of them were still in their Quidditch robes, stained with dirt and a few leaves lingered in Yugi's wild hair.

"Rough practice?"

Harry sighed. "You could say that."

As he and Ron started telling the misadventures of their day, Yugi merely sat back and watched Kaiba. Head down, still fiddling with notes and numbers, and what looked like an essay on a second sheet of parchment. To no one's surprise, completely ignoring the conversation around him.

Yugi blinked himself into his shared corridor with Yami. "I already have an inkling to how this is going to go, and it's not a good one."

Yami sighed. "I know. But…we're going to need the Millennium Rod back. And if Bakura can't track it using the Ring then we're going to have to find another way."

"I don't even know if there is another way," said Yugi, "and, if Kaiba's mind was all jumbled when he got back, I don't know how much help he really can be. If he really knew where Voldemort was hiding all this time, I'm sure Dumbledore and the Order could have gotten the Rod back for us."

Yami shook his head. "With how they treated his kidnapping in the first place? And each step of the fallout afterwards? I doubt it."

He took a step forward and placed a hand on Yugi's shoulder. "Would you like me to try?"

"I…I guess? Oh, I don't know," said Yugi, sounding rather defeated, and Yami furrowed his brow.

"Talk to me, Yugi."

Yugi sighed deeply, and sat down on the floor in the corridor with his back against his wall. "I…I just don't know what to do. I know we need the Rod back. I just don't know how to really go about doing it where we don't make a bigger mess of things. Kaiba doesn't remember where he was, and we can't track the Rod."

"We don't know that for certain," said Yami, "Kaiba said that just after he was released from the hospital. We didn't know that Voldemort was possessing him. Kaiba probably didn't know yet. So anything he said to us then may have been influenced by that event. And he hasn't said anything else about his captivity since then."

Yugi hugged his arms to his chest. "It feels wrong to pry. If I had just gone through all of that, I don't know if I'd want to be interrogated about it. How does that make us any better than the Ministry?"

Yami stayed quiet.

"Maybe he won't want to talk about any of it. We can't force it out of him. That's wrong."

"Then we may not get the Millennium Rod back," said Yami, "And whatever Voldemort and the Shadow Magus have planned for it may come to pass, and we won't be able to stop it."

"It might have already. We don't know that. The Rod has been gone for almost a month now," said Yugi.

Yami's face was grim. "We have to try. I will take the brunt of any anger Kaiba may have – we both know I'm used to it. But it's not just the Rod itself we have to think about. Kaiba was not the only one of us abducted. We have to think of Priest Set too. He was starting to recall small details of the past. Anything that he can remember to help us may also do the same for them."

Yugi sighed again. None of this felt right, but the Pharaoh had a point. Set was starting to remember names of his old colleagues back before they even left for Christmas break. There was no telling what he knew now, but if any of it had to do with the Shadow Magus and why he was so interested in Kaiba in the first place, that would give them such an edge for the future.

Maybe they could even try and find a way for Kaiba to fight off the Shadow Magus on his own – properly this time.

Yami held a hand out to him. "Come. We'll face this next hurdle together." He emerged from the Puzzle in control. Harry and Ron were still entertaining Hermione with Quidditch tales.

"Kaiba."

Seto didn't stop what he was doing or look up. "What?"

"I want to talk to you about—"

"Get in line," Seto snapped, and glared down at an extra ink blotch that dripped off the end of his quill and into the margin of his essay. "Everyone seems to want something from me these days."

Somehow, Yami doubted that was true, considering Kaiba's week-long lockdown, but he knew better than to argue the point. His confinement to the tower was a sore point already and this wasn't about starting another fight.

"We are not everyone," Yami said, and caught Seto's eye-roll in response, "And we're your friends, not the Ministry or Dumbledore or anyone else."

"No," Seto sighed, "Just the Friendship Brigade 2.0, here to make self-serving demands on me once more."

He jammed the quill back into the inkpot, straightened up, and crossed his arms. "What now?"

His tone wasn't encouraging at all, but Yami pressed forward. "It's about the Millennium Rod."

"What about it?"

"We want to get it back."

Seto barked a single dry laugh and Harry and Ron paused in their story to look over at him. "Is that all?"

"Yes," said Yami, "Even though Voldemort can't use the Millennium Rod, we need to recover it before the Shadow Magus can get what he needs. And it's something we've been putting off for far too long."

"I was taken a month ago," said Seto, "and you're just deciding on this today?"

"It's not as easy as it sounds," said Harry, and he and Ron both pulled up chairs to the table. "We tried to use Ryou's necklace to find you, when you were still gone. But it didn't work."

"Uh huh." Seto's voice was flat, uninterested and unimpressed. He stared at Yami. "Whatever it is, just spit it out."

Yami gave Ryou a quick glance before meeting Seto's eyes. "We need your help to find it."

Seto's response was a lot faster than both Yami and Yugi expected it to be, and he reached again for the quill. "No thanks."

Yami raised an eyebrow. "You don't want to recover it? And rescue Set?"

Seto's jaw twitched. "Maybe I don't."

The words might as well have slapped Yami across the face and he drew back, eyes wide. "You don't mean that."

"And I suppose your brief stint running around my head made you an expert on my thoughts too?" Seto hissed. He slammed his book shut and capped his ink bottle. "You really think I want to go back to being a husk for someone else?"

"I – I wasn't trying to imply—"

"Once again, no one ever bothers to ask me what I want," Seto said, and piled up his parchment into a neat stack. "Everyone just needs something from me. Well let me enlighten all of you. I want to be left alone."

He started to get up when Yami shot to his feet. "Look, Kaiba. You may not think so, but this isn't me trying to dunk the Rod on you again. This isn't last summer. We just need to get it back and you're the only person who can help us."

Seto matched Yami's pose, palms splayed flat against the tabletop and loomed over, glaring down angrily at him. "With what? I already told you all once before – I didn't know anything about where I was. Even if I did, what good would it do? I never saw the outside of the place, and the inside was a nightmare to get around. The only Millennium Rod I saw was a trap. For all I know, Set isn't even there anymore."

"An idea of what we're up against would be nice," said Harry, before Yami could say anything.

"I would think," Seto said slowly, and turned to level icy eyes on him, "That by now you would know. What else is there to tell? Just how many Death Eaters wandered the halls? I'll definitely know that, since I was locked up in one room the entire time."

Harry pushed forward. "Okay. We get it. But you must have some idea of what that Shadow Magus wanted with the Millennium Rod."

Seto squared his jaw. "And what difference does it make – by now he's already got it, and if he hasn't then I'm sure he'll have figured out a way before you can barge in, wands waving."

"I don't know," said Ryou quietly. "From what the Spirit of the Ring keeps saying, Set is just as stubborn as you."

He turned to storm up the stairs to the dormitory for lack of anywhere else to go, when Hermione reached up with a shaky hand for his arm. He stared down at it, and then at her.

Hermione smiled meekly and gave his forearm a slight squeeze before she let go, laid her hands in her lap, and stared down at her homework.

"Even if they did find whatever it was," she said softly, "We can prepare against it. Knowing is half the battle."

Seto exhaled sharply and glared at Yami again, aware that everyone else at the table had fallen silent, watching with baited breath.

Yami returned the gaze and didn't dare breathe. Kaiba wasn't just trying to get him to back down with one of his murderous looks – he knew his rival well enough by now to know he was calculating something deep behind eyes that were simultaneously fiery and frigid. Kaiba had to know, he just had to. Their only hope into getting the Rod back and getting any sort of edge over Voldemort at this point rode on him sharing his story.

But what if, said a nagging little voice, from somewhere in one of the deep, hidden away little crevices of his labyrinth of a mind, he really doesn't know? What if Voldemort really only took him as a means of gaining access to the school, and nothing more?

No, that's not right, Yami said to himself, there was something about an Orichalcos stone – but before he could dive any deeper into what that might have meant, the standoff ended. He felt Yugi's disappointment on top of his own – and probably everyone else's in the room too – when Seto closed his eyes, sighed, and instead of sitting back at the table, disappeared up the dormitory steps.

Yami sank back down and stared blankly at the tabletop.

"Well, that went well," Ron huffed.

"I just don't understand," Yugi said, and took control back from the Pharaoh with a quick flash of the Puzzle, "Hermione – I think…since he's been back, you've been closer to him than the rest of us. Is there something we're missing? Are we really just pushing him too hard?"

Hermione bit her lip and merely shrugged her shoulders. "I…I don't know. He never really spoke of anything he witnessed. Never any details, other than that first day, when he came back from Professor Dumbledore's office."

"We have to assume anything he said in those first days was Voldemort manipulating him," said Harry, "even if it didn't seem like it at the time."

"So we're back to where we started," said Ron.

Yugi sighed and looked up towards the common room ceiling. "I'll go up and talk to him I guess…after he's had time to cool off. But if he really can't tell us anything, it's back to the drawing board."

Harry looked at Ryou. "Guess you're our only hope."

Once certain that the last of the lingering underclassman had snuck their way out of the common room, Bakura phased out of the Millennium Ring, glaring down at Harry with his arms firmly crossed over his chest and the Ring dangling over it.

"Guess you forgot the overall problem at hand," he snapped. "I can't force the Ring to track something that can't be found."

"When was the last time you tried?" asked Hermione, "Maybe Set managed to escape where he was being held?"

Bakura snorted. "The Millennium Items don't work like that."

"But you can," said Ron, "Ryou's mentioned that before – that you could just come and go whenever you wanted."

Bakura bristled. "An ability of the Ring. Not the Puzzle or the Necklace, and certainly not the Rod or it would have wormed its way out of Marik's hands and into Kaiba's during Battle City and not upwards of a year later. Don't forget that Voldemort and his new little friend went to enough trouble to take the Rod in the first place and made sure we couldn't find it."

He gripped the Ring roughly by the knot of the cord wrapped around the top loop and held it up. "What makes you think now that Kaiba's back I could simply wave the Ring around and expect it to show me the way to the Rod? Don't be –"

The Ring around Ryou's neck suddenly activated, the pointers flailing wildly before all five aimed towards the far window in the common room.

Bakura stared blankly at it, as did everyone else at the table.

"Well," he said flatly, "this is new."

Yugi exchanged a fleeting nervous glance with Ryou as he followed him into the dormitory that evening and lingered just inside the door. Kaiba was stretched out on his bed, with his laptop balanced carefully on his legs, and didn't bother to look up and acknowledge either of his roommates.

Ryou made a beeline for his trunk, gathered his Divination text, his quill and inkpot and a spare roll of parchment, and slipped past Yugi to descend back to the common room. The unsaid 'good luck' wafted through the empty air and settled like dead weight on Yugi's shoulders.

He closed the door with a quiet sigh and crossed the room to stand just off the corner from the foot of Seto's bed, where he would be seen and not hidden behind the bedpost.

"I don't want to talk to him," said Seto without even sparing a blink up from his screen.

"The Pharaoh's not here," Yugi said carefully, and then backpedaled. "Well, I mean he is, but you know what I mean." He gestured with his hands to the space between them. "He's in the Puzzle."

"Well if you're here to make demands on his behalf, then I don't want to talk to you either."

"We missed you at dinner," Yugi said, plowing into the point of coming to check on him, as if Kaiba hadn't just tried to shoo him away. He noticed that Kaiba was also absent from lunch too, but he didn't feel like being called out on Mokuba's longstanding request to mother hen him. He knew at least that Kaiba was at breakfast, even if they actually missed seeing him, only because the coffee pot that was set out for him each morning was drained down.

Kaiba had gone out of his way to avoid everyone to greater extremes than usual the entire week, and it couldn't have been because of the fallout from the Astronomy Tower…could it? Asking him about it, of course, and expecting an answer was harder than drawing blood from a rock, so no one ever brought it up.

But the time to dance around awkward subjects was gone. As much as he didn't want to tread into this territory, they made the first step into recovering the Rod and putting this piece of the conflict to rest. The Pharaoh was right too – Kaiba needed to share at least some of the details of his time away from Hogwarts if there was going to be any chance to succeed. A few uncomfortable minutes – without anyone else's prying eyes or ears – had to be worth it in the end.

"I wasn't hungry," Seto muttered and reached for the coffee mug that sat on his bedside table. A fresh cup, judging by the steam still rising from the rim, which meant Dobby had been to see him and Yugi had to wonder if Kaiba had truly chosen to follow orders and stay in the tower, and had his meals brought to him.

The overnight he spent in a visitor's chair in the Hospital Wing not counted.

But he didn't see any other trace of food in the dormitory other than the coffee mug, so perhaps not. Perhaps Kaiba was just regressing back to his old habits of sleepless nights and a caffeinated liquid diet.

"Well," Yugi said, perched himself on the corner of Kaiba's bed and ignored the glare he received for sitting uninvited. "You missed a lot."

"Stories of a bungled Quidditch practice or Harry's next conspiracy theory regarding Malfoy? No thanks."

"No," Yugi said. He raised his head to stare evenly at him, despite Kaiba not meeting his gaze. "We came up with a plan. For Set."

Seto's jaw twitched. "Still on that, are you?" he asked icily, "Why is it so hard for you to accept that the Rod is gone? That you're more likely to recover the Exodia cards you lost like a fool than that?"

"You know better than most that we're not going to stop fighting for a friend," said Yugi, "and it's the same drive that got you to be sitting here in your own mind and not going mad in the Room of Requirement or continuously lying to Mokuba."

"I was not mad," Seto growled. He still refused to raise his eyes over the top of the laptop. "I had a complete handle on what I was doing."

"Sure." Yugi shrugged lightly to contrast the tone of his voice that clearly didn't believe a word Kaiba had said. "I'm certain you did. You know you looked like death right up to the end? I'm not sure which version of you was worse – then or the morning after you returned to Hogwarts, practically in pieces."

The typing stopped; fingers hovering above the keys. Cold blue eyes finally rose up to meet confidant violet.

"What do you want, Yugi?"

Yugi sighed and leaned back; he braced a hand behind him, palm flat into the top of the bedspread, and looked down and away from Kaiba's piercing glare. "I just wanted to keep you in the loop," he said, his voice softer this time, without a trace of the previous sass. "After you left, the Ring activated and pointed out and away from the castle. We think it found the Millennium Rod."

Seto rolled his eyes. "Imagine that. For all your posturing that it wasn't possible, here we are."

"Yep."

"You do realize this is one big trap, don't you?" said Seto, "the timing couldn't be any more convenient. The Shadow Magus knew you would come for it, and what better way to expedite that along than to dangle it in front of you on a hook."

"Bakura said as much earlier," said Yugi, "but that doesn't make the fight any less worthwhile. We hurried up to the Astronomy Tower not knowing what we'd get into, and there was a trap waiting for us there too."

"You're forgetting," said Seto. "The Astronomy Tower was still in the safety of the school."

"Kaiba, there was nothing safe about any of the spells Voldemort was flinging at us."

"My point," Seto growled, "is that there was only me in the tower. There were people to come to your aid. If you go on some fool's errand to find the Rod, you're going to do it alone, and there will be a hell of a lot more resistance than just me."

"We figured it all out," Yugi said, with more confidence this time. "We already had a plan for getting off the grounds in our original bid to try and rescue you when you were still gone – the Thestrals near the edge of the forest. It was how Harry and the others managed to get out in their fifth year. Bakura is going to use the Ring like a compass and guide us where we need to go. With any luck we'll be able to use the Shadow Realm as a cover, grab the Rod and get back out without too much trouble."

"You know there is no way that this little plan of yours is going to go that smoothly. I see a million ways for it to blow up in your face."

"We have to try," said Yugi. "We're going to wait for next weekend – Umbridge leaves on every other, so that's one less nosy professor walking the halls. And it won't be a school day so no one should be looking for us while we're gone."

"You know maybe three defensive spells. Best case scenario is that Bakura uses his Shadow Realm gimmick to keep you alive. But you're not the only ones who mess in it. And if something goes wrong, you wouldn't last seconds in a fight against a Death Eater."

Yugi pressed his palm into the bed a little harder. Here goes….

"That's why I'm begging for your help, Kaiba. I'm not going to sit here and convince you to come with me and Bakura. I just want to know anything that you think might be important from your time there."

Seto shook his head and turned away from him, choosing to focus his gaze on his phone sitting idly on the bedside table. "I can't," he said.

Yugi shifted back against the bedpost to draw his knees up against his chest, and was surprised that Seto sat up a little straighter to make room for him.

"Do you not remember?"

Seto barked out a dry laugh and met Yugi's gaze. "I remember. Too well. But I don't see the advantage of leading you to your death. If you leave, not only will you most likely be killed or captured, but the Puzzle will be lost. And then Voldemort will have two Millennium Items, not one. That's not something I need to have following me around, on top of everything else, and I'd rather have you and your pesky brain-mate here annoying the hell out of me than have to break the news to the Nerd Herd that you died on a fool's errand."

Yugi tilted his head. "That's…not the whole reason, is it?"

Seto sighed, leaned forward and shut the laptop with a soft click. "What else do you want me to say? How many ways do I have to spell out that I'm not going to help you commit a heroic suicide? There's nothing left to recover."

"Set –"

"Is already dead."

Yugi pressed his lips into a thin line and stared at Kaiba as he droned on. Yeah, Set is dead, and so are Bakura and the Pharaoh – but that didn't make it any less important to keep Voldemort from getting the rest of the Millennium Items.

"Kaiba –"

"—our link was broken. It can't be fixed."

"I don't see why not," Yugi said, once he was sure that he wasn't going to get interrupted again. "Not to say we have to do it right away, but if and when you're ready to…. I mean, the Pharaoh and I have been…."

Seto shook his head, eyes closed. Yugi, naturally, went on about the times he lost the Puzzle or had his soul stolen, and of course, the two of them managed to find each other again in a sugary sweet happy ending after thwarting the evil villain of the week. They didn't understand – how could they?

He didn't think silence could be evenly stuck between staying safe and running blind into one's coffin, yet here he was.

"It can't," he snapped, cutting off whatever Yugi was trying to say. He had honestly stopped listening once it sounded like Yugi was trying to preach friendship to him, whether he realized it or not. "You don't get it. You think I want to play runaround games with you?"

"We're not mind readers, Kaiba. I need you to help me understand."

Seto's jaw twitched again. "Are you making demands of me now too?"

"No!" Yugi said, "Kaiba, think for just a minute, please. We all acknowledge that your brain sometimes runs ten steps ahead of the rest of us. We're just trying to catch up. If you think there's some bigger reason why we shouldn't try and keep Voldemort from the Millennium Rod, I wish you would just tell me, and then it wouldn't feel like we're hounding you all the time."

Seto looked away, focusing his glare on the empty space at the foot of Ryou's bed.

"You don't have to take the Rod back," Yugi said, and Seto couldn't help but roll his eyes. That statement might have had more weight if it wasn't already offered to him at least twice already. "I can hold it in my trunk or something. But one way or another, we are going after it. And knowing some important details ahead of time might keep us alive a little while longer."

Seto didn't say anything, and continued to stare off and bore holes in the corner post of Ryou's bed.

Yugi swallowed nervously and started again. "So…if there's anything—"

"I DON'T WANT TO REMEMBER."

Yugi jumped nearly a foot in the air and Seto knocked his head back against his headboard with a loud thump that had to have been painful. He scrunched back further into the corner of the bed and watched Kaiba ball his hands into fists against the blanket before he moved the laptop off of him and got up. He had to twist around to see Kaiba stop in front of the large framed mirror.

For a moment, he wasn't sure if Kaiba was going to put his fist through it again, and debated if he should get up and intervene if necessary or let him stew. Maybe he needed the space.

And if not? …At least he knew the spell to fix the mirror if he needed to, and fortunately Kaiba was awake this time to drag him off to Madam Pomfrey if he bled out.

Already, they were better off than a full week ago.

Yugi swung his legs around to sit facing the mirror, but Seto didn't seem to notice him. Instead, Seto stood with a hand bracing each side of the frame.

Neither of them said anything.

"It never ends," Seto said suddenly, breaking the awkward silence. Yugi half-hoped that he would turn to face him, but Seto's gaze didn't waver from whatever he was focused on in the mirror. His voice was much quieter than Yugi expected it to be after his outburst, and mercifully no one else was in the room to create background noise or he wouldn't have been able to hear. "I look in the mirror and I see and hear him taunting threats to hurt Mokuba with that stupid smug grin on his face."

"He's not there anymore," Yugi said gently. "Mokuba is safe, and no is going to hurt him."

"The Shadow Magus kidnapped me right out of a protected building," Seto snapped, "Don't think for a minute that anyone in Domino is truly safe."

"No one is holding a wand or anything else to your head and forcing you to do anything. They can't hurt you anymore."

"Don't coddle me, Yugi," Seto snarled and this time turned to glare at him through cold, narrowed eyes. "This isn't just about someone dangling me like a marionette and expecting me to perform for their amusement."

Yugi wrung his hands together in his lap.

Seto returned to staring into the mirror. "Do you have any idea what it's like to see that place every time you close your eyes? To go through the gauntlet each and every night?"

He pushed himself off of the mirror, and for a lack of anything better to do with his hands than fist them again, crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at Yugi, worry practically oozing from his wide eyes.

"I can recite every damn thing that woman whispered in my ear. I can feel every spot where she dragged her nails down the side of my face."

He took a step towards Yugi, who to his credit, didn't try and back away from him.

"That doesn't even cover the fantasies that get made up – of what if's. What if Voldemort's dead little Orichalcos rock was still kicking. What if they had managed to capture Mokuba? What if I was still brainwashed – and killed all of you?"

With every biting sentence Seto went closer until he was practically right on top of him.

"…My brain can't even eject me out of my own nightmares half the time because when I'm stretched out on that table having my legs broken over and over again, the pain is so real it can't tell the difference. If I'm lucky I'll see that I'm clearly not in thirty pieces and go back to sleep to relive new fresh hell, served to me on a silver platter."

Seto towered over him now. "That is what I get to look forward to. So no. I am not fine. I don't want to remember, and I don't want to talk about it."

Yugi stared down at his lap and gave a quiet sigh and a slight nod of his head. "I…I understand."

He waited a minute, to see if Kaiba would say anything else, and when he didn't, Yugi started to get up only to glance over, surprised, when Kaiba sat down next to him with an exasperated sigh of his own.

"But," Seto said, sounding resigned, "if this misadventure of ours has taught me anything – it's that what I want just doesn't matter. Ever."

"Kaiba –"

"Save it Yugi. Don't argue when you know I'm right."

Yugi fell silent.

"I said I can't help you. It's not because I don't remember anything. It's not fully because I don't want to relive the memories. It's because I can't. You will be killed."

Yugi's jaw dropped open. "What!?"

Seto huffed. "We stand at the crossroad of two equally bad outcomes. You want to rescue the Millennium Rod and…despite your denial of it, relink me with Set. Don't look at me like that, Yugi, you know he wants that." He gave his head a light jerk towards the Puzzle.

Yugi felt Yami bristle from their corridor and shrugged it off.

Seto continued. "On one hand, I can tell you what you want to know, you'll run off to rescue the Rod out of sheer will and necessity, and you'll spring the Shadow Magus's clear-as-day trap. On the other, I can stay silent, give you nothing, and hope that common sense will win out and you won't go on your suicide mission. However, that leaves Voldemort with the Rod, and the unknown if the Shadow Magus got what he wanted out of it."

Yugi blinked. "Oh-kay?"

"Rescuing the Rod isn't the problem," Seto said carefully. "It is though for your knack of jumping headfirst into danger, but Set is the actual problem. I believe it is actually safer for him to be there than here where he might try and reestablish our link on his own."

Now Yami phased out of the Puzzle. "How so?"

"If Set is trapped in the Rod, he can't say or do anything. It's as if he never came out in the first place." He at least hoped with every fiber of his being that was the case. It's not like there was a user manual on how the Millennium Items worked. "Which means the Shadow Magus shouldn't be able to get what he wants from him."

This was it – there was no going back now. Even if he continued to give Yugi the complete runaround, it would only be a matter of time before they tried to escape the school and rescue the Rod anyway. And if they were truly going to try for it in one week…well, now they'll have that long to build a better little plan than 'sneak around and pray they don't get caught'.

Yugi and Yami exchanged nervous looks, and it was Yami who dared ask the question. "And…what does he want from Set?"

Seto leveled his gaze onto Yami, and in that instant, before anything was even said, Yami felt cold dread worm its way into the pit of Yugi's stomach.

"Your name."

One Week Later…

"Today must be your lucky day," Bellatrix said, sauntering into the study once more. Another sword piece found in the desert – two in such a short period of time was nothing short of a small miracle. This one couldn't be much larger than the first, but it floated out of her hands to meet up with the rest of itself. Unlike the other piece, however, it didn't slide nicely into place against the rest of the blade, but hovered idly several centimeters above the current stumped blade.

Another fragment, but not the next fragment. Curiously, the purple-hued magic she was accustomed to seeing activated and the sword glided off the desk. The lone piece moved with it, held together by some invisible magic as if it wasn't waiting for its missing bridge piece to join it to the rest.

The Shadow Magus appeared seconds later, the sword resting across his hands.

It appears so. For the both of us.

Bellatrix raised an eyebrow. "Me?"

Your cause. Your 'Dark Lord'.

Bellatrix wrinkled her nose. "It doesn't appear that much has changed from where I'm standing."

Perhaps not, for you. But from where I am, it makes quite a difference.

The Shadow Magus looked down at his hands as the sword floated up to hover beside him. His long bony fingers had a touch more color to them. There was weight behind his movements.

One step closer to a true body, one that wasn't shackled to a magical artifact. It wouldn't be possible still for quite some time, but now he was finally strong enough to move onto the next phase of his quest; the days of sitting around idly waiting, doing nothing, were over.

He waved a hand and the box on the fireplace mantle disappeared. The Millennium Rod flared brightly against the dark of the study as it lifted on its own accord and flew into the Shadow Magus's other hand. Bellatrix started to reach for her wand squirreled away in the pocket of her dress and the Shadow Magus couldn't help but cackle. What did she think she was going to be able to do with that against him?

"What are you doing?" she asked.

The Priest and I are going to have a little chat. The answers I seek are hidden away deep in the Millennium Rod.

Now it was her turn to laugh. "Oh, and you're just going to slip inside and expect him to tell you, after locking him in that box for over a month? If it was just that simple, you could have done this already!"

I was not strong enough before.

"Ah," she said, and repocketed her wand. "That's right – your two little broken chunks. Tell me, Dark Priest, did they really give you that much of a power trip?"

Every piece found inches me closer to a body of my own, and with every step I regain a touch of power I had previously lost. I could not do this before, not while the White Dragon guards his spirit inside the Millennium Rod.

"Oh, right," she said, rolling her eyes, "this great White Dragon that no one has ever seen. And how do you plan on getting past it when you couldn't before, even when you were wandering through the boy's mind while he was in Hogwarts?"

The Shadow Magus slowly turned to face her. That is true – then. But I have learned quite a bit from wandering Seto Kaiba's memories, and I have something that will keep the White Dragon busy for a while.

The Eye in his mask flashed, the familiar purple aura shrouded the Shadow Magus, and his body faded away into the mist until only the Sword and the Rod were hovering in the dark cloud.

Bellatrix stepped forward and started to reach out towards the Millennium Rod, but the moment her hand went into the purple mist, it reappeared beside her arm, facing out, as if she had stood on the other end of the cloud and shoved her hand successfully through it.

With a huff, she spun on her heel and stormed out.

The Shadow Magus stepped out of the mist and into a familiar hallway he'd traversed a number of times already, when he made his nighttime visits to Kaiba's mind. The soul corridor was still intact, though Kaiba's side of the hallway was predictably blank.

He started for the stone door to Set's soul room, blocked from entry by the crisscrossing of shadowy chains across the surface of it and continuing down the walls.

"Stop."

The voice was so quiet he almost didn't catch it, but turned to face the far end of the hallway, where there was no illumination, where there was no door to lead out, just a dead end.

Emerging from the shadow was a girl in a ratty torn sack of a dress and long flowing white hair. Her blue eyes glowed a vibrant blue, far brighter than they normally should.

I had wondered how quick you would be to try and stop me.

Kisara took a step forward. "Unless you are here to release him, you are not welcome here."

I don't need your permission, girl. There is some unfinished business between us that needs settled, and I am tired of waiting.

The glowing bright blue in her eyes surrounded her entire figure until she was just as shrouded in light as he was in the shadows. "I will not let you harm him. Not again."

The Shadow Magus smirked under his mask. You can try – but you will fail.

Kisara closed her eyes and tilted her head up to the ceiling in the corridor. Her body vanished in a burst of light to be replaced by the brilliant white of her dragon form, crouching low in the corridor, baring her open jaw. He knew – any second the start of her signature lightning blast would be gunning for him.

And if he were several days earlier in his visit, the attack would have chucked him right out of the Millennium Rod and left him to stew over until he regained enough stamina to return and try again.

That was before two pieces of the sword were fitted back together. Now, he had a counterattack.

The purple aura formed around his hands and spread out towards the center of the hallway. The glowing mist started to take the shape of large ornate jar with a dragon's head carved into the front. He watched gleefully as the carving's eyes flared to life and Kisara was stopped in the midst of creating a blast of lightning. The jar's eyes flashed brighter and as if by an invisible force, she was sucked into the jar.

The moment Kisara vanished from sight, the jar's bright eyes died down, satisfied with its new cargo.

The Shadow Magus sneered and continued towards the door. Maximillian Pegasus. Should I meet you in this life, I must thank you for creating an effective little counter to creatures like her.

An angry roar sounded from within the jar and it teetered dangerously.

With a loud snap of his fingers, the chains binding Set's door fell away and fastened themselves around the jar, securing it in place.

Nice try. Now if you excuse me, it's time I had a little talk with my son.