Author's Notes: Okay, response time!

Yohko Kiyoto: I'm sorry, but Ginny had to get away. Otherwise Hermione wouldn't get the idea to get the book from the library to… (goes on and on).

Kayla Tsukino: Thanks! I can tell you where to find some other HP/YGO crossovers if you want.

Kel-chan: Thank you, but next time don't kill Anzu. I haven't finished with her role yet, small as it may be. ^-^

Nips: No, Harry isn't getting psychic. It's intuition, you know, when you get the feeling someone's watching you? I can lend you my bug zapper if you like.

Goggle-Girl: Aaaanyyyything can be found in the Hogwarts library. I bet there's stuff on fanfiction too, seeing as how many books they have.

Emerald Pheonix524: Can't say! Spoiler! *The three monkeys cover their eyes, ears and mouths*

JessiChi: I'm glad to see that someone likes Yami Bakura! I kind of liked him before, then he kept on coming back to possess Bakura, so I got mad at him. Oh well!

Disclaimer: No own, no sue.

Chapter 6: Unexpected Interruption

As expected, Mr. Malfoy marched up to the school the very next day to rant about what happened to his son and to threaten to close down the school. If he listened closely, Harry could hear him shouting at Dumbledore when he walked by the statue that served as a guardian to his office.

The Slytherin house was just about as distressed. They were certain the Gryffindors had a part in their Seeker's fate, and soon small fights broke out in the corridors between the houses.

No one was aloud to go anywhere alone, there always had to be two or three people accompanying them. The Ministry of Magic sent a handful of Aurors to comb through the school. A couple of them took temporary residence in Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, so they could be nearby if he struck again. All Quidditch matches were postponed, to Harry's dismay. They could still practice, but with one or two teachers supervising.

Harry settled down at the Gryffindor table for breakfast. He had gotten over the shock of what had happened to Malfoy. It was only that bad because it had almost happened to him. In his third year, a Dementor had almost succeeded in performing the Kiss of Death on Harry. And now it seemed that he was going to end up soul-less anyway.

The owls flew in with the daily post, and a newsletter had dropped in front of Hermione. She propped it open and started to read it. Harry knew she was checking to see if Rita Skeeter had kept her promise and stopped writing false articles. Hermione's eyes widened as she looked at the front-page story.

"What is it, Hermione?" Ron asked just before he stuffed a cinnamon bun into his mouth.

"It's Mr. Malfoy," she said, "he's running a petition to shut down Hogwarts."

"What!?" Harry and Ron hissed at the same time, although Ron nearly choked on his food.

"He's upset that his son was a victim, and he's rallying up people to shut down Hogwarts because it's no longer safe."

"That's-" Harry covered Ron's mouth just in time. McGonagall was walking past their table and she would not be pleased to find Ron swearing.

"This can't be happening, I mean, where would we go to school?" said Harry.

"We would probably go to some other schools, maybe Beauxbatons and Durmstrang," she said, "but that's not the point. Mr. Malfoy hasn't won yet, and we can still make the potion. We can send a guinea pig in to get the ingredients."

"Why can't we get it ourselves?" Ron demanded, "The way we did it worked last time!"

"So we'll blow up a cauldron and let everyone swell to the size of melons when they're hit by it. Of course we can't do it again! Snape will get suspicious about the same routine."

"But-"

"She's right, Ron," said Harry, taking a sip of his pumpkin juice, "Snape could hold a grudge for all his life. I bet he practically remembers every detail of all the havoc we've caused in his class."

"I wouldn't put it past the git. But who would be dumb enough to steal stuff from Snape's office?"

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"Sure, Harry! I'll do anything! But could you please sign this picture for me? You never did, and you promised!" Colin Creevey held out the picture of Harry and Gilderoy Lockhart that he had taken in Harry's second year. Harry sighed and signed it in the corner. Colin Creevey took it back with a million-watt grin. "Thanks, Harry! I'll be off now, and I won't forget to get your things!"

Harry waved rather uncomfortably back at the fanatic fourth year. He turned back to Ron and Hermione. "Annoying as he is, I still feel a bit sorry for him. Snape gives really nasty detention."

"Aw well, Harry. It's for a good cause. And besides, if he gets caught this time, he'll learn not to be so gullible."

"Ron!"

"What? It's true!" Harry simply rolled his eyes and walked ahead of his bickering friends. He hoped this would work. It had to.

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Yami and the group found themselves in what looked like a medieval castle, in an empty ballroom. It was decorated elaborately, and from the looks of it there was some special celebration going on.

"I think now that we're here, we should split up and question the first people that we see. We'll meet back here in a half hour," said Yami confidently.

"What will we ask them?"

"Ask them if there's something strange going on, or if they've seen Yami Bakura." With that, Yami split them up into groups of two and sent them through different doorways.

Yami and Joey saw no one for 5 minutes, and had begun to think that they were in an abandoned castle until someone came around the corner.

It was a rather short young boy with copper hair and violet eyes. A black cat with the same eye color trotted beside him. As soon as he saw the two, he stared at Yami's unusual hairstyle.

"Were you hit by lightning?" he said. Yami glared at the boy.

"No, I wasn't. Listen, has anything out of the ordinary been happening here?"

The boy raised an eyebrow and said, "Besides your hair day, no."

Yami looked ready to murder the boy, right then and there, but Joey interrupted. "I guess we'll be on our way then," he said as he grabbed Yami's sleeve and began to leave.

"Wait," the boy said, and the two turned around to face him again. "I have a question for you."

"Okay."

"What exactly are you doing here? I thought they didn't let just anybody in a royal palace." Joey and Yami's eyes darted from the boy's sword at his belt to each other.

"Run!" Yami said, but he didn't really need to. Both of them bolted down the stairs as the boy shouted for guards to follow them. Soon they could hear the feet of two people trailing after them.

They reached the ballroom just in time to find the rest of the group waiting there.

"Quick! We leave!" was all that Yami managed to spare his breath for. They reached them and went back to the Shadow Realm just in time; a moment longer and the guards would have had them.

Joey and Yami finally caught their breath.

"Any luck?" asked Tea hopefully.

Everyone chorused "No" in response.

"What happened to you two?" Kaiba said, "What had you done to set those guards on you?"

"Don't ask," said Joey. "I guess we'll try the next door then."

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Colin Creevey had actually managed to get their ingredients without receiving detention. How is still a mystery, although Harry was tempted to ask.

It was another dinner in the great hall, and there was little noise. Everyone was too disturbed about the loss of the students to be quite so ostentatious.

Suddenly the doors of the Great Hall burst open. Everyone's head turned to the back of the hall.

"I DID IT! I CONFESS!" yelled the person at the door. He fit Ginny's description of the soul-snatcher exactly, and everyone seemed to notice this. Plenty of people went white.

"It was me, I stole their souls!" the boy walked up to the teacher's table as he said this. When he passed by the Gryffindor table Harry noticed that he now had more bruises and cuts than Ginny had described.

The boy started to talk in a different language, but he didn't seem to notice. He sounded just as scared and witless as before. He reached the table and slammed a bunch of cards on the table in front of Dumbledore.

Dumbledore pick them up and looked at them gravely. A couple of the teachers looked at them over his shoulder and went pale.

The boy switched back to English. "Kill me now! That way he can't come back!"

Dumbledore stood up and held out his wand. No, Harry thought, Dumbledore wouldn't-

"Petrificus Totalus!!" The boy fell down to the floor and lay still. Many sighs of relief were heard. They thought that Dumbledore might actually use the killing curse. Dumbledore came from around the table and knelt down before the boy. He took off the necklace and then said, "Professor McGonagall, would you kindly take this young boy to the hospital wing? When he recovers, I'll have already destroyed his medallion, and we can question him." He turned back to the students as McGonagall took the boy away. "Continue with your dinner. The professors and I will deal with this matter. But I must ask Miss Chang to accompany me." Cho looked very startled at being addressed. "I understand that you are fluent in Japanese, and if I am right, that was the language he was speaking." Cho nodded and followed Dumbledore out of the hall.

"I guess we don't need to make that potion then," said Ron as the noise resumed.

"Poor Colin. All that work for nothing." Harry agreed with Hermione. Harry planned to ask Dumbledore about some things after supper. He had questions he wanted answered about the soul-snatcher.

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Harry, Ron and Hermione made their way up to the hospital wing. By now the Professors would at least have some results.

They reached the door when suddenly a bright light came from the edges of the door. It was pushed open and the boy, bruise free, cut-less, and in possession of his cards and his medallion, bolted past them before they could do anything.

"No! We have to stop him!" The three of them ran after him, following his footsteps through the hall. They came around a corner and nearly knocked over Dumbledore.

"Professor Dumbledore, he's escaped! He got out of the hospital wing!" Harry said frantically.

"How could he escape, Mr. Potter?"

Ron stared at him like he'd turned pink with purple polka dots. "He just ran by here!"

"I saw no one, Mr. Weasley. However, I shall check the hospital wing myself." Dumbledore walked back the way the trio had come.

"Where'd he go?" Ron said, bewildered. "I can't even hear him running anymore."

"You know, it's possible he could've used a secret passageway," Hermione stated.

"My map. He took my map the same night he took the cloak," Harry said. When he had checked his trunk the morning after the theft he realized that he had taken the one map of Hogwarts that revealed all the passageways and the location of everyone on the grounds.

"How would he work it? He doesn't know the password!" Ron said defiantly.

"Maybe he's got a different sort of magic, and he doesn't need to." Hermione and Ron were silent for a moment, then Hermione spoke.

"What about the ring and the cards? Dumbledore took them from him, how could he get them back?"

It was Ron who answered this time. "Remember when Ginny found him in the broom closet? She said that he mentioned someone taking over. Maybe he's possessed by an evil spirit or something that's making him do this, and maybe it has control over the medallion."

"What about the light?" Hermione protested. "What was the light in the hospital wing?" They all looked at one another and they came to the same conclusion.

"Madam Pomfrey." They all ran back to the hospital wing to find Dumbledore leaning over the matron's still body.

He looked up at them gravely and said, "Yes, he took her as well. I'm afraid that this school won't be able to run much longer."

After a few minutes of silence Harry asked, "Could I ask a question, Professor Dumbledore?"

"Yes, as long as I am able to answer it."

"What were those cards for? The ones he showed you at supper?"

Dumbledore looked at Madam Pomfrey as he answered. "The cards contained the souls of his victims. Their picture was in the cards, and there were four empty ones. I suppose we haven't seen the last of him."

There's Chapter Six for you, delivered on a platter. Just in case you were wondering, Bakura switched languages because he was kind of delirious, and he didn't know he was doing it. It might take me longer to upload chapters now, because I had written a bunch of them before I posted the story and now it's caught up with me. Please don't get mad! Aw well. Can anybody guess these two things for me? An imaginary potatoe sack full of galleons to those who get it either one right! (Please answer in your reviews. I don't check my email too often.) A. What world did Yami & Co. go to in this Chapter? B. Who's going to be the next victim? (Try and find a pattern with the people he's gotten rid of so far) Good luck!