Yu-Gi-Oh!
A New Generation of Priests

Newspaper article and book conversation with Tom Riddle excerpted.

CHAPTER EIGHT – HOLIDAY HIJINKS

The double attack on Justin and Nearly Headless Nick sent a shockwave through the school. Most students who had signed up to stay at the school during Christmas quickly took their names off the list, afraid of staying at the school with whom the students had labeled as the prime suspect: Harry Potter. Thankfully for Harry, the teachers knew better, especially Dumbledore, who had seen the young wizard after the attack and assured him that he was not truly a suspect.

That break, the lavish Slytherin common room was only occupied by one person: Draco Malfoy. He had opted not to go home that break, and had even went so far as to force Crabbe and Goyle to go home on their own, much to other people's surprise. The pale boy was afraid that if he had gone home, his father would find out that he was a Parselmouth, and he knew that would not end well.

It was no secret that his father had been a Death Eater – a loyal follower of Lord Voldemort when he was at the height of his power. If his father found out that he had a trait that only Voldemort had ever displayed in recent history, he knew that he would be forced to go through the ceremony that all Death Eaters went through, even though the dark lord's whereabouts were as of yet unknown. Before, he would have been elated to have such an honor so early in his life, but now…

Malfoy gripped the sides of his head, shaking it furiously. He needed to get out of the stuffy common room, and he did so, wandering the halls of the school until he found himself at the large double doors of the front entrance to the school. He pushed them open and went out into the cold winter daylight. Freshly fallen snow crunched under his feet as he made his way to the nearly frozen shore where he had arrived and departed from the school for the first time last year.

He sat down in the snow and sand mix, staring out vacantly at the semi-frozen water before him. His thoughts drifted back to that time when he was recovering in the hospital wing from Professor Lockhart's blundered spell, and he was awoken by barely contained shouts. He opened his eyes to find a shocking surprise; Dobby, the Malfoy family house elf, had come to convince Harry to leave Hogwarts and avoid all the strange happenings at the school.

By all means, the first thing he should have done the next morning was send an owl to his father. What Harry had told the elf, however, made him rethink that.

"I'm not going anywhere! Half of my friends are muggle born. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I went off to hide and just left them here!"

Draco curled himself up, resting his chin on his knees. The kind of loyalty that Harry had display there was something he thought he had. Crabbe and Goyle were always around to protect him, to do whatever he wanted. It had taken a bit of thinking, but he realized that they were not loyal to him. They only protected him because his father had told them to, just like their parents had protected his father when he went to Hogwarts.

He blew out a frustrated sigh. How the heck was he supposed to balance his feelings, now that they had been sent totally askew?

Draco did not know why, but something made him look up to the pale blue sky above. Something strange was floating up there. At first, he thought it was just a cloud, but then he realized it was something else as it gently drifted toward him. He held out a hand, and a feather, the likes of which he had never seen, came to a soft rest in it. It was not an owl's feather that was for sure. Owl feathers were large and rounded off at the end, but this was small, about the length of his hand, and came up to a sharp point. It's coloring was odd as well; pure white, with a small hint of gold highlighting it.

Draco looked up to the sky again. There were no birds around that he could see, so where had the strange feather come from? Just then, a shiver racked through his body, and he realized exactly how cold it was out there. He pocketed the feather and dashed back to the doors of the school.

-.oOOo.-

Like last year, Dumbledore gave Seto and Bakura special permission to sleep in the Gryffindor tower with their friends because their own houses had all left. That left the two of them, Yugi, Harry, Hermione, Marik, and all five Weasleys with absolute dominance over the common room. Ginny, who had mostly avoided everyone throughout the term, seemed to be glad not to have so many people around. Percy was busy trying to keep the peace between his brothers, when he was not locked up in the prefect room, that is. They did not have to see Lockhart as often, so the air between Marik and Hermione was more or less subdued. Also, duels, both with magic and cards, took up most of their time.

At one point Seto declared that he had finally finished the magic Duel Monsters dueling board he had been working on almost nonstop since last year. Him and Yugi were in the middle of a heated match, when the smaller boy used his Magical Silk Hats trap card only to have it backfire, blowing up in his face and nearly destroying the card. Yugi went to clean the soot off of his face while Seto looked like he was going to launch the device out the window.

Don't worry, hikari, Yami Seto assured him. You'll get it one of these days.

Christmas morning dawned bright and cold, but no one really noticed. They had all gotten up early to get a head start at unwrapping their gifts.

All the duelists in the room got the latest model of the Duel Disk from Seto. Though it did not look much different from the old Duel Disk , it did have new features added, like the option to choose which rules to follow (Duelist Kingdom, Battle City, or Classic) as well as better compatibility with cards from other countries. Hermione had gotten everyone large boxes of Chocolate Frogs or Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans like last year. Also like last year, she had apparently gotten Marik something special, for he blushed when he opened his present and quickly hid it away from prying eyes. Yugi got everyone something different again, ranging from an action figure for Bakura to a new quill for Harry (who had been in desperate need of one). Lastly, as usual, everyone got a brand new Weasley sweater from Mrs. Weasley.

"Any idea what the professors are planning for the Christmas party this year?" Harry asked, melting the treacle fudge he had gotten from Hagrid over the fire before even trying to eat it.

"No idea," Fred said, popping an Every Flavor Bean in his mouth, which quickly got spit out again. "Yuck! Cauliflower! Anyway, they usually do something different every year, and they've never disappointed us."

Marik elbowed Yugi to get his attention, before whispering in a low voice, "I'm just glad you were crazy enough to ask Malfoy about the Chamber. Judging from how the potion was going, we would have had to use it around this time."

-.oOOo.-

Fred had definitely been right about one thing: when it came to a Christmas party, the Hogwarts professors never managed to disappoint. The Great Hall had been decorated with at least a dozen frost covered Christmas trees, each one twinkling with a magical light. Thick streamers of holly and mistletoe crisscrossed high above them, and enchanted snow, warm and dry to the touch, fell from the ceiling. Then of course, there was the wonderful food: roast turkeys, honeyed ham, even some traditional Japanese dishes.

Yugi was in the middle of piling food on his plate when he caught a sad sight out of the corner of his eye. It was Malfoy, sitting alone at the Slytherin table, picking at the food on his plate, apparently lost in thought. Yugi bit his lip, debating, before he took his plate in hand and – much to everyone's surprise – went over and set the plate down across from Malfoy. He reached into the pocket of his robe and pulled out a small, wrapped box. He held it out to the younger boy.

"Here," he said. Malfoy stared at the present, thoroughly perplexed, as Yugi continued, "I got this for you, in the event that you'd willingly accept a muggle present from a mudblood."

Malfoy blinked several times, caught off guard. He had never really gotten presents from anyone other than his parents, not to mention something from someone on the complete opposite side of the tracks he stood on.

"Muggle born," he corrected after a long pause, taking the present from Yugi. "Mudblood is just really rude."

Yugi smiled as Draco opened up the present, revealing the Duel Monsters starter deck and two booster packs he had gotten for him. He sat down as the others started to slowly drift over to join them at the Slytherin table.

-.oOOo.-

When the rest of the school returned from Christmas break, they were in for a shock. Draco Malfoy, the one person who always seemed to embody the very heart of Slytherin, was not only hanging out with Harry Potter and his friends, but he was actually being nice. Most people avoided him, skirting away from him in the hallways as if he had some kind of infectious disease. The other students in his house did not even look at him half the time, thinking of him as a traitor.

Draco, for the most part, took everything in stride. His heart had felt as light as the feather he had caught that time before Christmas, a feeling he particularly enjoyed. He ignored what the other students thought of him, as well as the almost constant stream of letters from his father, demanding what was wrong with him.

"If I didn't like my head where it was," he said to Harry the one day during breakfast, having slipped over to the Gryffindor table, "I would write him back and tell him to mind his own business."

Harry started chuckling as the mail arrived. A delivery owl from the Daily Prophet swooped in and dropped a paper in front of Ron, stretching out a claw for payment. He paid the bird five Knuts, and it took off as Draco's large eagle owl flew down, coming to a rest on its master's shoulder. He took the envelope from the bird's beak, and his eyes grew wide at the sight of it.

A Howler.

"Quick!" he exclaimed, giving it back to the eagle owl. "Take it to the forbidden forest or drop in the lake. Just get rid of it!"

Sensing the urgency in its master's voice, the owl grabbed the envelope and took off once again. Draco breathed a sigh of relief as some of the surrounding Gryffindors started chuckling.

"That was too close," he muttered, as Ron suddenly started choking on his drink. Yugi quickly pounded on his back, helping him regain his breath.

"What's wrong, Ron-kun?" Marik asked. Ron slapped the Daily Prophet onto the table, pointing out an article in the center of the page.

INQUIRY AT THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC

Arthur Weasley, Head of the Misuse of Muggle
Artifacts Office, was today fined fifty Galleons
for bewitching a Muggle car.

Mr. Lucius Malfoy, a governor of Hogwarts
School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where the
enchanted car crashed earlier this year, called
today for Mr. Weasley's resignation.

"Weasley has brought the Ministry into
disrepute," Mr. Malfoy told our reporter. "He is
clearly unfit to draw up our laws and his ridiculous
Muggle Protection Act should be scrapped
immediately,"

Mr. Weasley was unavailable for comment,
although his wife told reporters to clear off or
she'd set the family ghoul on them.

Marik pounded his fists on the table, snarling, "Kisama!" He turned to Draco. "Sorry, but your father's gone too far this time."

Draco crossed his arms, his face scrunched up in thought. Suddenly, he ducked below the table, grabbing his bag and tearing out a piece of parchment and his quill. He wrote a quick note down before handing it to Ron.

"Remember," he said, half a smirk on his face, "I never said a word."

Ron read over the note, his eyes widening with each word. He jumped out of his seat, briefly telling Yugi he was going to borrow his owl, before he raced out of the Great Hall like a shot. Draco turned to the others, shrugged, and grabbed a piece of bacon.

-.oOOo.-

Harry, Ron, Yugi, Marik, and Draco were heading toward the dungeons for double Potions, when a shout suddenly came from the staircase above them. The five of them jumped as a flood of water came pouring down on them. Filch came running down the steps soon after, his pants soaked and shaking his fist angrily.

"Damned ghost!" he shouted. "This is the last straw! I'm going straight to Dumbledore!"

He stalked past them, ignoring them entirely. The five of them exchanged glances, before running up the stairs, to find themselves standing just outside Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, near where Mrs. Norris had been attacked what seemed like ages ago. They looked around a moment, making sure no one would spot them, before heading into the bathroom. The room was nearly drowned in water, and a sobbing sound was coming from one of the toilets.

"What's up, Myrtle?" Harry called.

"Who's there?" Myrtle gurgled from the toilet. "Come to throw something at me again?"

"Why would we throw something at you?" Ron asked.

"I don't know," Myrtle said, emerging from her toilet, splashing more water on the already sopping wet floor. "I was just sitting in the U-bend, thinking about death, and someone thinks it's funny to throw a book at me."

"But it's not like it would hurt you," Draco pointed out. "I mean, you're already dead."

That was the wrong thing to say. Myrtle flew up to him, a snarl on her pale face. "Oh, sure!" she shrieked. "Let's throw stuff at Myrtle because she can't feel it! Ten points if you can get it through her stomach!" She punched him in the stomach, the burst of cold that went through him making him jump. "Fifty points if you can get it through her head!"

She punched Draco through the head, sending a shiver through him as she soared up into the air before diving into her toilet once more. The pale boy turned to Harry, a look of utter confusion on his face.

"How do you people put up with this?" he asked, as Yugi went over to a stall on the far side. He picked up a black book, its pages soaked from the outpouring from the toilet. He ran his hands over the damp cover, feeling out a year that dated the book back fifty years, before opening up the book and finding the name "T.M. Riddle" written in smudged ink on the first page. The other boys crowded around him as he flipped through the book, only to find it was blank.

"Weird," Marik said. "Why would someone want to flush away a blank book?"

Yugi flipped the book over, revealing the place of publication. Harry frowned. "Vauxhall Road?" he asked. "He must have been muggle born."

"Well, I don't think we'll need it," Draco declared, before dropping his voice. "Fifty points if you can get it through Myrtle's nose."

Yugi rolled his eyes before stuffing the book into his robe.

-.oOOo.-

The snow finally stopped some time in the middle of February, and the sun poked out of the clouds for the first time since November. Even better than that, was that there had not been any attacks since Justin and Nearly Headless Nick, and that had everyone in high spirits. Lockhart apparently had ideas to increase moral, though, which was painfully obvious when Yugi and Marik entered the Great Hall on the morning of February fourteenth.

They thought they were seeing things. Gigantic pink flowers covered the walls, and worse yet, heart shaped confetti was falling from the clear blue ceiling. The two of them joined Harry, Ron, and Hermione at the Gryffindor table. The boys were busily trying to brush the confetti from their bacon while trying not to be sick at the sight of it all. Marik and Yugi sat down just as Seto and Bakura came into the hall. They looked around in horror before going over to their table.

"What the heck is going on here!" Seto exclaimed.

Harry and Ron pointed to the professor's table, too disgusted to speak. At the table, Lockhart was standing, showing off his robes the same shade of pink as the flowers and smiling jovially as always. The professors around him looked like they were going to be sick. A muscle was twitching in McGonagall's cheek, and Snape looked like he was just shy of killing someone.

"Happy Valentine's Day!" he exclaimed. "And may I thank the forty-six people who sent me Valentine's Day cards so far. I have taken the liberty of arranging a little surprise for you all."

He clapped his hands together, and a group of about a dozen dwarfs marched into the Great Hall and lined up in front of the professor's table. They were not just any dwarfs, however; Lockhart had them wearing golden wings and carrying harps.

"Meet my lovely card carrying cupids!" he exclaimed. "They will be roving the school today, delivering everyone's Valentines!"

Bakura just stared, his lip twitching. "I knew he was gay…" he muttered.

Marik, in the meantime, had focused Hermione with an unreadable look. "Please tell me you weren't one of the forty-six."

Hermione suddenly found her food interesting, and Marik's whole face turned green in response. The other boys sweatdropped at his reaction. Harry shook his head sadly.

"Hey, has anyone seen Draco?" he asked, just as Seamus Finnigan and Neville Longbottom rushed into the Great Hall. They headed toward the seven of them right away, concern clearly displayed on their faces.

"You guys might want to come to the infirmary," Seamus said, the urgency obvious in his voice.

"What happened?" Yugi asked.

"Has there been another attack?" Seto demanded.

Neville shook his head. "Well, no," he answered. "Not that kind of attack anyway."

The seven of them exchanged worried looks, before jumping out of their seats and making their way as quickly as they could to the hospital wing. They rushed in, going past the curtained off beds that contained the petrified bodies of Colin and Justin, and heading to the very back. There, Madam Pomfrey was bent over a bed, wiping a cloth over the face of the person lying there before getting up.

"Five minutes only," she warned them as she left. "He's in bad shape."

The nurse was not kidding either. Draco looked like he had tried to arm wrestle Fluffy, Hagrid's gigantic three-headed dog. Any part of his body that was not covered with the hospital pajamas he was wearing was sporting nasty bruises. One of the sleeves of the pajamas had been carefully rolled up, revealing a thick bandage on that arm. The other arm was in a sling, waiting for the potion that Madam Pomfrey used to fix broken bones to take effect. A gigantic bruise surrounded one eye, while the other was swollen shut. He also had a split lip that had already scabbed over, but despite the obvious pain he was in, he smiled as the group of seven approached.

"I guess it was bound to happen eventually," he said weakly. "I'm just surprised it didn't happen sooner."

"What happened?" Ron asked cautiously. Draco only chuckled slightly.

"What's it look like?" he replied. "Crabbe and Goyle beat the shit out of me. Lucky Longbottom tripped over me on his way to the Great Hall; guess his clumsiness is good for something."

His gaze drifted over each of them before he continued, "Have any of you ever felt lost before? You know, mentally lost? It's not a pleasant feeling. I was supposed to be a pure and true Slytherin; a rich snobby brat that was unnervingly proud of his 'pure blood' heritage. As soon as I graduated, I was to take the tests to see if I was fit to become a Death Eater, like my father – yes, Ron, they still do that.

"But then, I start hearing voices in the walls, Harry and I stumble on that damned cat, I bust my arm because of a fixed Bludger… oh, the best one was waking up that night and seeing Harry strangling my family's house elf." He turned his gaze back to Harry. "I blame you for this, but I don't know whether to thank you or kick you in your bloody ass."

Harry blinked, surprised in the revelation that Dobby was the Malfoy's house elf, but in a way, he had almost expected it. He smiled then, a bit of a lopsided grin.

"What is it that you told me, Yugi?" he asked, looking down to the shorter boy. "'We're true friends, and no matter what, we'll always have that bond'?" He looked back over to Draco. "I think it's safe to say that you've been included in that statement."

Draco closed his good eye, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. "Friends, hunh? That sounds good."

-.oOOo.-

Later that night found Yugi in the library, trying to get in some last minute studying for a test he had the next day, but he just could not concentrate. His mind kept drifting from Draco to the book he had found in Myrtle's bathroom. He sighed, and started to gather up his books so he could head back to the common room, when he caught the sound of barely controlled giggling. Curious, he looked around, spotting a table full of girls some distance away.

Two of them had Gryffindor crests on their robes, one with green hair and the other with auburn. There was a tall girl with raspberry red hair falling over the crests of Slytherin on her robe. The last one had white hair highlighted with blue, the Ravenclaw crest clearly displayed on her robe. Yugi settled back down into his seat, straining to hear what they were saying.

"So, Slink, which do you like?" the girl with the white hair asked.

The girl with green hair scrunched her face up in thought. "Marik."

Yugi blinked in surprise as the other Gryffindor giggled. "Oh, c'mon, sis!" she exclaimed. "He is so bought and paid for!"

"Well, Griff, which one do you like?" Slink asked, leaning toward her sister. The other Gryffindor got a thoughtful look on her face.

"The white haired one," she answered. "You know, that Hufflepuff kid. I think his name's Ryou or something. He's so cute!"

"How can you say that with a straight face?" the Slytherin girl asked. "He's possessed by a tomb robber!"

"But that's what makes him so adorable," Griff protested. "I mean, he's so sweet and innocent normally, and then that spirit takes over and kicks butt!"

Yugi covered his face with a hand. He could not believe he was hearing this.

"So, what about you, Shini?" Griff continued, looking toward the Slytherin girl.

"I can answer that one," the Ravenclaw girl declared. "She's had a crush on that Seto kid since he came to this school."

"It's true," Shini said, leaning back in her chair, resting her feet on the table. "I've seen a picture of him in that muggle magazine, Duelist Monthly or whatever it is. He's a major hotty in that trench coat of his."

The white/blue haired girl shook her head sadly. "Shini, he's not your type," she protested. "Any time I see him in the common room, he's got his nose buried in a book, and he's almost always in here studying his brains out. When was the last time you studied?"

Shini raised an eyebrow slyly. "So, which one do you like, Skyla?"

Skyla suddenly sat up straight, blushing furiously. "Me! I… uh… er… um…" she stuttered. She sighed then, lowering her head. "The little one."

"Yugi Mutou!" the Gryffindor girls exclaimed. Yugi almost fell off his chair in surprise.

Skyla found her hands very interesting as she explained, "Well, yeah. I mean, I know he's like half my height, but he's so cute and adorable. Besides, his spirit is that of a pharaoh. You can't tell me that's not cool."

As she was saying that, Griff looked over her sister's head, spotting him listening in on their conversation. She bit her lip as Skyla finished, a nervous look on her face.

"Hey, Yugi's the one with the big hair that's three different colors, right?" she asked, not taking her eyes off of him.

"Yeah, why?" Skyla asked.

Griff pointed to him, and the other girls turned to look. Skyla blushed bright red, stuttering slightly, before grabbing her books and bolting out of the library. The Gryffindor sisters giggled, waving to him before following her out. Shini followed soon after, winking in his direction.

"Hey, tell that Seto kid I think he's hot, okay?" she asked.

"C'mon, Shini!" Slink shouted, reaching over, grabbing the Slytherin, and pulling her out the door.

Yugi stared at where the girls had been, before shaking his head sadly. Girls these days! He sighed, taking out T.M. Riddle's old diary. Hey, if Riddle had not used it, that did not prevent him from writing in it. Besides, something that bizarre just had to be written down. He dipped his quill into his ink, but he had unfortunately dipped it in too much, for a drop fell off the tip and splashed on the page. Muttering under his breath, he looked down, reaching into his robes for his wand. He was in for a shock when he looked back up, however.

The ink stain was gone.

Yugi blinked, flipping some of the pages, trying to find any trace of the splash of ink. He returned it to the first page and, frowning slightly, let another drop of ink fall onto the page. After a moment, the ink was sucked into the page, and he yelped reflexively. Feeling reckless, he wrote quickly on the page:

My name is Yugi Mutou.

There was a pause, and the words also sunk into the page. Then, to Yugi's surprise, he got a response!

Hello, Yugi Mutou. My name is Tom Riddle. How did you come about my diary?

Those words also disappeared back into the page. Yugi hesitated a moment, before writing his answer, silently wishing his English writing was not so horrible.

Someone tried to flush it down a toilet.

Yugi sat back and waited for Riddle's answer.

Good thing I decided to keep my memories in something more lasting than ink. Though, I'd imagine some people would want to prevent my past from being revealed.

Yugi frowned at that, hoping he was not digging himself his own grave as he asked:

What do you mean?

This diary chronicles events that are quite unspeakable – events that happened at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Yugi paused a moment, trying to remember something. Draco said that the Chamber of Secrets was opened fifty years ago, right?

Are you talking about the Chamber of Secrets?

Tom's response came quickly, as if he were excited about being able to talk about it with someone.

Yes! The Chamber of Secrets was opened when I went to school. The professors told us it was just a myth, but they lied. In my fifth year, the monster was released and attacked several students, killing one. I caught the person who opened the Chamber and he was expelled. However, the headmaster at the time, Professor Dippet, was ashamed that such a thing had happened, and forbade me to tell the truth. A story was given that the girl had died in a freak accident, and they gave me a medal just to shut me up. I knew it was going to happen again, though. After all, the person who let it loose had not been imprisoned.

Yugi bit his lip, worried about the implication. He wrote his answer back quickly.

You're right, it is happening again, right now. There've been two people, a cat, and a ghost that's been petrified, and no one's been able to figure out who is doing it. Who was it the last time?

I can show you if you'd like…

Yugi hesitated, worried. It was bad enough that he was writing to a book, but how was he supposed to be able to "see" whatever it was that Riddle wanted to show him? He glanced nervously around the library, making sure there was not anyone around, before he wrote down his answer.

OK

The pages suddenly started flipping by on their own, coming to a rest on a page marked "June Thirteenth". Yugi lifted the book, still trying to figure out how he was supposed to see Riddle's memory, when the binding started to glow. Yugi, too scared to even yelp, could only stare in horror as the glow from the book expanded, seemingly reaching out and grabbing him with luminous hands.

When the glow finally faded a moment later, the only sign that Yugi had even been there was Riddle's diary resting innocently on the table, with the Millennium Puzzle lying on its side next to it…