Alright, so Malik/Hermione wasn't a very popular couple... *sweat drop* I personally thought they looked very cute together... Most people either didn't like it, didn't care, or didn't like romance period, so Hermione is stuck with a boyfriend who can't pronounce her name.

Krum: Hey!

I thought about it for a while and decided that the story would flow better (and be easier to write) without romance, so sorry to all those people who wanted it! If you're lucky I'll accidentally make an innocent conversation look like flirting, but don't count on it.

*gives out ice cream to the reviewers* YAY! I almost have fifty reviews and it's only the fifth chapter! ^_________________________________^ And, yes, I realize I make a lot of typos. I swear I read over all the chapters AT LEAST five times, but, y'know, I'm a typo-ish person. You see my papers for school. They'll have things like "I LOVED this story! You're a very good writer!!" and "Wow! Very descriptive and interesting!" written on them, but then they'll have a big "minus 10" or something written under them for typos... -_-;; I'd go back and fix them, but I'm writing this on a laptop and it's a HUGE pain to transfer them to the family computer to post... I appreciate you pointing them out though! Don't be afraid to ask questions about what I meant to say if you spend hours staring at it and can't make heads or tales of it...

Oh, and as a heads up, I'm going on vacation on Friday and I have no idea when I'm coming back. My parents know and my little brother knows and they've probably told me at least six dozen times, but I don't pay any attention and am too lazy to ask. I think it's over two weeks, though...

And now, on with the fic!

Not Your Average Muggles

Chapter 5 - Muggle Magic

Malik Ishtar's tour of Domino wasn't exactly what Harry had expected. He had been prepared to visit museums, historical sites, interesting and crowded stores, a park or two, and maybe a zoo or something of the sorts. Malik, however, completely ignored these things.

He started of by taking them to the seaport and showing them which warehouses were locked and unlocked, how to tell if they were being used or not, and how to sneak into the ones that were. He then took them around the city itself, although he didn't use the usual streets. He took them through a maze of alleys, pointing out with ones were often used by gangs and which ones were used for nothing but to merely conceal trashcans and dumpsters.

He did take them to several interesting stores like Harry had thought he would in the beginning. But these stores were not crowded with tourists or sold things Harry would even consider buying. One even had a display of shrunken heads (Harry doubted they were as fake as Malik said they were), and if it wasn't for Hermione's previous encounter with bunches of shrunken heads on a shelf she claimed she, "would have been sick and ruined that pretty carpet."

"Where did you see shrunken heads before?" Malik asked curiously.

"Oh," Hermione answered vaguely, "a friend of mine's house. His mother was a very cruel person."

Harry left the store slightly depressed.

When Malik declared his tour was officially over and started to lead them back to their hotel Harry wasn't sure whether to be thankful that he had gotten to see the city from a gangster's point of view or call the police on some of those stores (he was positive about a third of their merchandise was illegal).

Arriving at the hotel, Malik bade them good-bye and headed toward the elevator while they made their way down the hall.

They entered the boy's room to find Fred and George crouching over something.

"Whatcha doing?" Ron inquired.

George looked up at him and grinned. "Muggle magic."

"What?" Ron asked, amazed. "Muggles have magic?"

"I know!" Fred answered. "We were surprised to."

"We couldn't find any wizarding shops," George explained, "so we went to see what a muggle joke shop is like."

"And there it was," said Fred.

"There what was?" Harry wanted to know.

"This." George waved a book around. "A Hundred and One Magic Tricks to Amaze Your Friends."

Ron's mouth fell open. "But... surely... it can't really be magic, could it?"

The twins snorted.

"Of course not," Hermione informed him. "It's all fake. But it looks like real magic. My cousin had a similar book at the reunion I went to... 'Look, Hermy!' He'd say. 'I can do magic too!'"

Ron raised an eyebrow. "So a runty giant isn't the only one who calls you 'Hermy', eh?" The girl glared at him.

The twins demonstrated a few of the simpler tricks they had found in the book. "It's pretty complicated," they told them. "Most of these take a lot of practice. Plus, some of them call for someone in your audience to be in on the trick two or specially marked paper or way more planning in advance than any kid would like."

"You know," Harry said thoughtfully. "I should get one of these" -he fingered the magic book- "for my cousin. Maybe I could get my aunt and uncle mortally afraid of him too."

They all laughed at that.

~*~

"ISIS!" Malik called as he kicked off his shoes at the entrance of their hotel room. Unlike Harry, Hermione, and the Weasley's rooms, the Ishtars had a suite. Malik was sleeping on the pullout sofa in the first room and Isis had a bed in the slightly larger room in the back of the suite.

"What?" The head of pretty young Egyptian woman appeared behind the door separating the two rooms.

"We're meeting Yugi and the gang at some restaurant for dinner, right?"

"Correct."

"So I don't have to endure your cooking tonight?"

She threw a pillow at him.

~*~

Harry, Hermione, and the Weasleys enjoyed muggle TV dinners (Harry and Hermione laughed their heads off as they watched Mr. Weasley try to work the microwave) that night. Mr. Weasley was fascinated by the magic book and spent more time flipping through it than eating his mashed potatoes. Fred and George discussed orders for their joke shop and Harry and Ron sadly discussed Quidditch strategies for Gryffindor they might never get to use with Hermione flipping through a book, wishing she had gotten her letter instructing her to buy new ones. It was a bit depressing.

Meanwhile, Malik was having a much more cheerful dinner with his sister, Yugi, Ryou, Jounouchi, Anzu, and Honda. They found a small place to eat that claimed to serve authentic Egyptian food. But, as Malik pointed out, the waitresses' accents were horribly fake and even Isis's cooking was better.

He got a good hard kick for that.

Still, it was fun and they all chatted and laughed. The food lay forgotten on their plates.

"So," said Jounouchi, "I was walking to the Kame Game Shop to go meet Yugi and this fat tourist guy comes up and asks me how to get to Tokyo Tower."

Anzu almost choked on the water she had just sipped. "He asked you how to get to TOKYO TOWER?"

"Yup. He did."

"So what did you tell him?" Yugi asked.

"Well, first I just kinda stared at him like he was insane. He asked me again and I said, 'Tokyo. Where else?' and do you know what he said?"

Ryou smiled slightly. "What did he say?"

The blond leaned forward slightly. "He said, 'Oh. I thought that was just a name.'" He grinned as the rest laughed.

"Speaking of tourist," said Malik as he poked at his food with a fork, "I ran into a couple at the hotel."

Isis gave him a look, "And you polite to them, right?"

"Of course. They were pretty nice; I gave them a tour."

Honda raised an eyebrow. "And where did you take them?"

Malik leaned back in his chair, "Oh, just a few of my old haunts..."

Huge sweat drops rolled down the heads on the listeners. They all knew what kind of places Malik used to hang out at. "And what did they think?" Ryou asked.

"Well, at one point the girl claimed she would have thrown up if not for 'past experiences with shrunken heads.'"

"Past experiences with shrunken heads?" Yugi repeated. "Just who were these people?"

Malik shrugged. "I dunno. The girl looked normal enough and so did the taller of the two boys, except for his flaming red hair... But the other kid..."He trailed off.

"Did he look that funny?" Anzu asked.

"Well, no. But his hair stuck up almost as bad as yours, Yugi." Yugi sweat dropped. "Though I suspect it was probably just because he forgot to brush it... And he had this scar on his forehead... like lightning..."

Ryou felt his darker half stir at the back of his mind.

//Yami?//

//What?//

//Is any thing wrong?//

//No.// Bakura snapped.

//Okay. Just wondering. You seem disturbed.//

//It's nothing!//

Ryou shook his head and cut off the mental link. He was probably just misreading his dark's feelings. That was probably surprise he felt... Yes, that was most likely it. That description matched the one of the boys they had given directions to...

He turned his attention back to the conversation.

But Ryou had only been half-right about his yami's feelings. Bakura had felt surprise, but he was also a bit disturbed as well. The boys the had give direction to had given him a strange feeling, not unlike the one he had gotten from that dumpster they were looking for.

But Malik hadn't felt anything. He would have said so if he had. But maybe he just wasn't looking for it. Bakura had only felt it because he, without realizing it at the time, suspected that it might be there.

He mentally shook his. He was probably just going insane. He had been the only one to feel that dumpster; he was positive the pharaoh or maybe even Isis or Malik would have sensed it... that aurora... so much like the shadow realm's, but purer. Whiter. More innocent.

'No,' He told himself. 'I'm just imagining it. I was close to going nuts from being in that ring for so long I made up an excuse to possess hikari's body.' But, still... it made him wonder...

Just who were those people?

Okay, I realize this is a bit short, but, like I said, I'm going on vacation tomorrow and I figured that you'd like a short chapter rather than wait a couple weeks for a longer one... It WOULD be longer, but, believe it or not, I have a social life. =P