Yu-Gi-Oh!
Balance

CHAPTER THIRTEEN – THE FLOATING HEAD

Poor Neville was suffering so much for his forgetfulness that it was hard not to feel sorry for him. He was not allowed to know the password to get back into the Gryffindor common room. Instead, he had to wait outside until someone from his house came by and let him in. A few mornings after the incident, he received a howler from his grandmother, which he quickly ducked out with amid howls of laughter from the Slytherin table.

There was some good news in all of the chaos Black's appearance had. Sir Cadogan had been fired as a portrait hole guardian, and the Fat Lady, fully restored, was returned to her post. Although, now she had extra security guarding her, in the form of two trolls lugging around large clubs.

A few mornings after the incident found Harry letting out a loud yawn as he plopped down at the Gryffindor table for breakfast. Yami Yugi was out, munching on a biscuit and sitting next to Yugi, who was busily looking over a note. The latter looked up at him as he sat down, smiling brightly as he motioned toward the note in his hand.

"My friend, Jonouchi-kun, just sent me this," he said, handing Harry the note. "He's going to be graduating this year, and he's really excited about getting out of school."

Harry stared at the note and the sloppy squiggles written all over it, turning it over and over again, trying to make sense of it. He handed it back almost right away, and Yugi looked a bit sheepish as he took it back.

"Gomen," he said. "I keep forgetting you can't read kanji."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "So… is that what it was?" he asked. "It just looked like gibberish to me."

Yugi and Yami Yugi sweatdropped as Marik sat down next to them. "Yeah, well, Jonouchi-kun was never that great as far as writing was concerned."

Marik gave him a look. "Only in writing?"

Yugi's sweatdrop got bigger while his other rolled his eyes. "Okay," the spirit began, popping the last of the biscuit into his mouth, "so it's a miracle Jonouchi-kun is graduating in time with the others. At least he made it, right?"

Marik just stared at him. "Where the heck is that biscuit going?"

Yami Yugi fell over in mock death, getting chuckles or stares out of the surrounding Gryffindors.

Just then, Harry's white barn owl, Hedwig, arrived. She fluttered down onto the table lightly, nipping his fingers slightly to get his attention. He took the envelope from the owl's grasp, before she went off to nibble on some cornflakes.

"What is it?" Marik asked as he finished reading the note.

"Hagrid wants me and Ron to come down for tea," Harry answered.

"Just you and Ron-kun?" Yugi asked. "I wonder what's up."

-.oOOo.-

So it was that around six in the evening, Harry and Ron went off to Hagrid's hut, while Yugi and the others went to the library for a cram session. Somehow, they had managed to pry Hermione from her seat in the common room and got her to come along with them. The session, however, quickly dissolved into a miniature debate of sorts, trying to make sense of everything going on lately.

"I swear, if Ron doesn't let up, I'll pop his head off," Marik muttered, closing his transfiguration book with a half-hearted sigh.

"Yeah," Draco agreed, shoving some parchment back into his bag. "I mean, Crookshanks did get a little out of hand sometimes, but there was no need for him to blow up on Hermione like that."

Hermione rubbed her eyes tiredly, not complaining when Marik reached over and shut her book. "He'll come around eventually," she replied around a yawn. "I hope he does anyway."

Bakura blinked, concerned. "Hermione, are you all right?" he asked. "You look like you're –"

Too late; Marik had to leap toward her a bit to catch her before she fell off the bench, fast asleep. He leaned her against him, smiling slightly as she unconsciously nuzzled her face into his chest. Yugi frowned at her, concerned.

"She's been working herself way too hard lately," he said, before waving to her stack of textbooks. "How can she do all this work? Even Seto would have gone crazy by now."

Yami Bakura suddenly appeared, leaning over her slightly, ignoring the look that Marik was giving him.

"She might be using the Millennium Tauk, you know," he said.

"Why would you think that?" Draco asked, leaning forward slightly.

Yugi frowned mentally at his question. The young blonde had been asking him and Marik many questions about the Items as of late. Anytime he was asked why he wanted to know, however, he would get really quiet, as if even he was not sure why. He silently hoped that it was just curiosity, and that there was not anything wrong with Draco.

The tomb robber backed off, rubbing the tip of his nose in thought. "Well, the Tauk does have power over time…"

"Yeah, but that's just the power to see through time, not interact with it," Marik objected.

"Well, we don't know that for sure."

Everyone jumped as Yami Yugi suddenly appeared, sitting next to his hikari.

"Warning, Yami Yugi, warning!" Draco stressed. The former pharaoh just rolled his eyes, slightly amused.

"As I was saying," Yami Yugi continued, ignoring the glare the younger wizard was giving him, "we don't really know the full extent of the Tauk's powers. It was always in the nature of a soothsayer to keep to themselves unless approached by someone else."

Hermione suddenly sat up, her hair darkening to black as Aishisu took over. She frowned slightly at the former pharaoh, her hands on her hips.

"Could you please not talk about me like I wasn't here?" she asked, slightly annoyed. Yami Bakura smirked as Yami Yugi rubbed the back of his neck.

"Gomen, Aishisu," he apologized.

The tomb robber sniggered. "Looks like you got told, pharaoh."

Yami Yugi let out an annoyed growl before leaping over the table, scattering books and quills, to tackle the tomb robber to the floor. They leapt back to their feet, and a brief scuffle between the two of them followed, during which the spirit of the pharaoh somehow stretched Yami Bakura's face to impossible proportions before the two of them disappeared in a dust cloud. Kicking, punching, and Egyptian swearing followed that made the spectators sweatdrop. Aishisu put a hand over her face and turned away, embarrassed by her pharaoh's antics.

The fight would have gone longer, if the two spirits had not accidentally kicked over a book display. The group made a mad dash out of the library before the librarian noticed them, running all the way toward the Gryffindor common room and not stopping until they collided with Ron and Harry just outside the hallway to the portrait hole.

"Ow…!" Ron complained. "What's the big idea?"

"Blame the tomb robber," Marik said, helping Aishisu to her feet.

"Blame the pharaoh," Yami Bakura replied, glaring daggers while helping his hikari to his feet.

"How'd it go at Hagrid's?" Yugi asked, allowing his other self to pull him up to sit on his shoulder.

Harry got up, brushing himself off. "All right," he answered. "He told us to thank you, Hermione, for all the work you've done for Buckbeak."

"I'm not Hermione," Aishisu replied, rolling her eyes as Harry nearly freaked out.

-.oOOo.-

The following Saturday brought a promise of another trip to Hogsmeade. Harry agreed that he would go as well, but this time he was bringing the invisibility cloak with him, just in case. Ron, Bakura, and Yami Bakura waited for him outside of Honeydukes candy shop. The tomb robber was just starting to get impatient, when he suddenly felt something poke him in his side. He almost leapt up to the roof of the building in surprise.

"By Ra! You're almost as bad as the pharaoh!" Yami Bakura growled. Bakura elbowed him.

"Hush," he hissed. "C'mon, lets go to Zonko's."

The four of them emerged from Zonko's Joke Shop an hour later, their money pouches considerably lighter than when they had entered. Yami Bakura kept chuckling to himself, imagining what he was going to do to the pharaoh now with all his new gags, especially the nose biting teacup.

"So, where to next, Harry?" Bakura asked, giving his other half a concerned look.

"I'm going to go find my brothers," Ron said, waving to them before taking off down the street.

"Where're the others anyway?" Harry asked, whispering so as not to be noticed.

Yami Bakura glanced at the direction he thought the younger boy was in. "Draco's still in the candy shop. Marik and Hermione are in the Three Broomsticks, and pharaoh and his slut are probably fucking each other stupid."

Bakura jumped, looking like he was going to pass out at his other self's words. Harry had a similar look of disbelief – though they could not see – on his face as the tomb robber started chuckling evilly. Suddenly, Yami Bakura slung his arm around his hikari's shoulders and felt around for Harry, before tugging him forward by the lip of the invisibility cloak.

"C'mon, I still haven't figured out how to break into the Shrieking Shack yet," he stated.

The tomb robber propelled them up the dirt trail and the hill that led the most haunted shack in Britain. It was still creepy, even in the daylight.

"Even the Hogwarts ghosts avoid the place," Bakura explained to Harry. "Ron told me his brothers have tried to break in several times. Needless to say, it's not hard to figure out why he wants to break in…"

Hot from the climb up the hill, Harry was about to pull off the invisibility cloak for a moment, when the sound of nearby voices reached their ears. The young wizard stuck close to Bakura and his other self as a moment later Ecillia, Crabbe, and Goyle appeared.

"…should have an owl from Uncle any day now," Ecillia was saying. "He had to go to the hearing to tell them about my arm… about how I couldn't use it for most of the year…"

Crabbe and Goyle snickered.

"I really wish I could hear that great hairy moron trying to defend himself," she continued. "'There's no 'arm in 'im, 'onest!' That hippogriff's as good as dead –"

Ecillia cut herself off, spotting Bakura and his other self, both of whom were giving her a bland look. Her face split into a predatory grin, as she walked up to them slyly.

"What are you doing, Whitey?" she asked.

Bakura and Yami Bakura managed to have the same threatening glare on their faces.

"I heard an interesting rumor," she began, twirling a lock of hair around her finger and ignoring their looks. "I heard poor little Whitey lives all by his lonesome, that his father couldn't care less about what happened to him." If possible, the predatory look on her face seemed to get worse. "I heard he doesn't even know that Whitey shares his body with a common thief."

Yami Bakura growled, and Harry managed to grab a hold of his robe to stop him from leaping on her.

"Leave her to me," Harry whispered, before slinking silently around Ecillia, Crabbe, and Goyle. For a moment, Yami Bakura was confused, wondering what the heck he was going to do. His confusion soon disappeared, however, replaced with a feral grin as a ball of mud suddenly hovered up in the air.

"You're really brave to come up here," Bakura stalled, also seeing the ball of mud. "After all, with all the rumors floating around the place. Rumors of… vile ghosts; you must be brave… or just stupid."

Yami Bakura raised an eyebrow, looking down at his normally quiet hikari, slightly amused. There was no denying it now; he was a bad influence on the young man.

Ecillia scoffed. "I'm not afraid of anything!"

SPLAT!

Ecillia's head jerked forward suddenly as the mud ball hit her; her normally immaculate head of golden brown hair dripping with muck. Bakura and his other self had to hold onto the fence surrounding the Shrieking Shack, beside themselves with laughter at her priceless look of utter confusion. Crabbe and Goyle were shaking with fear; they could not use their muscles against ghosts!

"Very haunted up here, isn't it?" Yami Bakura commented, with the casualness of someone talking about the weather. Harry, in the meantime, was creeping over to a particularly nasty puddle that yielded some foul-smelling green sludge…

SPLAT!

Crabbe and Goyle caught some of it that time. The three of them ran about in terror, before coming to the conclusion that they should get out of there. They ran in Harry's direction, and he stuck his foot out in front of Crabbe, causing a domino effect on the three of them. Unfortunately, the bully's large foot caught the hem of the invisibility cloak, and with a sharp tug, Harry felt the cloth leave his face…

Ecillia looked up, and there was a long moment where she stared at his disembodied head…

"AAAARGH!" she shouted, jumping to her feet and taking off back toward the town at breakneck speed, Crabbe and Goyle not that far behind.

"Harry," Bakura began, running toward his head, "you'd better get back to the school. If you get caught, I'll bail you out."

"Okay," Harry agreed, pulling the cloak back over his head before taking off down the path.

-.oOOo.-

Bakura ran through the halls of Hogwarts at breakneck speed, making his way to Snape's office. As soon as he returned to the school after the trip to the village, he heard right away from Neville that Harry had been taken to the dreaded Potions Master's office. Breathing heavily, he stopped a moment. He was not used to this kind of running; he had never been the athletic type. Suddenly, he straightened, his breath evening out.

"Pathetic hikari," Yami Bakura muttered under his breath, taking off the hallway again at twice the speed Bakura had been going.

He let Bakura take over once more when they reached the door to Snape's office. Bakura snapped the door open almost immediately, to reveal Professors Snape and Lupin, and a surprised Harry on the other side. He motioned toward the bag of pranks and the Marauder's Map on the desk.

"My – yami – gave – Harry – that – stuff," he breathed, still in need of air. "Bought – it… in Zonko's… ages – ago…"

"Well!" Lupin exclaimed, slapping his hands together cheerfully. "I'll take this back, shall I?" he asked, folding up the map and taking the bag of joke items. "Harry, Bakura, come with me. I need a word about my vampire essay."

Lupin escorted the two of them out, amidst a deadly glare from Snape. He walked them down the hall a ways, before he stopped and handed Harry back his bag of pranks.

"Professor, I –"

"No explanations, Harry," Lupin interrupted. "I don't know how you got a hold of this map. And, yes, I know it's a map. I am, however, astounded that you didn't hand it in. Especially after what happened with poor Neville. I can't let you have it back."

Harry stared for a moment. He expected he would not get it back, but he had not counted on the professor being familiar with the map.

"You… do you know who made it?" he finally managed to ask.

"We've met," Lupin replied shortly. "Please, Harry, don't expect me to cover for you again. I can't make you take Black seriously, but after seeing what you do when you get near a dementor, I think you would care for your own life more than that. Your parents made the ultimate sacrifice to keep you alive, and you're repaying them in a very poor manner."

Lupin left, leaving Harry feeling like he was the biggest idiot on the face of the earth. Just then, Ron came up to them from behind a statue, a guilty look on his face.

"Sorry, Harry," Ron said. "I heard everything. It's all my fault; I shouldn't've convinced you to come."

"It's all right, Ron," Harry replied.

They started to make their way slowly toward the Gryffindor tower. Bakura parted company halfway there, leaving them walking alone in silence. When the two of them finally reached the hallway with the portrait hole, however, Hermione and Marik approached them.

"Come to gloat?" Ron asked bitterly.

Marik opened his mouth to snap at him, but Hermione cut him off.

"No," she replied. "We've got bad news. Hagrid lost his case. Buckbeak is going to be executed."