Niffler's downfall

Tongue lolling out of his mouth, huge doggy grin on his face, joyous barking filling the air, Sirius was the very image of canine happiness. After yet another fight with Lupin, said teacher had dragged him to Bakura's door and ordered the seemingly younger boy to take him on a walk. Bakura had laughingly agreed – after pinning Lupin to the wall and informing him that he didn't take orders from anyone, of course – and so here they were in the middle of the Forbidden Forest, and Bakura was watching as Sirius chased the furry black creatures that Sirius had called Nifflers around the dark clearing.

To his great surprise this excursion was actually proving to be interesting. The Forbidden Forest reminded him of his monster's home. Instead of the large airy castles that the so-called 'lighter' monsters favored, his lived in a huge forest much like this one with many small houses, each tailored to the monster who owned it. Normally such an arrangement would have been impossible, as it was the strength of will belonging to a monster that shaped the shadow realm, but that was where Bakura came in. It was his will that make the forest, and each monster had only to create their own houses in the pre-formed setting. Bakura spent much of his time there.

The antics of the dog that Sirius had become were also amusing. Watching what had once been a perfectly sane and reasonable man running around chasing small furry animals was vastly entertaining. Just as Bakura thought this Sirius made a particularly stupid leap and ended up halfway down one of the burrows.

Groaning, he stood up and walked over to pull Sirius out. It would, of course, have been simple for Sirius to pull his head out if he had been in his natural form, but Bakura really didn't want to see him naked, as he would be if he transformed. So he walked over to help the man-turned-dog with a minimum of complaining.

As soon as Sirius was free he was off again. Looking at him Bakura wondered why anyone liked dogs. They were annoying creatures; always wanting their master's attention, requiring that someone keep an eye on them at all times to make sure that they didn't get into mischief. The only way to avoid that was to spend an inordinate amount of time and energy on training them, and Bakura was not prepared to do that. He would have spent the energy on something useful, or perhaps on creating something beautiful, not on training some stupid animal that he still didn't understand mortal's attraction to.

One great leap brought the dog to his quarry, and with a quick snap of his jaws he caught one in his mouth. Dog instincts overriding those of his human self, Sirius brought the furry creature over to where Bakura was sitting and placed it at his feet. To his surprise it didn't try to run away, and when Bakura bent to get a closer look it shivered, trembling all over, but didn't move. A quick inspection showed the reason for this unexpected behavior. Its leg was broken.

Bakura growled, and gestured at Sirius. A thread of shadow magic wrapped around his neck where a collar would have been on an ordinary dog, a thin wisp connecting it to Bakura's wrist as he picked up the wounded animal and headed back towards the castle. Whining, the dog tugged back towards the Niffler burrow, but the magic held him, and he resigned himself to following Bakura.

The human of the two, meanwhile, was very annoyed. It had been a fine game for the dog while it lasted, but he should have had the sense not to take it any further. Now something would have to be done about the little Niffler that was now nestled trustingly in his arms, calmed by a hint of the same magic he had used to tame horses long ago. That was a good trick. It had given Bakura the chance to escape as he let loose the others in the building and kept only the best for his own use. He'd always loved animals; although humans were mostly worthless scum, the animals at least had their own code of honor that they kept to as the humans that thought themselves so above them betrayed their own.

Reaching the castle finally he sent Sirius off to his room to change forms and think about what he had done and headed purposefully to his own. It didn't take long to splint the animal's leg, although keeping the wrappings tight was difficult, so soon enough only one question remained. What was he supposed to do with it? Blinking down at the cute little thing an idea came to him...

-

"Here." he said calmly, not caring that he had just interrupted the Herbology class. "I found this in the woods and it needs someone to take care of it." Without pausing to let anyone think about what he was doing he passed the Niffler to Ryou, settling it carefully in the smaller boy's arms.

"Sirius tells me it's called a Niffler." He added, seeing Ryou's eyes fixed on his, "And I thought you might like a pet." Shrugging he turned on his heel and left. He had done what he could. Now the animal's fate was up to Ryou.

yaminakathy: So say something else. Glad you're enjoying this.

simpleinsanity: Myrtle's going to annoy rather than haunt him. Yes there will be pairings but there isn't any shonen-ai or yaoi. Sorry, no Bakura scaring Myrtle allowed. She's one of our main characters and we can't have her traumatized. And yeah, I like talking to you this way.

X-mas Gurl: Well my mother's fine. She normally lets me do whatever I want. But my dad's annoying sometimes, and he dissaproves of fanfiction because it's 'escaping into another world.' Phh, yeah right. And my mother is my teacher! I love her, in case you haven't noticed.

Mistress of Fire: I think it's the best too, actually. It's probably because with two mids working on it it's much harder to run out of ideas.

Chaotic Demon: to you too.