Is it real?
Ron sighed for about the tenth time that minute. Sure they had had Harry over at the Burrow with them before, and since Percy – his mouth twisted into a sneer at the thought of his older brother – had left there was an extra room, but he had been dragged over here from where he had been staying at Grimmauld Place just because of this new wizard that Dumbledore had found. Sure the newbie was fifteen, which was completely unheard of in a first year, but still, Ron had better things to do with his time than teach some kid about magic.
He wrinkled his nose at the smell of the cleaner his mother had used to clean Percy's room out with. That was another thing to be angry about. The house was going to stink for days after this and it was all that kid – what his name again – oh, yeah; it was all this Yugi's fault.
He was probably going to ooh and aah over even the least bit of magic that went on and Ron was going to have to put up with it or else face his mother's wrath. A loud crack signaled the boy's arrival, and Ron sighed as he slowly walked down the stairs. He wanted to put off his meeting with the former Muggle for as long as possible.
Admiring whistles from Fred and George sped his footsteps. What was there about a Muggle kid that they would be impressed with? Huh, he'd probably just given them the idea for a joke they could play with the state he'd arrived in.
Ron turned the corner, prepared for a wide-eyed reception and an annoying child admiring the magic that was all around his house – and stopped dead in shock. The child was short. Ron hadn't actually seen him at first glance because his gaze passed right over him; that was how short he was. He looked like he was about ten. But the thing that really caught Ron's attention was his hair. It was standing straight up from his head in a black sunburst sort of thing with a maroon stripe around the edges. And spiking out around his face were bright yellow bangs. Two of them spiked together almost straight out from his head, another three fell in front of his ear, and a single spike hung down to one side of his forehead. It was the kind of hairdo that Ron would have thought not even magic could create. No wonder Fred and George were impressed.
Yugi still had his eyes closed. Apparently he had gotten rather dizzy when the port key had transported him here. That often happened if people weren't ready for it. Ron got another surprise when he finally opened his eyes though. They were enormous! Yugi had huge purple eyes that seemed to cover half his face. It gave him an air of innocence that helped along the impression that he was a little kid.
"Hi," He said cheerfully. "Is this the Burrow? I tried to keep track of what was happening but it all went to fast for me. Do you really do magic? I thought that magic didn't exist anymore. I mean, I know that back in Egypt people used to use shadow magic all the time, my grandfather told me. A lot of his friends are archeologists, and he used to be one too, so he knows all sorts of things like that, but I didn't realize that magic was still around. I thought it had been sealed up three thousand years ago when the shadow realm was sealed up. It's an old legend I read about once. Two people, a pharaoh and a thief were sealed up in these magical items so that the shadow realm would be sealed away and people made safe from its powers. But is it really real?"
"Of course it's real." Ron replied, taking an instant liking to the boy. "How else do you think you got here if not by magic? You'll see a lot of it since you're staying here over the summer. Mom uses magic to do all the chores and stuff since it's a lot harder doing it the other way. But how did you manage to remain undetected all this time? Most of the time Dumbledore finds out everything. How come he didn't know you were a wizard until now?"
Yugi grinned at him. "I don't know. I live in Japan you know, or I did anyway. Maybe he just wasn't looking in the right place. I don't know. Or maybe I didn't have magic before but I do now. It's not really important. What's important is what's happening now, not what happened in the past."
"Right." Ron agreed. "The present's the important part."
"Hey," Fred interrupted. "How did you get your hair that way? Are you sure you didn't know about magic? Did something happen to you to make it go like that?"
"My hair's natural." Yugi replied, sighing. "Everyone asks me that. My grandfather's hair looks exactly the same as mine. It's hereditary. And since you're asking so many questions would you mind telling me just who this 'Dark Lord' I'm supposed to be protected from is?" He looked slightly nervous as he asked the question.
The others looked at each other for a minute before Mrs. Weasly launched into an explanation. "Well it all started when one wizard went bad, about fifty years ago," Yugi relaxed slightly, Ron noticed with interest, before shrugging. Oh well, he was probably just interested in the story. "He decided that he didn't like his name so he called himself," Mrs. Weasley bit her lip. "He called himself Voldemort." She continued finally. "And he began to gather followers with an inclination to evil. But one day he tried to kill a baby, Harry Potter, who's famous now because of it, and failed. His mother had died to save him, so you-know-who couldn't touch him. Everyone thought that he had died, because he vanished but now he's back and gaining power once again. Dumbledore and the others are trying to stop him, but the Ministry only recently started to believe that he's alive so we're having a hard time. And there isn't really anything more to tell. Go upstairs and play with Ron now darling." She patted Yugi absentmindedly on the head and walked off into the next room.
"We don't normally talk about him." Ron explained. "Come on now, I want to show you the Chudley Cannons..."