[Kitty: Chapter Eight...

Lina: Here's where the plot starts to thicken...

Kitty: And Yami Yugi comes out for the first time at Hogwarts... although here, he's known as Atem...

Atem: Why, that's elementary. We can't call me Yami when there are going to be two other Yamis in this story and one mentioned but never met...

Yugi: (sweatdrop) I guess that's true...

Ryou & Bakura: R&R!]

Chapter Eight:

 Midnight Duel?

"You're joking!" Ron yelled.

It was dinnertime, and Harry and Diana had just told the others (with the exception of Yugi, who was still in the hospital wing) about what happened.

"Seeker? Chaser?" Ron said, "But first years NEVER...you two must be the youngest Quidditch players in about-"

"A century," finished Diana, biting into a dinner roll, "Wood told us already."

"When d'you start training?" Ryou asked.

Seto, Marik and he had come over after hearing about what happened, and Ryou had remembered to give his Yami a stern lecture after getting the Millennium Eye back from Diana.

"Next week," said Harry, "Only don't tell anyone, it's supposed to be kept a secret."

The Weasley twins, Fred and George, now came into the hall, spotted Harry and Diana, and hurried over.

"Congrats, you two," George said in a low voice, "Wood just told us."

"I tell you, we're really going to win that Quidditch Cup this year," said Fred, "Gryffindor hasn't won since Charlie left, but this year's team is going to be absolutely brilliant. We know Dare's good, and you must be good too, Harry, Wood was almost skipping when he told us."

"Anyway, we've got to go, Lee Jordan reckons he found a new passage out of the school."

"Bet it's that one behind the statue of Gregory the Smarmy that we found our first week. See you."

And with that, the twins left.

They had hardly disappeared before Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle showed up.

"Having a last meal, you two?" asked Malfoy, smirking, "When are you going home to act like Muggles for eternity?"

"You're a lot braver now that you're back on the ground with your little cronies, Malfoy," said Diana coolly, "Oh, and by the way, we're not leaving. We weren't expelled or suspended."

Malfoy gritted his teeth.

"I could take you on anytime, Randall, and you know it! Tonight, if you want. Wizard's duel. Wands only..."

Malfoy shot Diana a significant as well as guarded look, as he added, "...no contact."

"I'm her second, Malfoy," said Marik, swerving around to look at him.

Malfoy smirked. "I wouldn't be surprised. Really, if you wanted to be in Gryffindor, Ishtar, all you'd have to do is go insane and you could get transferred."

Marik glared. "Who's yours?"

Malfoy looked at Crabbe and Goyle, sizing them up.

"Crabbe," he decided, "Midnight alright? We'll meet you in the trophy room, that's always unlocked."

After Malfoy left, Harry said, "What's a wizard duel? And what d'you mean you're her second, Marik?"

"A second's there to take over if you die," said Marik simply, "They have it in Egypt too, my family did it once and a while..."

Catching the look on Harry's face, Diana added, "Don't worry, Harry, the most Malfoy will be able to do is send sparks at me, and I don't know enough spells to do any real damage either. If all else fails, I can throw my wand away and punch him in the nose. Or if I'm really lucky, he'll make me angry, and then the fun can start-"

"Excuse me."

They looked up at Hermione Granger.

"I couldn't help but hear what you and Malfoy said-"

"Bet you could if you weren't so nosy," muttered Marik sourly.

"-and you really mustn't go wandering around the school at night, think of all the points you'll lose for Gryffindor if you're caught, and you're bound to be. It's really very selfish of you."

"And it's really none of your business, Granger," said Diana, not caring if she was being the least bit rude.

"Sayonara," Marik said in a tone similar to Diana's, "That means 'Goodbye.'"

(----)

Diana looked at her clock.

/Half past eleven,/ she thought, /I better get going and meet Marik./

Diana pulled her starred-and-mooned white bathrobe on and walked over to the portrait hole.

"I can't believe you're going to do this, Diana."

A lamp flickered on to reveal Hermione Granger, wearing a pink bathrobe and a frown.

"You!" said Diana furiously, "Go back to bed!"

"I almost told the eldest Weasley brother," Hermione snapped, "Percy...he's a prefect, he'd put a stop to this."

Diana couldn't believe anyone could be so interfering. She glared at her, before pushing the portrait open and climbed through the hole.

Hermione, though, wasn't going to give up that easily. She followed Diana out the portrait hole, hissing at her like an angry goose.

"Don't you care about Gryffindor, do you only care about yourself? I don't want Slytherin to win the House Cup, even your friend is in there, and you'll lose all those points Professor McGonagall gave me for knowing all about Switching Spells."

"D'you really think I give a damn about anything you did in McGonagall's class?" Diana retorted, "Go away!"

"Alright, Diana, but I warned you, you just remember what I said when you're on the train tomorrow, you're so-"

But what Diana was, she didn't find out. Hermione had turned to the Fat Lady's portrait, instead finding an empty canvas. The Fat Lady had taken a nighttime visit and Hermione was locked out of Gryffindor Tower.

"Now what am I going to do?!" she asked shrilly.

"That's your problem," Diana snapped, walking down the hall.

She had barely reached the end of the corridor when Hermione caught up with her.

"I'm coming with you."

"You are not," Diana said, snapping her head toward Hermione, a scowl on her face.

"D'you really think I'm going to wait out here for Filch to find me? If he finds both of us, I'll tell the truth, and you can back me up."

"You've got some nerve, you filthy b-"

Diana stopped at a sudden sound.

It sounded like a heavy breathing.

Diana squinted in the dark, trying to see what was there.

Suddenly, something glittered through the darkness.

Diana stumbled backward, thinking it was Mrs. Norris's red eyes.

But it wasn't.........it was a golden glow.

"Hello?" said a familiar voice, "Is anyone there?"

"Yugi?" Diana breathed, "Lumos!"

A small light poked out of her wand, and there he was.

"Dare-kun!" he said between gasps of breath, "I'm so glad I found you! I was walking back from the hospital wing when I took a wrong turn and Peeves locked the classroom I was in, I couldn't get out... Finally, Nearly Headless Nick came along and told me a secret passage to get out of the classroom and back into the hallway to get to bed-"

"Unfortunately, you can't get into bed," Diana said, "The Fat Lady's gone off somewhere, I don't know where, and Marik and I have got a Wizard Duel with Malfoy to go to."

Diana blinked as she looked at Yugi...or whom she thought was Yugi. The person LOOKED like Yugi, but he was definitely a few inches taller than Yugi usually was, he had more golden streaks through his tricolored hair, and Yugi's innocent violet eyes were replaced with intense scarlet eyes.

"I'm coming too," said Atem in a deeper tone than his host.

Then he noticed Hermione. "Dare-kun, what's this bakayrou doing here?"

Hermione didn't know Japanese, but she could tell Atem (or who she thought was Yugi) said something rude, and she would've replied if Diana hadn't answered his question.

"She was trying to get me back into bed," Diana explained, trying not to make a reference to Yugi's change, "But for right now, I think we should get going, especially if Granger's gonna slow us down."

Hermione glared at Diana, and was about to reply, but the past Pharaoh hissed at her to be quiet.

They walked around corridors striped with bars of moonlight from the windows, and slowly sped up the staircase up to the third floor, and to the trophy room.

Marik was already there.

"I left early just in case," he whispered, "I didn't want Malfoy to cheat... y'know, like hiding from behind a trophy and starting before you're ready."

His eyes flashed at Atem, who shrugged his shoulder briefly before taking out Yugi's wand.

"What are you doing here, Pharaoh-san?" he hissed at him under his breath.

"Yugi-kun didn't really trust his memory in spells..." Atem said sheepishly, "He thought I could teach that Malfoy baka a lesson...without wands, if you know what I mean..."

Marik smirked. "That should be amusing..."

Diana stepped in front of the group, taking out her wand in case Malfoy decided to jump out and start immediately.

The minutes crept by. Nothing.

"He's late," Atem muttered, "Maybe he backed out?"

"Maybe," whispered Marik, frowning, "Or maybe he's just not wanting to come out y-"

Then a noise from the other room made them all jump. Diana raised her wand as a voice spoke, and it wasn't Malfoy.

"Sniff around, my sweet, they might be lurking in a corner..."

It was Filch speaking to Mrs. Norris.

Horror-struck, Diana looked around for another way out. She gestured to the others to follow her as quickly as they could without making a noise. Yugi's robes had barely whipped around the corner as Filch entered the trophy room.

They could hear his heavy breathing, coming closer and closer to them.........

Careful not to be left behind, Atem sped up. He tripped, and crashed into Hermione, who crashed into Marik, who crashed into a suit of armor. The noise it made could have woken the entire castle.

"RUN!" yelled Diana, and the four of them sprinted out of the gallery, not looking to see if Filch was following them.

They swung around a doorpost and galloped down a corridor, Diana in the lead, but not having a clear picture of where she was trying to go.

They ripped through a tapestry, and found themselves in a secret passageway. They hurtled along it, and found themselves near where their Charms classroom was, which they knew was miles from the trophy room.

"I-I think we lost him," Diana panted, leaning against the wall, wiping her forehead.

Atem collapsed into one of the chairs, and leaned his head on the desk while he caught his breath.

/Nice one, Yami-kun,/ Yugi growled through their mind link, /If I'd known you were such a klutz, I would've switched with you.../

-Sorry,- Atem thought impatiently, -Even a Pharaoh isn't perfect, ya know, stop snapping at me!-

"I...told...you," Hermione gasped, clutching at the stitch in her chest, "I told you!"

"We've got to get back to our dormitories," said Marik, "A.S.A.P."

"Malfoy tricked you," Hermione said to Diana, "You realize that, don't you? He was never going to meet you. Filch knew someone was going to be in the trophy room, Malfoy must have tipped him off."

Diana knew Hermione was probably right, but Diana was too proud to tell her that.

"Let's go," she muttered.

It wasn't going to be easy. They hadn't gone more than a couple steps when they saw Peeves shooting around the doorway of the classroom.

He squealed in delight when he saw them.

"Shut up, Peeves, you'll get us thrown out," Diana whispered, trying to sound pleasant.

Peeves snickered.

"Wandering out at midnight, ickle firsties? Tut, tut, tut. Naughty, naughty, you'll get caught-y."

"Not if you don't give us away, Peeves," said Diana, now sounding worried.

"Should tell Filch, I should," Peeves said in a saintly voice, but his eyes were glittering with malice, "It's for your own good, you know."

"Get out of the way!" snapped Marik, taking a swipe at him.

Immediately, they knew they had gone too far.

"STUDENTS OUT OF BED!" Peeves bellowed, "STUDENTS OUT OF BED DOWN THE CHARMS CORRIDOR!"

Ducking under Peeves, they ran for their lives, right to the end of the corridor where they slammed into a door. It was locked.

"This is it!" Atem finally lost his cool, "We're done for! If only I had the Millennium Ring, or-"

/C'mon, Yami, this is no time to go to pieces-/ Yugi yelled at him through their mind link.

Filch's footsteps were becoming louder.

"Move over!" Diana muttered, pulling Atem away from the door.

She pulled out her wand, pointed it at the lock, and muttered, "Alohomora!"

The lock clicked, and the door swung open. They ran in, and slammed the door behind them.

"Where'd you learn that?" asked Hermione, sounding impressed.

"Standard Book of Spells-" Diana started.

"Chapter Seven," the two girls finished together.

"Weird," Diana said, sounding surprised that she and Hermione had found something they had in common, "Ron said I was a freak for reading that."

"Shut up!" growled Marik, his ear to the door.

There was a pause, then.........

"He thinks this door is locked," Marik whispered, "I think we'll be okay now...get OFF!"

Atem had been tugging Marik's sleeve for the last minute, his eyes wide and staring at something behind the two girls.

"WHAT?" Marik demanded.

He turned to look at what the past Pharaoh was looking at, and he saw, quite clearly, what. Diana and Hermione turned around, and they saw it too.

They weren't in a room, like they had thought they were in, but a corridor. The forbidden corridor on the third floor. And now they saw why it was forbidden.

They were looking into the eyes of a monstrous dog, a dog that filled the whole space from ceiling to floor. It had three heads, with three pairs of red eyes, three noses, twitching and quivering in their direction, and three drooling mouths with saliva hanging like ropes from yellowish fangs. And it was growling.

Marik was frozen in fear, so Atem shoved him out of the way, and grabbed the doorknob. Anyone who was sensible would choose Filch out of him and being a giant dog's dinner.

They ran out and Atem slammed the door shut and locked it. They ran, almost flew, back along the corridor. Filch must have hurried off to look for them somewhere else, since he wasn't there.

The four sighed in relief, and ran off again. They didn't stop running until they reached the Fat Lady's portrait on the seventh floor.

"Where have you all been?" asked the Fat Lady, looking at their flushed, sweaty faces.

"N-never...mind that," Yugi panted as he took his Yami's place, "Pig snout, pig snout."

The portrait opened up. Yugi, Hermione and Diana scrambled into the common room, and Marik ran back toward the Slytherin dormitory.

A short pause, then.........

"What d'you think they're doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in a school?" asked Yugi, "I think Dumbledore-sama has plenty of problems besides having to lock up a crazy inu."

Hermione had gotten both her breath and her temper back.

"You don't use your eyes, d'you?" she snapped, "Didn't you see what it was standing on?"

"The floor?" Diana guessed sarcastically, "I wasn't looking at its feet, I was too busy with its heads. Or maybe you didn't notice that there were three?"

"No, not the floor," snapped Hermione, "It was standing on a trapdoor. It's obviously guarding something."

She stood, glaring at the three.

"I hope you're pleased with yourselves. We could have all been killed, or worse, expelled. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to bed."

Diana glared after her as she started up the stairs.

"No, we don't mind!" Diana retorted as the girls' dormitory door closed shut.

"You'd think we begged her to come with us..." muttered Yugi, lying back.

But even if Diana was annoyed with Hermione, she did admit that Hermione had given her something to think about.

/She said the dog was guarding something... Hmm...Dumbledore warned us about the third floor. "And our caretaker, Mr. Filch, has asked me to remind you that the third floor corridor on the right hand side is out of bounds to anyone who does not wish to die a most painful death." And that article had said that the Gringotts break-in was "widely believed to be the work of Dark witches or wizards unknown," and that the goblins insisted that "nothing had been taken." Wait a sec... what if the thing on the third floor that's being guarded and the thing from Gringotts that was almost stolen...are the same thing?/

[Kitty: Chapter Eight completed!

Atem: (glares at Kitty) I do not appreciate your description of me as a klutz.

Kitty: (sweatdrop) I never said THAT.

Atem: But you definitely made me out like that!

Yugi: (sweatdrop) C'mon, Yami, you know as well as I do that you're clumsy...

Bakura: (snickers) I guess that the next time the so-called King of Games goes to a photo shoot, he'd trip on the red carpet...

Atem: (glares) Shut up, Tomb Robber, at least I GO to photo shoots...

Bakura: Pft. I'd rather send people to the Shadow Realm.

Kitty: (sweatdrop) Of course you would. That's why Lina tries to keep you here and out of trouble.

Yugi: (types on Kitty's computer) We got new reviews, yay!

Kitty: (looks over Yugi's shoulder) Lemme see!

Yugi: (frowns) The first is from Nice. All she writes is a sad face.

Kitty: (frowns too) If Nice is reading this, I'd like to politely ask what on earth she meant by a sad face, and if she was meaning to tell me she didn't enjoy the story, she should have actually written some words, or maybe even a sentence.

Yugi: Luckily, the next one's from Kani. (smiles as he reads it) "Aw, poor Yugi, I love my Yugi. Yay! Quidditch is cool, lol. Anyways, me likey the story, tis fun to read. Buahaha..."

Kitty: (grins) Yah, I do feel sorry for my Yugikins, but he'll be able to have more fun soon...

Yugi: Good. I don't really enjoy falling off a bucking broomstick.

Lina: What's the next one say?

Yugi: (looks at the screen) It's from Avemtilla. She says, "Ahem, I would just like to say how wonderful this fic is and I will highly recommend this story to others. It is a fabulous piece of work. And it's probable one of the few Yu-Gi-Oh/Harry Potter crossovers I can find that are actually good! Keep updating. I'm obsessed with Severus (I think I'm in love, as cliché as that sounds), but you can make him a Ba(beep)ard if you must. He really needs to get a grip. Anyway, I like the following people from YGO: Yugi, Yami, Ryou, Bakura, Marik, Marik's alter ego, and Seto. Give them all a kiss from me!"

Diana: I'll say! Snape's a right jackass!

Kitty: Diana, shush. (ahem) I thank you most humanely for your compliments, and I'll give them kisses for you. (kisses Yugi on the lips, and then goes over to Atem)

Atem: Hey! Whaddya doing?

Kitty: Stay still, Atem. I'm fulfilling a reviewer's request, that's all. (pecks him on the cheek)

Atem: (sigh) Ayelet's better...

Lina: I'll do Bakura and Ryou for ya. (pecks Ryou's cheek and kisses Bakura on the lips)

Bakura: (grins mischievously and tries to kiss Lina back)

Lina: This isn't a snog fest, love. We'll have to do that another time.

Bakura: (looks disappointed) Aw...

Jesse: (appears out of nowhere, kisses Seto quickly, and leaves)

Seto: (grins) Love you too, Jesse!

Marik: Who's gonna kiss me?

Kara: (appears out of nowhere and kisses him)

Marik: (grins widely)

Kitty: (blinks) KARA, GO BACK TO YOUR STORY!

Kara: (pouts) No fair... (leaves)

Kitty: (looks in the direction of her bed) Well...I don't really think anyone's gonna kiss Yami Marik, so we'll leave him be for now.

Yugi: (frowns) Next review is from an anonymous person, who says, "You DO know that you are copying the book AND the movie. You're just putting different names than in the movie and the book."

Kitty: (as politely as she possibly can) With all due respect, you could probably see from the summary that this story is following most of the stuff in the books. It does contain script from both the movie and the book, but I'm not just putting new NAMES in there, I'm putting new SCENES and CHARACTERS. If this type of story does not appeal to you, then I would suggest you read something else.

Yugi: Ouch. Kitty, that is cold.

Kitty: (sighs) I only do what I can with criticism like this.

Yugi: At least it's SGCred next. She says, "I love the chapter. Once again I feel you have outdone yourself in creativity. You are so talented, and have a gift for writing. Keep it up, it's a good quality to possess. Such a shame that Yugi has to be picked on by that prick Malfoy. I expect he'll get what's coming to him from the others, you will deal with him for hurting your Yugi. You may borrow my flamethrower, or chainsaw whatever you prefer. Looking forward to upcoming meetings and chapters when everything unravels. What a sight that will be. Anyway , from what I said before, should I keep it a surprise or do wish to find out before I start work on it? Look out for my update sometime today."

Kitty: (smiles) I swear, you are the kindest person on the face of the earth. Yah, Malfoy picked on Yugi...but you're right, Yugi'll get back at him.

Yugi: (grins evilly) Oh, how I'd LOVE to watch that little ferret squirm in the Shadow Realm...

Marik, Atem, Seto, Ryou, Lina and Bakura: (gawks at Yugi)

Yugi: WHAT?

Kitty: The flamethrower sounds fun... (grins evilly) But the chainsaw sounds fun too...I'VE GOT IT! I'LL USE BOTH! (grabs them)

Malfoy: EEP! (jumps under Kitty's bed)

Yugi: (sigh) No fair, I couldn't send him to the Shadow Realm...

Kitty: (kisses his cheek) Don't worry, Yugi, I'll let you do it in a few minutes.

Yugi: (grins)

Kitty: OOH! (whines) I wanna know the surprise! I wanna know the surprise!

Yugi: CHILL, Kitty...

Kitty: (hugs Yugi from behind) Okay... (grins) But you owe me.

Yugi: In bed or in money?

Kitty: Hmm... both.

Yugi: (grins) Deal.

Lina: (sweatdrop) R&R!]