Chapter 9

At breakfast Marik and Bakura went off again saying that they wanted to be alone and talk. "Their loss," Yami said, "I can't see why they'd rather be alone than here with us anyway."

"I'm sure they have things to talk about that they'd rather not share with us." Hermione replied. "There are some things people don't like to talk about in company."

Yami nodded absently staring at her with his chin in his hands. "Yeah, I guess you're right. But still, they should've at least invited me."

"Rather full of yourself aren't you mate," George remarked, sliding in next to him.

"I am not full of myself." Yami retorted sharply. "It's just that the three of us share a past and I thought they would've included me."

"Seems like you were wrong." Ron smirked. Admittedly his smirk was a pale imitation of the ones that the yamis could conjure up but he still tried.

"Yeah I guess so. It doesn't matter though." Yami shrugged casually. "As I said it's their loss. If they don't want to be here they don't have to be. I, on the other hand, am going to enjoy myself." He smiled and dug into his food. "Things here might not be what I'm used to but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate them."

"What are you used to then?" Ron asked snidely.

Yami looked up, surprised. "Actually I'm used to either burned ramen or Bakura's cooking. I'm not trying to dis him but the stuff he cooks is not the kind of stuff I like."

"Really?" Harry was interested. "So what kind of stuff does he cook?"

"Not stuff you'd enjoy." Yami replied. "It's normally either half-raw meat or stuff that's so spicy it scorches the roof off your mouth. They seem to like it though."

"They?" Hermione asked, "Who's they?"

"Huh, oh, Isis, Marik, and Bakura. Shadi likes it too I think. I mean, he's never actually said so but he never said that it was bad either and coming from him that's a compliment."

"Since when is 'no comment' a compliment?" Ron said belligerently.

"Since you factor Shadi into your equation. When you've hung around with my crowd for a while nothing will surprise you. Speaking of groups what's it like growing up in a wizard family?"

Ron, caught off guard by the question, looked flattered. "It's not all that great really. We've got gnomes in the garden and then there's the ghoul in the attic. The ghoul bangs pipes around and kicks up a fuss every time it thinks that things are getting too quiet. Are you really interested in this?" He asked sharply.

"Of course; it sounds fascinating. Please go on."

"Oh, sure." Ron was shocked by the sudden interest in his family. "Anyway dad works for the Ministry of Magic, you do know what that is right?" he added, seeing the blank look on Yami's face.

"Not really, I know it's some kind of wizard government or something but other than that I'm clueless I'm afraid." Yami admitted.

"Well it's not a government or anything like that really. It was set up to monitor wizard's behavior because they were too open about their power. Muggles were noticing them. That's what started all the witch hunts you know? Muggles saw wizards doing stuff and started thinking that it was evil and all that rot. They very rarely actually accused a real witch or wizard though and even when they did the wizard never got hurt. There's a spell that makes you fire resistant. So some of these people were actually getting themselves caught on purpose because they like being in the fire. Apparently it tickles. So the Ministry of Magic was set up to regulate these wizards and restrict the use of magic to that done where the muggles won't notice it.

"Dad works in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts section. He's just about the only one there so he's pretty overworked. Wizards charm their things sometimes and it can create problems if the muggles see or get a hold of them. The most common problem that he finds is shrinking door keys though. That's when a wizard will enchant a key so that it shrinks to nothing whenever the muggle tries to put it in the door. It doesn't get noticed much luckily. Muggles normally just think they've lost it or something.

"I don't envy you growing up as a muggle and everything. I mean you'd have to do the dishes and stuff. Luckily mother does that with magic so we don't have to. We do have to do things like de-gnoming the garden but that's not so bad when you consider what we might have had to do. I'd hate to have to do chores and stuff all the time."

Luckily for the continued sanity of the other wizards (which category does not include Yami) the bell rang signaling that they had to go to classes. "Can we talk more later?" Yami asked Ron.

"Sure," Ron said. "Anytime." His earlier animosity seemed to be forgotten in the thrill of having someone actually interested in his life.

"So," Marik asked Bakura casually, "We pretty much hashed out my life last night so I figure it's your turn. Why are you the way you are?"

Bakura made a face. "To put it as simply as possible Ryou isn't the first holder of the Millenium Ring. He's just the best one so far." Bakura caught a strand of Ryou's hair and twisted it around his finger while his hikari stared longingly at the forgotten breakfast.

"So... what does that mean?" Marik asked. "And why would Ryou be the best?"

"Some of the others were quite nasty," Bakura said reflectively. "To me, I mean. Ryou isn't and never has been." He noticed that Ryou's eyes were fixed on his breakfast tray and just handed the whole thing to his hikari. "Actually the girls were the best."

"Girls," Marik repeated incredulously. "Did you just say that you have had female hikaris?"

Bakura sighed. "Yes, some of my hikaris have been female. I don't mind being a girl really. Although it can present a problem it's not actually too bad. The girls presented less of a problem on the whole. What was really bad was when the ring would get handed to older – and usually evil – men, or babies. And yes, I did say babies. The problem is that the hikari can actually be more powerful if they establish their power from the beginning. And, I really don't want to talk about it."

Marik nodded sympathetically, and moved over to him. "I understand. But if you did have other hikaris you must have had a good time with some of them at least."

"Yeah," Bakura's eyes lit up. "I remember some of those. Like Teddy."

"Wait just a second. Teddy? As in a teddy bear?"

"Teddy as in Theodore, Marik. It was the most annoying nickname I could think of. Anyway this was in England. Surprisingly enough, most of the time I was awake my ring was not in Egypt. I think it had something to do with the pharaoh's binding spell. It wasn't so effective outside of the country where it was cast.

"Teddy was fun. He grew up as a poor boy in a destitute family where none of them had any money and they were under the threat of being evicted from their home. So I came out and stole money to help them. Ended up teaching Teddy and his sister how to be expert thieves. It was fun. I learned a lot there. Never knew there were so many inexpert thieves around or that people could be so easily distracted. Oh damnit, there's the bell. Come on." He and Marik possessed their respective hikaris again and left.

They joined up with the others before going to Transfiguration where they learned vanishing spells. The yamis seemed quite puzzled by these.

"But professor, why would you want to make a cup vanish? Wouldn't it be much more productive to keep it with you so that you could use it later?"

But McGonagall's patience had run out. "The point of this exercise is to learn how to vanish such a simple thing as a cup so that you will be ready later to progress to more complex living things. Now if you would kindly do the spell."

Bakura glared at his cup, which shattered. "Reparo," Hermione said calmly. "What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything." Bakura was still glaring at the cup. Yami had already successfully vanished his cup whereas Marik had banished his to the shadow realm. "I think the stupid thing's afraid of me."

"Don't be silly, cups can't be scared. I think you're just trying to get out of doing the exercise. Go on now. Do it."

"Fine," Bakura muttered and cast the spell. The cup vanished. So did his desk. And the chair he had been sitting in. And Seamus's chair.

"Who did that?" McGonagall asked.

"Me," Bakura said ruefully, "I didn't mean to though."

McGonagall brought the things back with a flick of her wand. Seamus tried to sit in his chair again but fell right through it.

"Wow," Harry said. "What happened?"

"His spell was too strong." McGonagall said with some asperity. "I was only able to bring the things half back." And then to Bakura, "Bring those things fully back this instant."

"I don't know how." Bakura said. "You haven't shown us yet."

"Like this," McGonagall showed him and he put the place to rights again.

"You should have just banished it like I did." Marik told Bakura afterwards. "It's much easier and you wouldn't have run the risk of having other things disappear as well."

Bakura sighed, "You're right of course. I just wanted to try this their way. At least I'm not too bad at it. I managed to do it right the second time." He looked so down that Marik moved over and slung a casual arm over his shoulder.

"Come on cheer up. Did you see that Longbottom boy? He only managed to vanish the handle of his."

"Thanks Marik," Bakura perked up. "At least I'm not hopeless. I just wish I were as good at these things as you are."

"Come over here." Yami called them. "Ron's telling us about what it's like growing up as a wizard."

"What are we letting ourselves in for?" Marik said to Bakura in an undertone as he noted the conspicuous lack of anyone else in the vicinity. Bakura just shook his head in bewilderment.

"Where was I?" Ron asked.

"You were just saying how you'd hate to have to do chores all the time." Yami replied, eyes twinkling. Marik and Bakura laughed as they walked over. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. (If you don't get this then you're not very bright. The yami's don't work; they make their hikaris do the work for them.)

"Then there's stuff like Quidditch, which muggles don't know anything about. I love Quidditch and my favorite team is the Chudley Cannons. They're the best. There's also stuff like exploding snap where the cards actually explode after a certain amount of time. Damn." They had just got to the Charms classroom.

"We'll talk more later." Yami said soothingly as they went into the room.

Charms was interesting. They were learning how to make their cups grow legs. The only problem with this was that the yamis couldn't really visualize a cup with legs, so Yami ended up with a dragon with a hollowed-out back, Marik had a wolf with a cup perched on its shoulders and Bakura had a cup that was held up by a bunch of people who staggered around with the cup balanced on their backs.

Professor Flitwick was uncertain as to whether or not they had actually done what they should have. Yes, the cups moved around, but they didn't look right. So he showed them how it was normally done and gave them each another cup to practice with. This time they did all right. Their cups ended up looking practically normal.

The only difference was that the designs on their cups changed to whatever they were thinking of. Bakura's was reminiscent of the shadow realm, Marik's was gold-plated with relief designs in the shape of the ring and the rod it, and Yami's was, well, none of their classmates got to see what his one was because he hid it immediately. Marik and Bakura teased him about it, but not seriously, and not actually saying what it was that they were teasing him about. They packed the cups in their bags as quickly as they could and hurried off to Care of Magical Creatures.

This time they were doing unicorns again. The others had done them before but to the yamis they were new. They made sure to stay as far away from the unicorns as possible and Hagrid didn't try to pressure them.

"Why did you want to stay away from the unicorns?" Harry asked afterwards at lunch.

"Why not?" Bakura asked him.

Yami elbowed Bakura and replied, "Because unicorns are supposed to shy away from those who are not pure of heart and we've seen too many things to be pure anymore..."