Anaya's Creator: (Busy listening to Wicked soundtrack)

Kaiba: (rips off her headphones) Hello! Introduce the new chapter, you Broadway obsessed geek! I'm not introducing it for you again.

Anaya's Creator: (yells) I AM NOT A GEEK! (hits him on the head) Though I am obsessed with Broadway music. Here are the reviews:

Setoglomper:

I am sooo glad you're back! (hugs)

Adele S:

Hey, I know you hate them, but they are so tempting to do. The dark side of authorism calls me!

Arrathir:

OMG! I cannot believe I did that! (Hits forehead) I'll have to fix it.

Anaya's Creator: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh, Inu-Yasha, or Harry Potter.

Chapter 16: The Bloody Curse

Professor Snape made his way over to Sakura who was still panicking.

"Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!" Sakura said over and over.

"Yasha, come back to your senses," he grabbed her robes, which were covered in some of the wolf's blood, and shook her in an attempt to snap her out of it. She was scared absolutely witless. "Yasha!" Slap! His hand hit the half of her face that wasn't cut.

Sakura shook her head for a moment and blinked. It took her a few moments for her to even register that he was there. "Oh, Sensei."

"Let's get you to the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey will clean you up."

"What about the..."

Snape turned his attention to the dead wolf, pulled out his wand, and levitated it into the lake. "There, the squid and merpeople can enjoy it. Now come."

With the sensation of blood running down her face and hand, Sakura picked herself up from the ground and followed the professor.

When they stepped into the entrance hall, Tonks, one of the Aurors that was patrolling the school, came over to them. "Bloody heavens! Sakura, what's happened to you?"

"We were just training, Tonks. I'm escorting her to the hospital wing so she can get cleaned up," Snape explained.

"Alright then get going, but Sakura, take this." Tonks took her black cloak off her shoulders. "And make sure your face is covered; we don't want to cause a panic."

"Thanks," Sloppily, Sakura threw the cloak over her shoulders with her uninjured hand and put the hood over her head, hiding her face, then pulled the cloak tightly around her so no one could see the rips in it.

"Sensei, what was that spell you used out there?" Sakura asked as they resumed their walk.

"Sectumsempra; it is a powerful spell, Cherry Blossom. The chest of your victim bursts open and much of the blood spills from the body. It was very popular with the Death Eaters once."

"Why am I not surprised," Sakura mumbled.

"Never use it; it's powerful dark magic almost as bad as the Unforgivable Curses."

"Oh, believe me, I won't... ever."

Halfway there, however, Sakura smelled something peculiar not coming from her or Professor Snape. She took a deep breath. Harry? she thought. Why are you following us?

"I have a patient for you, Madam Pomfrey," Snape said as they reached the hospital wing.

Sakura lifted the hood of the cloak a bit so the nurse could see what had happened.

"Merlin's beard, get inside and let me have a look at those cuts." Madam Pomfrey stepped aside and let the demon girl into the infirmary.

"Her hand was bitten badly as well; you might want to look at that first." And with that Snape left.

"Take off the cloak," Madam Pomfrey instructed, shutting the door. "So what happened?"

"A wolf from the forest attacked me," Sakura explained as she took off her torn robe and unbuttoned her shirt, which, thankfully, wasn't torn, but had bloodstains on it from the animal's claws stabbing her chest.

"Hmm, you'll be needing a new robe then," the nurse murmured as she examined it. After putting it in her office, she spread a warm puke colored paste on the teen's face, shoulder, and collarbone. A prickling sensation irritated Sakura's skin and she knew the cuts were healing. "I'll give you the one that I was going to give you a week from now on the full moon, but you'll have to remember to not wear it when you transform."

"I'll try," Sakura said.

"No, you will," Madame Pomfrey corrected. "One new uniform a month, Miss Yasha, no more." She lifted the girl's bleeding hand, murmured something, and after a bit of stinging, Sakura felt her hand repair itself. "Go wash off," the nurse instructed. "And get that blood out of your shirt," She handed the girl a bottle of Mrs. Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover and left her alone.

Sakura wandered to the end of the hospital wing where there was a line of small bathroom stalls, applied the Magical Mess Remover to the stains on her shirt, and rinsed it off with cold water (1). After drying it, she peeled off the crust Madam Pomfrey's paste had formed into and in the mirror, staring back at her, she saw her face as good as new, not even a miniscule scratch was left from the attack. Ever since she had come into the Wizarding world, she never had gotten any new scars. All her wounds, from a clumsy fall, a fight, or otherwise, were healed almost instantly by magic using methods unheard of back in Japan. The only marks of an injury she had were on her bad knee.

As she contemplated this, her gaze traveled casually to her watch. Her eyes widened. Holy shit, was that the time? She was going to be late for Potions if she didn't hurry up! Sakura threw on her shirt, buttoned it up, not noticing that she screwed a few of them up, and ran out to the beds where Madam Pomfrey had laid out the robe. Then with a quick shout of thanks, she left.

After gathering her things from her dormitory, Sakura raced down the hallways as fast as her legs could carry her. "I'm gonna make it," she murmured to herself as her hasty footsteps echoed on the stone walls of the dungeons, but unfortunately as she stopped to catch her breath, just three doors away from her class room, the bell rang. "Damn it!" she cursed, pounding her fist into the stone beside her.

Professor Snape looked up from his desk when she finally entered the classroom. "And where were you, Miss Yasha?" he asked testily.

"I was on my way," she replied. She had gotten used to the fact that even though Professor Snape taught her outside of Potions, he would in no way lighten his bias towards non-Slytherins in class. Sighing, she took her seat and saw that there were only three others in the class with her, and all of them were boys; to be more specific: Harry, Ernie MacMillan, and Draco Malfloy.

"I hope you students realize that just because there are so few of us today, this will not be a day to relax." Professor Snape jabbed his wand at the board and instructions immediately appeared upon it. "Have this solution finished by the end of the class and no later."

Immediately, the tiny class got out their ingredients and began working. The minutes passed slowly by as Sakura heard her watch tick away. More than once she felt a pair of eyes on her, but when she lifted her head from powdering her spine of lionfish, or whatever she happened to be doing at that moment, to find out who they belonged to everyone would be focused on their work. Finally the bell rang, just as she finished her potion, she took a vial of it up to Snape's desk then emptied her cauldron and left with Harry.

"Harry, Sakura, Yugi, I passed!" Hermione announced as she and Britts, Ryou, Seto climbed through the portrait hole late that afternoon with Ron and Lara bringing up the rear, not looking too pleased.

"Well done," Harry said. He, Yugi, and Sakura had been sitting in front of the common room fireplace working on homework until their friends had arrived and were glad to have an interruption.

"How did the rest of you do?" Yugi asked.

"Passed," Britts answered.

"Me too," Ryou declared.

Sakura turned to Kaiba with a raised eyebrow.

"Passed," he admitted.

"HA!" Sakura exclaimed. She leapt up from her chair to go over to him, but as she swung her legs over the arm, her toes hit the arm and she fell onto the floor on her stomach. Everyone immediately began laughing, except for Britts.

"Sakura! Are you all right?" she cried, hastening over to her friend.

Sakura rolled over onto her back, laughing hysterically. "I'm... fine..." she managed to say between fits of giggling. "I told you... you were... going to pass...that test..." she said, pointing to Seto who was kneeling beside her as she began to calm down. "How did you and Ron do, Lara?"

"Failed," Ron confessed miserably, sinking into the chair Sakura had just fallen out of. "I left half a bloody eyebrow behind."

"You're in good company," Lara told him. "I failed by the skin of my teeth, literally. That examiner found one of my wisdom teeth left behind after I'd apparated. I was going to have Madam Pomfrey remove it anyway."

"Bummer," Yugi said.

As a result most of dinner was spent abusing the examiner with a round of cussing, kindly provided by Ron and Lara, which had improved their moods considerably by the time the group was heading back to the Tower.

"I have something to tell you guys," Harry said, gesturing to an empty classroom. "Snape was sneaking around the school with someone this afternoon while you all were gone," he said when they all had piled inside.

"Did you see who it was?" Hermione asked. "I mean it could have just been one of the teachers."

"Why would a teacher go around with a cloak on and their hood up in the school?" Harry inquired.

"Do you think it was a Death Eater or someone?" Ron asked.

"Don't be thick, Ron," Sakura grumbled as she rolled her eyes, immediately seeing where this was going. "Harry, that was me under the cloak," she interrupted. "Tonks lent it to me."

"Why?" Harry asked.

"Because a wolf from the forest attacked me, and my face and robes were all bloody."

"A wolf from the forest attacked you? When?" Seto demanded.

"It came out of the forest just after you left. I couldn't reach my wand to fight it. Lucky for me, Professor Snape was passing by and he killed it. The wolf had scratched my face and my robes were torn and covered with the wolf's blood from Snape's curse. As we walked into the entrance hall, we met Tonks and she lent me her cloak so some dumb sissy wouldn't see my injuries and start panicking."

They all gave her weird looks.

"Well, what would you do if you didn't know me?" Sakura asked. "You see a demon girl walking through the halls with blood dripping from scratches her face wearing torn robes that also had blood on them. What would you think?"

"I'd think you'd have killed somebody," Ron said, after a few moments of silence.

"Exactly," Sakura told him.

"You put things so bluntly," Yugi commented.

"And you notice this now?" Sakura retorted.

Late that night, a dark cloaked figure was sprinting out to the gates of Hogwarts. He slipped outside them and into Hogsmeade. Passing the numerous shops and bars, he made his way to the outskirts, walking deep into the woods beyond the town. In the shadow of the trees, the quarter moon's silvery light just slipping through the canopy of trees stood a big, gangling man with matted grey hair and whiskers. His black Death Eater robes were too tight for his body and he spoke in a hoarse voice similar to a bark. "Severus, to what do I owe this late pleasure?" he asked.

The cloaked figure dropped his hood. "One of your wolves attacked a student today, Greyback," Snape said. "At the school, when anyone could have been watching."

"Lucius Malfloy wants that girl dead, Severus," the man answered. "He's so concerned about his son not following through with the plan, I thought I'd just have one of my wolves from the pack in the forest kill her off."

"No one will lay a finger on Yasha until I have stolen the Jewel. Don't you realize your precious creature could have destroyed it, or worse absorbed its powers?"

"You'd better get that blasted thing then!" Greyback snarled. "The Dark Lord is getting impatient, Severus, he wants that Jewel and the Millennium Items. And once he deciphers those stupid tablets..."

"I know what will happen then, Fenrir," Snape interrupted, calling the other man by his first name. "I'm working on it, but we can't be rash or Dumbledore will get suspicious."

"Whatever you say, Severus," Greyback growled. "Is that it?"

"Yes," Snape put his hood back on and left Greyback's chilling presence.

The next day, Katie Bell had finally returned from St. Mungo's, claiming that she knew nothing about what had happened to her in Hogsmeade, with the exception that she had entered the ladies room at Three Broomsticks.

With Ron and Katie fit for the match the whole Gryffindor House was in high spirits for the next match. This one was against Ravenclaw. If Gryffindor won by over three hundred points, they would claim the Championship; if they lost by less they would be second to Ravenclaw. If they lost by one hundred points they would be third behind Hufflepuff and if, heaven forbid, they lost by more than one hundred they would be in fourth place, in the first rock bottom defeat in two centuries. It would be worse than being stuck between a rock and a hard place, take your pick.

The run-up to the Championship match had the usual features: members of the rival Houses trying to intimidate the other, jeering chants about specific players echoing throughout the corridors, team members strutting around the school basking in the excess attention or getting sick to their stomachs from the overdose of pre-match anxiety. Huge after-match parties were in the planning and excitement buzzed from every student in the school. It was nearly impossible not to be pumped up for this match.

Out of habit, on his way to dinner Harry made his usual bypass on the seventh floor to the Room of Requirement. Not seeing Malfloy anywhere after triple checking the seventh floor on his map, he assumed Draco was in the Room of Requirement yet again, but that's when his eyes spotted Malfloy's tiny labeled dot in the boys' bathroom right below him, accompanied by Moaning Myrtle, the ghost of a girl who had died in the girls' bathroom down in the dungeons fifty years ago.

Harry made his way to the boy's bathroom and he put his ear against it. He couldn't hear anything, what he wouldn't give for a few of Fred and George's Extendable Ears now. Silently, he pushed open the door.

The platinum blonde had had his head bowed and his back to the door. He was clutching the sides of the porcelain sink so hard his knuckles were white. His breath came in short, desperate gasps.

Harry remembered something he and Ron had discovered a while ago when they had seen Moaning Myrtle in this very bathroom.

Flashback

"I thought he liked me," she had told him and Ron. "Maybe if you two left, he'd come back again... We had lots in common... I'm sure he felt it..."

"When you say you had lots in common," Ron said, sounding rather amused now, "d'you mean he lives in the S-bend too?"

"No!" Myrtle exclaimed defiantly, her voice echoing deafeningly on the tile walls of the bathroom. "I mean he's sensitive, people bully him too, and he's not afraid to show his feelings and cry!"

"There's been a boy in here crying?" Harry asked. "A young boy?"

"Never you mind!" Myrtle scolded, her eyes fixed on Ron, who was trying not to laugh. "I promised I wouldn't tell a soul, and I'd take his secret to the—

"Not the grave, surely," Ron interrupted, unable to help himself. "The sewers possibly…"

Outraged, Myrtle let out a wail of anguish and dived back into the toilet, splashing water over the sides of it.

End Flashback

People pick on him too… Was Draco Malfloy the boy she had been talking about? Harry wondered.

"Don't," Myrtle cooed from behind one of then cubicles. "Please don't… Tell me what's wrong… I can help…"

"No one can help," Draco answered, his whole body trembling. "I can't do it… it isn't working… and unless I do it soon… He'll kill me…" Streams of tears were running down his pale cheeks into the sink. He gulped then looked in the cracked mirror and saw Harry staring at him.

Anguish replaced by rage, Malfloy wheeled around, drawing out his wand as Harry brought out his own. Malfloy's hex missed and smashed the lamp that was beside him.

"No! No! Stop!" Myrtle shrieked as Harry launched a soundless curse which Malfloy blocked. "NO! STOP IT!"

"Cruci—"

"SECTUMSEMPRA!" Harry bellowed before Malfloy could finish his curse.

Blood exploded from Malfloy's face and chest and he swayed back on to the floor, his wand falling from his hand.

"Oh God—" Harry gasped. "I—I didn't—"

But his objections were in vain as Myrtle cried: "MURDER! MURDER IN THE BATHROOM! MURDER!"
The door banged against the wall behind Harry and Professor Snape burst inside. He rushed over to Malfloy and knelt over him, his wand over the deep wounds the curse had made. He then wiped the residue from Malfloy's face and repeated the spell. The wounds began healing.

Still present, Harry stared at his hands, horrified at what he had done. Myrtle still wailed and sobbed above him. Snape said the spell a third time and lifted Malfloy to a sitting position. "You need to go to the hospital wing," he murmured. "There may be some scarring, but if you take a dittany immediately we might be able to avoid it. Stay here, Potter." Snape helped Malfloy off the ground and escorted him to the hospital wing.

After that, Snape rushed to the library where he found Sakura with Seto. "Yasha! Hospital wing! Now!" he demanded.

"Why?"

"Now!"

Without question, Sakura leapt from her seat, gathered her things, and followed him, Seto accompanying her.

When they got to the hospital wing, three of them saw Malfloy on a bed.

"Oh God," Sakura murmured.

"Your blood, Yasha," Snape told her. "He needs your blood,"

-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

(1) This actually works, cold water and soap gets out almost any bloodstain.

Anaya's Creator: End Chapter!

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