Yuugiou!
Episode Nine and Three Quarters

Just one thing to note of in this chapter. At one point it says Malik says something in Japanese (during the first class with Snape). I fully intened to replace what's there with actual Japanese, but I just wanted to get this chapter up as soon as I finished.

Please enjoy.

CHAPTER FOUR – MAGIC CLASSES

Ryou tossed and turned in his bed, before finally bolting from it, heading down into the Hufflepuff common room and barging into the bathroom. Bakura came out a few minutes later, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Ra almighty, yadonushi, did you have to go ape shit with the fucking creampuffs…" he muttered, looking around. There was no way he would be able to get any real food up here in a common room full of conked out brats. He was going to have to try and figure out where the kitchens were… a thought that brought an almost sinister grin to the tomb robber's face.

Just like the good ole' days… he thought to himself as he headed out.

-.oOOo.-

In the Ravenclaw common room, there was the sound of someone tapping his fingers against metal, before stabbing a button with one of said fingers… followed by a low growl as the object that button was connected to refused to turn on. Kaiba glared down at his laptop like it had betrayed him, silently demanding the computer to turn on (as if it would do so). It had suddenly winked out on the train, sometime just before it had arrived at the school, and had not been working since. What the heck was he supposed to do if his computer would not work?

…well, there is always sleep… he thought to himself.

Kaiba frowned bitterly, stabbing the power button again.

-.oOOo.-

Yuugi tossed and turned on his giant four-poster bed, huggling his Black Magician plushie that his grandfather had given him before the trip, before finally beating his head against the pillow in defeat. He was far too excited about everything going on, and had a feeling that something as mind numbing as sleep would not be coming to him tonight.

He sat up after a moment, wondering if he should attempt using his game system; he had spotted Kaiba trying to wrestle his laptop into working during dinner, so he was a little edgy about it. Just as he was about to reach through the curtains to grab it, however, he heard a soft voice from the bed next to his.

"Oy, Yuugi-kun, you awake?"

Yuugi poked his head out from the curtains, to see Malik doing the same across the way.

"Couldn't sleep either, hunh?" he asked.

Malik shook his head. "Nuh-uh. It's too damn cold," he said. "I mean, not as cold as the desert is at night, but pretty damn close."

"I'm sure you'll get used to it," Yuugi replied, pushing the curtains out of his way and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "We're going to be here for awhile, after all."

"True," Malik admitted. "I just hop—"

"Is someone else awake?"

The boys looked about, spotting another boy awake, sitting by one of the windows in the room with an owl perched on the sill next to him. Getting up and walking over proved it to be Harry Potter, the boy everyone had made such a fuss over during the Sorting Ceremony. Yuugi plopped down on the ground before him while Malik sat on the bed, introducing themselves. Harry introduced himself in turn, but when the two foreign boys did not recognize his name, he seemed surprised.

"You're the first people I've met in this 'world' that don't recognize me," he admitted.

"Why?" Malik asked. "You famous?"

Harry pushed his bangs back, revealing the lightning shaped scar on his forehead more clearly. "When I was a babe, my family was attacked by a dark wizard called Voldemort. He killed my parents… but couldn't kill me. He disappeared and I ended up with this scar. At least… that's what I've been told. No one knows for sure what happened."

Yuugi's eyes widened. "Wow…"

"I sympathize," Malik said, a bit of a frown on his face. "I can kinda relate to being known for something you don't really understand. People probably expect a lot outta 'ya, hunh?"

"I've gathered as much," Harry admitted.

"Don't let it bother you so much," Yuugi said brightly. "Out of everything that's happened to me, I've learned it's a person's choices that determine what kind of person they're going to be, along with the friends they have to support them along the way."

Malik stuck his pinky finger in his ear, pretending he did not hear that. "Yuugi, you were hanging around Anzu before you left, weren't you?"

Yuugi razed him playfully, before grinning up at Harry. "So let's be friends! And let's promise to help each other out if we ever need it."

Harry smiled, finding Yuugi's cheerfulness a bit contagious. The three of them shook hands, sealing the promise.

-.oOOo.-

Yuugi and Malik found out just how famous Harry was the next day. They had set out from the common room to go to breakfast – joined by Ron Weasley, whom Harry had met on the train to the school – the four of them could hear astonished whispers trailing behind them. Everything about Harry's scar to his hair seemed to be the subject of discussion amongst the students, and Malik joked that before the end of the first day, Harry was going to have a fan club like Yuugi's back in Japan.

"Did you have to bring that up…?" Yuugi groaned over his cornflakes, trying to hide his face.

"What?" Ron asked, blinking, a strip of bacon half hanging out of his mouth. "You're famous too?"

Harry frowned at him. "Now that I think about it, I think I've seen your face somewhere before…"

Yuugi flushed as Malik grinned. "Don't mind me…" the former murmured. "I'm just another new wizard here… I don't want more people walking around with Styrofoam replicas of my hair on their heads…"

That got Ron and Harry to clam up about the subject, though they glanced around, trying to picture their classmates with Yuugi-hair.

Trying to find their classes after breakfast was an adventure in and of itself. There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts, and each and every one of them seemed to have a mind of their own. Some led to a different location on some days, others had an vanishing step that you had to remember to jump over… as Ron found out when they attempted to go to History of Magic.

"HELP!" he yelped, clinging onto the step above for dear life. Malik and Harry whirled around, helping him back onto solid ground. Ron flopped back, letting out a sigh of relief.

"Oy… the way we're going, I'm glad Mr. Binns is a ghost," he said.

Yuugi blinked, paling slightly. "Wh…what! Our History of Magic teacher is a… is a…"

"Easy, Yuugi," Malik said, holding up his hands. "I'm sure he doesn't look like those ghosts."

Harry and Ron exchanged confused looks, out of the loop.

Indeed, Mr. Binns did not look at all like the ghosts Yuugi had been thinking of – those being the ghosts that haunted (and to his knowledge, still haunted) the ruins of Kuru Eruna. In fact, he did not look much different than when he had been alive, aside from the fact that he was wispy, white, and sort of washed out. From what Ron told them after class, he did not act much different either. He droned on and on about names and dates and their importance, and they were expected to jot down quick notes as he spoke. Most people ended up falling asleep, though Yuugi made a valiant effort not to. Malik also tried to keep up, but with the girl that had been staring at him the night before – Hermione, he recalled – scribbling down notes like it was going out of style next to him, it was a bit hard to not be distracted.

After the bell rang, it was back to trying to navigate the corridors of the school. Fortunately, the other ghosts of the school were nice enough to assist lost students… some of them anyway. The ghost of Gryffindor House, Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, was nice enough to point them to the quickest way to Professor Flitwick's Charms class. He was a ghost that even Yuugi could like… once he got over the fact that a stray breeze knocked his head over, leaving it hanging by a flap of skin.

"Now you know why he's called 'Nearly Headless Nick'," Ron said, staying a bit away from Yuugi in case he got sick.

Worst than that, though, was the school poltergeist, Peeves. It must have been known by the next day that Yuugi was queasy around the ghosts, because the poltergeist popped up behind him as they navigated the halls, grabbing his nose and screeching, "GOT YOUR CONK!"

Malik, Ron, and Harry ended up having to drag Yuugi's unconscious body out to the greenhouses after that, and ended up late to Herbology; the Japanese boy was a lot heavier than he looked. After Professor Sprout roused him, they started learning how to take care of the various plants and fungi that dotted the houses, and what they were used for when properly harvested.

When it came to Professor McGonagall's class, Yuugi had been right in saying that he had to keep any Egyptian spirits in check in her presence. While she had the appearance of a kindly old woman, she was clearly strict, and gave each of them a talking-to the moment everyone was gathered for her class.

"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and potentially dangerous magic at Hogwarts," she said sternly. "Anyone that messes around in this class will leave and will not come back."

She then proceeded to change her desk into a pig and back again, though it was clear that they would not be doing anything like that anytime soon. After some complicated note taking, they were given a match and told to turn it into a needle. By the end of the class, only Hermione (who was proving herself to be more of a know-it-all with every class) and Yuugi had managed to make a significant change in their matches. Hermione's had gone all silver and pointy, while Yuugi's looked more like silver had been painted on the wood.

"Better than nothing, Yuugi-kun," Malik muttered, poking his match with his wand dispiritedly, only to have it catch fire. He let out a yelp, smacking the flames out with his hand… and ended up being the first student to become acquainted with the school nurse, Madam Pomfrey.

The class that most students had been looking forward to was Defense Against the Dark Arts. Stepping into the room for the first time, however, proved that the lessons were going to be a bit of a joke. A horrid smell of garlic permeated the room, and the teacher of the class, Professor Quirrell, was a stammering, stuttering mess. He wore a large, purple turban, which also carried the horrid smell of garlic. Rumor had it Quirrell had barely escaped from a vampire while traveling in Romania, and he was terrified that it would come back to finish the job. Given the smell, no one was about to contest to that.

Though Yuugi and Malik felt a bit out of place, being only two of four people that were not eleven years old in their year, they were relieved that they were not the only ones that were clueless. Aside from the know-it-all Hermione, even the kids that came from wizarding families were no better off than they were.

The week breezed by quickly, and soon it was Friday, the final day of classes for the week, and…

"Double Potions with Slytherin house," Malik announced at breakfast, "taught by Professor Snape."

Yuugi, Malik, Ron, and Harry both looked up to the professor's table, were the teacher in question was sitting aloof from the others. Unlike the other teachers, he never seemed to wear anything other than black, and had long, oily black hair framing a severe-looking face. His skin was pale as well, making him look like a gothic vampire from old cheesy horror films.

The four boys exchanged queasy looks.

"We're doomed," they said at the same time.

Potions was held down in the dungeons, where it was cold, dank, and dark; it was quite creepy enough without their eerie professor and the pickled animals floating in the glass jars about the walls. Snape eyed each one of them in turn as he took role, pausing at Harry's name to sneer at him. Harry gulped, shrinking back in his seat.

Things did not get better after that. After attendance, Snape began quizzing Harry, asking him questions that he could not possibly answer. Malik glared at him each time he insulted his new friend, and when he took a point from Gryffindor because Harry talked back at him, it took every bit of will power that he had not to jump up from behind his desk and strangle the man.

"Oh, go take a shower, slime ball," he muttered under his breath in Japanese. Snape snapped his head toward him.

"Sumimasen?" he responded, making both him and Yuugi jump in surprise.

"Oh shit!" Malik exclaimed, getting several giggles from the rest of the class.

"Another five points from Gryffindor for your foul mouth, Mr. Ishtar," Snape replied.

After some note taking, they were split off into pairs and set to concoct a simple potion to cure boils. Harry and Yuugi, and Ron and Malik were paired together, and they were doing just fine as far as they were concerned. For Yuugi, it was just like chemistry class back at Domino High School, only with a little magical tint to it. Snape, however, criticized them, displeased with every one except Draco.

One of the things the four boys had found out about their fellow Gryffindor classmates over the past week, was that both Neville Longbottom and Seamus Finnegan had a habit of being a bit of a klutz. The two of them had gotten paired together – which in itself was a disaster waiting to happen. Disaster did strike, too, when Neville had managed to melt Seamus' cauldron, their potion escaping out into the classroom. In a split second, everyone was standing on his or her stools, except for Neville, whose arms and legs had burst out in ugly red boils. Snape snarled at him before ordering him to the hospital wing, and then turning his malice on Harry and Yuugi, who had been working next to them.

"Another point from Gryffindor, Mr. Potter," Snape sneered, "for not warning him about the consequences of his mistake."

Harry was about to retort for the unfair point taking, when Yuugi slapped a hand over his mouth.

"Don't tempt fate, Harry-kun," he whispered.

Fortunately, they were able to trudge out of the dungeons at noon without any further damage to their house points. Harry was sullen that he had lost two points alone, though Malik cheered him up by mentioning the five points he lost at once. At lunch, the young wizard mentioned he was going to see the groundskeeper, Hagrid – the giant that had escorted them to the school. Ron asked if he could go too, while Malik pouted slightly.

"I feel like dueling," he said, flopping his head against the table. "I'm card deprived, and our Duel Disks don't work in the school. I checked earlier."

"Nothing electronic works?" Yuugi asked, while Ron's lips were posed to ask what they were talking about.

"I don't think so," Malik replied, before pointing a thumb behind him to the Ravenclaw table. "Besides, have you seen Kaiba lately?"

Yuugi turned around and looked all the way down to the very end of the Ravenclaw table. There was Kaiba all right, sitting by himself with a wide amount of space separating him from the nearest student. He was twitching, and looking like he was going to snap at anyone that so much as breathed in his direction.

"What's the matter with him?" Harry asked.

"Computer withdrawal," Malik and Yuugi answered, the latter sweatdropping at the sight.

"You know, there's supposed to be a charm that allows smaller electroniks to work…" Ron mused. That instantly caught the other boy's attention.

"Really?" Malik asked, before whipping his head over to Yuugi. "You –" He glanced down at the Puzzle quickly to indicate which "you" he meant – "me, rematch."

"Okay!" Yuugi exclaimed, laughing as they got up and bolted from the Gryffindor table, leaving a confused Harry and Ron in their wake.

A few minutes later, the short of stature Professor Flitwick was interrupted from his lunch and presented with two of the electronic Duel Disk by two very anxious duelists. He frowned at the contraptions, taking Yuugi's from his hands and inspecting it. Near him, Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall were eyeing the devices as well, though the headmaster looked more amused than the deputy headmistress.

"And… what exactly do you do with these Muggle contraptions?" Flitwick finally asked.

"You duel with them," Malik said anxiously, as if that explained everything. It did not.

"Duel how?" Flitwick replied, eyebrow raised, almost looking interested.

"With cards," Yuugi explained. "It's a game."

"A game?" the teacher echoed, blinking… before he finally shrugged, taking his wand out and waving it at the Disks. They glowed slightly before returning to normal. "The things Muggles come up with."

"Thanks professor!" Yuugi exclaimed as they started off. Malik glanced back as they dashed out of the Great Hall.

"You gonna tell him Kaiba made these things?" he asked.

"Nah, he'll find out," Atemu replied, making the modern day Egyptian jump.

"Geeze, pharaoh, warning…" he muttered.

Atemu turned toward him and grinned as they sprinted out the double doors, joining the kids that had already finished their lunch and were enjoying their afternoon off. The sprit looked just about as excited as Yuugi had been; obviously, he had not dueled in a long time. Even if it was a rematch, the chance to do so was just something he could not pass up.

They settled on a less crowded area of the grounds, rolling up their cloaks so they could easily slide on their Duel Disks. Atemu pulled out his deck, flipping through it, before taking out a card and tossing it to Malik.

"Here," he called, just as the Gravekeeper caught it. He stared at it for a long moment in surprise, caught off guard.

"Ra?" he asked. "Why?"

The pharaoh just smiled. "You said, rematch…"

-.oOOo.-

Harry was walking back from Hagrid's house, numerous thoughts running through his mind. When Hagrid had first picked him up and taken him around Diagon Alley, they had made a stop to Gringotts Bank to pick up some money for himself… and to pick up what he had previously dismissed as just a grubby old package. The newspaper article he had seen laying on Hagrid's table had proved otherwise, however. Someone had tried to break into Gringotts to grab that package, the very same day they had visited the bank as a matter of fact. That made Harry nervous; was something going on right under his nose…?

He was snapped out of his thoughts by a deafening roar that seemed to fill the entire area. Ron looked over to him, eyes widening, before the two of them bolted back toward the school… Just in time to see a gigantic red dragon loom up, two jaws opened wide and body long enough to wrap around the school. The two of them stopped so fast they could see their skid marks if they looked back, watching in wide-eyed horror as the dragon opened its lower mouth, and a hail of thunder shot out.

That got Harry and Ron moving again, running to see if anyone was hurt… only to smack into a wall of their fellow classmates, all of whom had gathered to watch what was taking place. Or, rather, what had taken place; if the giant red dragon disappearing as if it never existed was any indication, whatever had happened was over. Applause broke out amongst the crowd as Harry and Ron pushed their way through it, trying to see what had happened…

They broke through in time to see Malik shaking Yuugi's hand, handing him a card. Harry frowned; Yuugi looked a bit different… he could not quite put his finger on it, but there was something about him that looked familiar…

His eyes widened; suddenly, it clicked.

"Now I remember…!" he exclaimed softly so only Ron could hear. "I remember seeing it in my cousin's old card game magazines. He was in one of the issues!"

"What?" Ron asked blinking. "Who?"

Harry waved toward the scene before them. "Yuugi Mutou: The Duel King."