Yuugiou!
Episode Nine and Three Quarters
This chapter was surprisingly easy to write; I'm kinda shocked to put a complete chapter out while it's still light out. o.o;;
Enjoy; and if anyone is dumb enough to ask me who the kid is at the end of the chapter, I'll smack them with a Rod. XP
CHAPTER SEVEN – MALIK'S ROD
November came crisp and cold, covering the grounds every morning in a layer of frost so thick, it looked like it had snowed to someone looking out the window from someplace high up. More often than not, Hagrid was spotted defrosting the brooms by the Quidditch field to help accommodate the Gryffindor captain, Oliver Wood's, sudden insane practice schedule.
To say that Wood was obsessed with Harry's natural talent as a Seeker was a bit of an understatement. As the days wore on, he found himself dragged out into the bitter cold, sometimes alone, with a smiling Wood ready and waiting to put him through his paces. Harry supposed it was for the best, but it was still murder.
He supposed it was lucky that Hermione had become friendlier with him and Ron since Malik and the others rescued her. Without her help, he thought for sure he would have fallen behind in the school. She helped write out study sheets for him when he was too busy to sit with his notes, and looked over his and Ron's homework when they were done with it.
Snape had been acting rather suspicious, Harry had noticed. He had noticed him limping about ever since the incident with the troll, and he seemed twice as irritable as before. Admittedly, though, he had not counted on ever finding out why Snape was the way he was now; he had gone to the Potion's Master's office to get a book back he had taken away for no reason… only to see Snape and Filch inside. Snape's robes were hitched up over his knees, revealing a blood and mangled leg.
"Blasted thing; how are you supposed to keep an eye on all three heads at once?" he was saying as the caretaker handed him some bandages. Harry had attempted to leave quietly, but he was spotted, and yelled out of the office.
Ron had agreed with him that it must have been Snape that let the troll in at Halloween to distract the other professors while he went up to the forbidden corridor on the third floor to take whatever the three-headed dog was guarding. Yuugi and Malik were not so sure, while Hermione outright refused to believe it.
"I know he's not nice, but he wouldn't try to steal something Professor Dumbledore was trying to keep safe!" she exclaimed.
"Honestly, Hermione, you think all teachers are saints…" Ron grumbled.
In addition to problems with teachers, there were problems amongst themselves as well. Harry noticed that Yuugi would not change anymore when "Ryou" came over to sit with them, something that made Bakura leave with a disappointed look on his face. Hermione had noticed the change as well, pointing out some of the instances when she had spotted the two of them not acting like themselves.
"Ryou called Yuugi 'Atemu' in the bathroom while they were fighting off the troll," she said once. "And I sincerely doubt that's another nickname."
The day of the first Quidditch match of the season dawned bright and cold, and a queasy stomach that made Harry blanch at the mere mention of food replaced thoughts of three headed dogs and possessed friends.
"C'mon, Harry, you gotta eat something, or you're gonna pass out on your broom," Malik said, dropping some bacon on his plate. Yuugi was noticeably absent that morning, and Harry could spot Ryou scowling at that fact even though he was all the way at the Hufflepuff table.
Harry weakly picked up a strip of bacon, nibbling on it. "I'm afraid I'll be sick on my broom if I eat anything…" he said. "The fact people have been saying they'll be running under me with a mattress hasn't helped."
"Just ignore them, Harry," Ron encouraged, nudging a piece of toast at him. "C'mon, you'll need your strength. Seekers are usually the ones that get knocked out first."
"Thanks Ron," Harry said, trying not to sound sarcastic. "Really."
-.oOOo.-
Yuugi was lying in bed, staring up at the red canopy of his four-poster bed, his arms crossed behind his head. He had decided to stay in for a while, claiming he was not feeling well to Malik, who had poked his head in before leaving for breakfast. Really, though, he was lost in thoughts, most of them surrounding the pharaoh that shared residence in his body.
Since the incident with the troll, Atemu had grown rather quiet and withdrawn, not coming out long enough to speak with him very often. It worried Yuugi, mostly because he had never really seen the spirit act like he was. He was used to seeing him being strong and independent and… well, the thought of the pharaoh still being a teenager had crossed his mind once or twice, but it did not seem very… Atemu-ish.
Aibou, came the pharaoh's voice suddenly, Harry-kun has his first match today.
I know, Yuugi replied, rolling over and hugging his pillow. I'm worried about you, though.
About me? the spirit asked, sounding surprised. I'm fine.
Liar, Yuugi accused, pouting slightly. You've been off daydreaming worse than a girl lately.
Yuugi felt a distinct warmth coming from his other self, and he was slightly glad that he was not looking into their Soul Rooms. He did not know how he would handle seeing the pharaoh blush.
Daijoubu, daijoubu… Atemu muttered. You don't need to worry about me. You should go on, before you're late.
Yuugi frowned, already feeling the pharaoh starting to retreat. Without thinking, he reached into his mind, grabbing the pharaoh and launching him into control.
No, you're going to be late! he exclaimed, quickly closing and locking his Soul Door before Atemu could retaliate. Not that the pharaoh could right away, anyway; Yuugi had tossed him out with such force that he found himself rolling off the bed and landing on the ground with a painful thud!
"Oy, aibou!" he exclaimed aloud, even though he knew it would not do him any good. Dammit, he had done the same thing once before, forcing him into a date with Anzu. That alone had been awkward enough; now he was on his own in a magic school?
…he was doooooooomed.
Grumbling to himself, Atemu crawled back to his feet and got dress, pulling on his robes and going to head downstairs, before he stopped, something catching his attention. It was Yuugi's trunk at the foot of his bed, where he kept all the extra things he had brought with him that he really did not need, in addition to the Millennium Items, buried under all that junk. Oh, it looked normal enough as always… except for the slight problem that something was glowing inside.
The pharaoh went over to the trunk, throwing up the lid and pushing the junk out of the way, revealing that the glow as indeed coming from inside the duffle bag full of Millennium Items. He unzipped it, wincing as it fell open, the glow nearly blinding him.
"Great," Atemu muttered. "On top of everything else, the Items are going haywire."
He reached in, grabbing the first Item his hand encountered: the Millennium Rod. As soon as he pulled it out of the bag, though, it stopped glowing, looking as deceptively innocent as usual. The pharaoh sweatdropped at it, staring at it accusingly; that really did not help solve matters any. He shook his head after a moment, hooking the Item into his belt, hiding it behind his back, before replacing everything that had been piled on top of the other Items and closing the trunk.
A few moments later, he was racing down to the Great Hall, hoping that he was not too late…
"Nooo…!" he groaned, bursting into the empty hall. To add insult to injury, his stomach decided to groan in protest at that moment, making him grimace. This just was not his day…
He turned to perhaps attempt to find a teacher that was still indoors… only to smack headlong into someone's chest. Atemu fell back, landing on his rear end with a thump, holding his head and muttering an, "excuse me".
"What are you still doing inside?" a familiar voice demanded.
Atemu mentally groaned. This really was not his day…
"Kaiba…!" he exclaimed, smiling and laughing nervously… before he asked bluntly, "You wouldn't happen to know where the kitchens are, would you?"
Seto Kaiba raised a critical eyebrow at the pharaoh… but a few moments later, they were standing outside a painting of a bowl full of fruit, with the taller boy reaching up to tickle a green pear. The fruit wiggled, chuckling, before finally turning into a door with a green handle. Kaiba pulled it open, letting Atemu enter first.
The pharaoh jumped in surprise at what he saw on the other side, however. There were dozens of well-dressed, knobby green creatures flitting about. They chatted quietly amongst themselves as they cooked and cleaned up their workspace and cooked some more, bobbing their large heads, pointed ears flopping slightly with the movement.
"House elves," Kaiba provided, making Atemu jump. "Apparently they're some sort of servants; from what I gather, it's what they live for."
One of the elves scurried over to them, bowing. "What can I get for you, sirs?" he asked, his voice coming out squeaky and high-pitched.
"Um… some breakfast?" Atemu asked. "Bacon… toast…"
"Coffee," Kaiba replied.
The elf scurried off as another led them to a table to sit at in the middle of the kitchen. Barely a moment later, the first elf returned with a coffee for Kaiba and a plate filled with bacon and eggs and toast for Atemu as well as a tall glass of pumpkin juice. The pharaoh blinked at it in surprise, tentatively taking up his fork as Kaiba sipped at his coffee.
"I thought you would be out at the field watching the Quidditch game," he said idly after a moment.
Atemu managed to swallow his eggs before replying. "My aibou is worried about me, so he insisted on laying in bed to talk to me, before kicking me out into the real world," he replied dully.
Kaiba raised an amused eyebrow, making Atemu regret telling him that much. An unreadable look appeared on the taller boy's face a moment later, and the pharaoh was starting to wonder if he should go running for his deck… when Kaiba reached into his school bag, pulling out a chess board instead.
"Care for a game of Wizard's Chess?" he asked as he handed him a set of pieces, an odd tone in his voice that the pharaoh could not quite place.
Atemu gave him a look, confused, trying to get what exactly he was getting at. Whatever it was, he was confident he could beat Kaiba at whatever game he set before him. He took the set and plopped the pieces down where they were supposed to go, Kaiba doing the same with his.
As soon as they started however, Atemu was quickly finding that Wizard's Chess was quite different from normal chess. One of his Knights kept yelling at him, telling him what moves he should make. He ignored it though, directing the pieces where he felt they should go while finishing off his breakfast, and he quickly had Kaiba in check. Seto took it all in stride, calmly commanding his pieces with all the grace of a commander directing his troops. None of his pieces talked back to him, which had Atemu slightly jealous, but he did not show it.
"You know…" Kaiba began suddenly as Atemu took his turn. "When playing chess, it's easy to tell when a person is distracted even in the slightest."
"What makes you say that?" the pharaoh asked, narrowing his eyes as he finished his turn.
Kaiba just smiled that overbearing and cocky smile of his, taking his turn, and…
"Check mate."
Atemu blinked rapidly. "Eh?" he exclaimed, staring at the board… before sweatdropping as his King fell over in mock death and his Knight shook a fist up at him, yelling, "I told you so!" The pharaoh sighed, looking up to Kaiba, waiting for the bragging to start.
While the insufferable smirk of his did not go away, the young businessman did not start bragging, much to Atemu's obvious surprise. Kaiba calmly packed away the board and the pieces, before settling back, eyes narrowed.
"There's no point to it if my rival isn't up to his normal level of performance."
Atemu's sweatdrop grew; Kaiba was not expecting him to spill about something he did not even want to talk to his other half about, was he? Besides, the taller boy was the last person that could even ever understand his situation. As far as he was concerned, Seto had all the emotion of a brick.
If the expectant look on his face was any indication though… Atemu groaned privately as Kaiba took a sip of his coffee.
"So, what is it?" he asked idly as Atemu drank from his pumpkin juice. "Three thousand years worth of hormones catching up to you?"
Whatever amount of liquid that had been in the pharaoh's mouth went flying at that. "What! NO!" he exclaimed. Maybe it was the fact that his face had turned bright red, but Kaiba did not look convinced. "Even if it is, it's none of your business anyway!"
Atemu stood up, pushing his seat away before going to stalk out of the kitchen.
"Pharaoh."
He whirled around, still red in the face. "What!"
Kaiba had a very calm smirk on his face. "Your back is glowing."
Atemu stared at him blankly a moment, before he remembered he had the Millennium Rod tucked away behind his back. He reached back, pulling the Rod out and staring at it as it glowed faintly, catching Kaiba raising an eyebrow at the site of the object out of the corner of his eye. The pharaoh tightened his grip on it a moment, before tossing it to the other boy. Kaiba jerked back slightly, hand snapping out to catch it before it hit him in the face.
Atemu did not pause to find out how he reacted; he stormed out of the kitchen and out of the castle, heading toward the Quidditch field. If he was lucky, maybe he would be able to at the very least catch the end of the match. As he got closer, though, he could hear startled shouts over the sound of jeers… He frowned, picking up the pace as he looked up above the stadium. Was someone dangling from their broom…?
The pharaoh broke out into a run, fearing the worst as the shouts of surprise got louder, the person holding onto their broom suddenly diving down. Slipping into the stadium, Atemu climb up over to an open space just in time to see Harry hit the ground.
"Harry!" he called out to him as the boy shakily got to his feet, holding his stomach like he was going to be sick. He brought his hands up to his mouth, letting out a horrid sounding cough… as something bright and gold fell into his hands.
"I caught the snitch!" Harry exclaimed, waving the golden ball over his head.
-.oOOo.-
"He didn't catch it, he damn near swallowed it!"
Marcus Flint, the captain of the opposing Slytherin team, was still complaining about the end of the game a half hour later to anyone that would listen to him. Not than many people outside of Slytherin house were; most were too ecstatic over the spectacular Gryffindor win that they did not care either way. Besides, Harry had not broken and rules, so the Slytherin captain could not really contest the results.
Harry did not hear any of it, though. He was getting a steaming cup of tea at Hagrid's hut on the grounds of the school.
"We saw him, Harry," Malik said, after filling in Atemu. Harry's broomstick had suddenly starting acting weird right in the middle of the game, nearly sending him falling down to his death. "Snape was staring up at you, muttering. He cursed your broom!"
"Rubbish!" Hagrid exclaimed, plunking down a rock cake before each of them. "Snape wouldn' try an' kill a student!"
Bakura suddenly entered at that moment, making Atemu jump a good foot in the air. He eyed the pharaoh a moment, before looking to Harry.
"You all right, kid?" he asked, getting a muttered, "yeah" in reply.
"Hagrid, we saw him!" Hermione protested despite Bakura's sudden appearance, the game's events changing her mind about the Potion's Master. "In order to perform a jinx powerful enough to affect a broomstick, you can't break eye contact, and Snape wasn't blinking!"
"I'm tellin' yeh, he wouldn' do summat like that!" Hagrid replied. "Why would he?"
The boys exchanged nervous looks, not sure how to tell him. Atemu decided on being blunt about it, explaining how they had seen Snape going off to the third floor on Halloween, and how Harry had seen that his leg had been mangled. When he mentioned the three-headed dog in the forbidden corridor, however, the groundskeeper was furious.
"How do you lot know about Fluffy?" he demanded.
Bakura sweatdropped. "Fluffy!" he exclaimed. "Why the hell did you name a three-headed dog Fluffy!"
"Well, 'cause he wasn't nearly as much 'a a beast as Fang there growin' up."
Hagrid waved to where a black-furred mutt was reclining on an armchair. The dog looked at them before yawning lazily and rolling over. Everyone sweatdropped as the groundskeeper pointed a finger at them, as if to drive what he had to say home.
"Now listen, the pair 'a yeh," he began. "Yer meddlin' in things that don' concern yeh. It's dangerous. You forget that dog, an' you forget what it's guardin'; that's between Professor Dumbledore an' Nicolas Flamel—"
"Ah ha!" Harry exclaimed. "So there's someone named Flamel involved, is there?"
Hagrid looked furious with himself, and ended up chasing them out of his small hut a moment later. Ron, Harry, Hermione, and Malik rushed ahead toward the castle, talking excitedly amongst themselves, an unconscious arm from the Gravekeeper coming around to rest about Hermione's shoulders. Atemu smiled softly as he watched them discussing whom Nicolas Flamel might be… feeling a bit detached. He was beginning to notice he was feeling like this often as of late, like he did not have a place in the real world…
He felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned around to see Bakura there. The pharaoh shrugged him off quickly, annoyed.
"What?" he demanded, not looking at him and missing the bitter frown on the tomb robber's face.
"Just rather disappointed you've been avoiding me, your highness-ness," he snapped. "What, afraid I might bite you?"
"All things considered, I wouldn't be surprised," Atemu replied dryly.
Bakura grabbed his arm, and before the pharaoh could protest, had pulled him close, an arm wrapping around his waist. Atemu turned bright red, though the look of contempt on the tomb robber's face quashed the blush quickly, helping him in glaring at him.
"You're pathetic, your worship," the tomb robber growled irritably. "Hanging around, letting your host dictate your life, not even bothering to check around and see if there's any way you can try and get your own body using the magic of this world we've stumbled into."
"Wh-what?" Atemu asked, blinking in surprise. "My own… Why would I want to do that!"
Bakura stared at him, like he could not believe he would even think of a question like that. "I dunno, maybe so you can have your own life!" he shot back, irritated. "You know, it's only a matter of time before that runt doesn't need you any more, before you start becoming a burden to him. And then what are you going to do? What am…"
He trailed off, giving Atemu an unreadable expression, before pushing him away, stalking off toward the castle. The pharaoh stumbled a bit before he steadied himself, watching the tomb robber's back as he pounded off, kicking at the ground in irritation. He waited until Bakura was out of sight, before Atemu sank down to his knees, the tall grass tickling at his chest and a sad expression on his face.
Truth be told, despite the fact Yuugi did not want to let him go, he already had no use for him…
…so… what would happen when he became a burden…?
-.oOOo.-
Filch grumbled to himself as he worked late into the night, cleaning up some disgusting muck that one of the students had left behind in the armor gallery. It was probably those damn Weasley twins again; if he could prove it, he would love to drag those mischievous brats into the dungeons… chain them up and leave them hanging upside down like he used to be able to do back in the day. He sighed; those were the good ole' days…
The sound of approaching footsteps cut him off from his thoughts, and he looked up to see which teacher it was… but, to both his surprise and glee, it was not a professor. Though the lad was tall enough and had dark enough hair to pass off for Professor Snape, the student's robes with the Ravenclaw crest gave him away too easily.
"Rather brave, are yeh?" he asked as the boy stopped. "Wanderin' the halls right in front of me…"
Even years later, Filch would never be able to remember what happened next. There was a flash of golden light, and he was back to cleaning the muck left behind, all recollections of a Ravenclaw boy approaching him in the night erased from his memory…