Hey guys! This sure is a change, isn't it? Usually, there's a good month gap between updates, here Chapters 11-now have been about a week and a half apart!
Thank you for your continuous patience with me! You're probably thinking, "what patience! There's been an update every frickin' day!"
Well, after this chapter, updates will not be EVERYDAY, but a few days apart. Summer's busy for me…I'm looking up colleges and studying for my written Driver's test! Not that I want to drive. Being out on the road with wacky insane drivers where there are accidents on every turn kind of creeps me out. Besides, a lot of the roads by me are really steep and NO GUARDRAILS! YIKES! Having a car doesn't thrill me. Sure it's freedom, but all of my savings goes to the stupid gas money because prices are too DARN HIGH! Besides, I don't have a job…
Alrighty, enough of my blabbing. You all are here for the chapter and not about my road problems…heh heh
Now here's Chapter 17!
Once again, I don't own YuGiOh or Harry Potter, because it belongs to Kazuki Takahashi and JK Rowling, respectively.
On with the chapter!
Chapter 17
Ron was snoring annoyingly loud when something soft collided with his head, waking him up, instantly.
"Harry! What was that for?"
"Ron! Dumbledore returned to the castle, and…"
"How do you know?" asked Ron, looking at Harry suspiciously.
"I was in the Kitchens getting a snack. Anyway, I saw Yugi tread up to the hospital wing with the teachers."
"Bloody hell! Hey guys! WAKE UP!"
A pillow was thrown at Ron. "Go back to sleep, Ron."
"No, Marik! Get up! Yugi's back! So is Seto and Hermione!"
"Someone call my name?" called a sleepy voice from the door.
"Yugi!" exclaimed Marik.
"That's what people around here call me," yawned Yugi.
Ryou noticed the Millennium Puzzle, "you also got the Millennium Puzzle back! That's a good thing!"
Yugi yawned louder. "I also have a gift for you too, Ryou, here's your 'Ringy'."
"RINGY!"
"Aren't you going to tell us about your adventure in Voldy-ville?" asked Marik, as Yugi clambered into bed.
"Yes. Tomorrow, after I get some shut eye."
"…alright…"
Yugi changed out his worn pajamas, into something warm and dozed off to sleep, the Millennium Puzzle still around his neck.
"C'MON!"
Yugi got smacked with a pillow. "WAKE UP!"
/Yugi/
/Zzzzzz/
/Yugi/
/Zzzzzz/
/Yugi/
/Zzzzzz-huh? What/
/The outside is calling you…/
"Huh? Ow! Hey! Give me that pillow!"
"Morning Yugi," said Ryou, cheerfully, holding a large pillow, ready to strike. "Everyone else is up already."
"That's nice." Yugi turned over and tried to go back to sleep.
"By the way, where's Seto? He didn't come in last night."
"He's in the hospital wing with Hermione," said Yugi, "he should be ok."
"Alright, well get up!"
When Yugi finally emerged from the boys' staircase, about an hour later, everyone was in the common room, waiting for him. Yugi plunked down into a comfy armchair.
"Hi. I guess you all want a lowdown, huh?"
"Yep…"
"Alrighty then…"
Yugi began his tale of how some magically-enhanced portkey took him from his room just before Christmas, meeting Seto and Hermione weeks later, "escaping" Voldemort only to be captured again, and how Voldemort forced him and Seto into a duel, ending with Yugi being the only one of the three able to tell the tale.
"You dueled Voldemort?" exclaimed Marik, shocked, "he duels? What kind of deck did he have?"
"Huh? Oh, from the looks of it, Zombies. Ron, why do you twitch like that?"
"He's being silly," said Harry, "he always does that when someone says his name. VOLDEMORT!"
Ron flinched.
"See?"
"Oh, so how did Seto lose his soul?"
"Well, Voldemort ("Stop that Ron!") was winning badly, and he was going to finish us off when Dumbledore and a bunch of Aurors showed up. Voldemort apparated away, but not before aiming his Millennium Item at me. He tried to take my soul, but Seto shoved me out of the way and took the blast himself."
"Did you know, by the way, that Mokuba arrived last night? He's been up in the hospital wing, ever since," said Ryou. Everyone turned to stare at him.
"How do you know that?"
"Once Yugi gave the Ring back to me, Bakura has been "free" since, wandering the school. He just told me this morning!"
"Oh, well we found something of Voldemort's. His computer. The teachers are stripping it of curses and then we're going to look for information on the Millennium Items. I think that Voldemort knew all about the Millennium Items through the internet or something"
Set phased through the wall, "oh hello Set."
"Hello," he mumbled, "If I have to stay like Nearly Headless Nick all of the time, Hogwarts may have a new occupant."
/Ryou/
/Hn/
/Let me out, I'm starving/
/And let you purge my healthy vegetarianism-ness with your stinky meat? I think not/
Professor McGonagall then came into the common room with Voldemort's laptop. "Professor Shadi and Professor Umbridge have stripped any curses this may possess. You may use it however you like."
Yugi took it and turned it on. A screen for a password popped up.
"I knew it, Voldemort blocked his Death Eaters from doing anything to this…"
"Then how are we going to get on the Internet?" asked Ron.
"I know someone who could hack past it…" thought Yugi.
"Me too, Yugi. Kaiba, but he can't right now!"
"Try Seto's computer, from what Mokuba tells me, it is no longer a Portkey," Set suggested, but Marik shook his head.
"Sorry, Priest, but it is password-protected."
"That's it, Set!"
"What'd I say?"
"Mokuba! He could do it!"
"He can hack?"
"I'll go ask him!" Harry said, getting up, and leaving Gryffindor tower. Marik turned to his friends, "How did Mokuba learn to hack?"
"His brother, I'm guessing," shrugged Ron.
Harry continued down the hall, when Bakura appeared in front of him.
"Bakura!" Harry yelped, startled, "when did you get here?"
"Hn? Oh, I left the same time you did, the difference is that I can travel through walls and ceilings while you cannot. Apparently some kid called Colin Creevy is trying to start some type of Hogwarts newsletter. I found him trying to take pictures of your soulless buddies up in the hospital yesterday. He has no idea still where those stink bombs came from…"
"Uh huh," said Harry, uncertainly, "Why are you following me?"
"Ryou's too dull of a host. Besides, if someone, namely 'stink-boy' made a scoop about the Items, who knows what the Slytherins would make of it. Only you guys and the staff know the real truth about us. The rest of the school knows of the Pharaoh as Yugi's bothersome brother."
"Bothersome?"
"Well, yea! Bothersome to me!"
Harry entered the hospital wing, to be pushed out by Madame Pomfrey.
"No visitors!" she snapped.
"I'm not here to visit," said Harry, coldly, "Is Mokuba here?"
"The young boy here for his poor brother? No, he left with Professor McGonagall and the Headmaster this morning."
"Oh," Harry was crestfallen, "do you know where they went?"
"What am I? A nurse or a map? Go find the boy on your own! I have patients to attend to!"
After wandering the school (save the Dungeons, Harry wasn't going near a hallway near Snape) for what seemed like forever, Harry found Mokuba.
"Hey!"
"Oh, hello, Harry," said Mokuba, obviously upset. His eyes were blotched and puffy, as if he had been crying for some time. "Need something?"
"Yes, your help."
"Me?" Mokuba asked, confused, "what could you possibly need me for!"
"Can you hack into a computer?"
"Well, yes…why do you ask? Oh NO! I am NOT hacking into Big Brother's computer! No way!"
"No, Mokuba, not Seto's, but Voldemort! He had a password protected computer that we think holds the 'cure' for Seto and Hermione, but we can't crack the password!"
"Help for Seto! Where is this laptop! I'm ready!"
"C'mon, to the common room!"
Once Mokuba entered the common room, he was given Voldemort's laptop.
"Alright. Here goes nothing!" Mokuba went to work.
"Hey guys," said Natasha, leaving the girls' staircase.
"Hey, 'Yasha."
Natasha went back behind Mokuba, "what'cha doing?"
"GOT IT! Ok, since Voldemort probably got his information from the Internet," said Mokuba, explaining to the rest of them, "we'll start there!"
Mokuba opened up the Internet browser. Luckily enough for them, Voldemort had visited Rule The World DOT Com, he had made it his homepage.
"Wow. This is a pretty straight-forward site!" exclaimed Ryou, as the younger boy scrolled down the page.
"Look there!" pointed Yugi, "there's a section on the Millennium Items, and it's being closed down tomorrow! Go there, Mokie!"
The Millennium Item page, (now showing a hit counter of 444,444,444,444,663,235,6745,767,232,232,127,234,653,566,777,213,678,098,567,120, and if anyone can try and make a really good pronunciation of this number, GOOD LUCK!)was extremely detailed, showing pictures and up-to-date info on each item, including the Millennium Sword. Yugi opened a link called "Powers of the Eighth Item"
-POSTED BY WEBMISTRESS MICHELLE (the site does not exist! Remember this!)
…When the Millennium Sword removes a soul from a victim's body, the soul remains in captivity within the Millennium Sword itself, and not to the Shadow Realm. However there is an extremely nasty, horrible, too terrible to be true side effect…
"Guys! This must be the side-effect Voldemort was referring to!" exclaimed Set, floating above the rest of them.
…If the soul of the victim remains in captivity for over two months, the soul will be destroyed by this Item's effect. The victim shall die.
To return a captured soul, one must win the Item from the current holder. The Millennium Sword can only be used by a user of darkness and evil. If won by a bringer of light and peace, the effects of the Millennium Sword will be negated and any damage done will be reversed.
Another way to return a soul is to destroy the Item all-together. If the Millennium Sword is destroyed while holding captive souls, the souls in mention will return to the host bodies, awakening them from the coma-like state.-
Yugi looked at Mokuba, "Bakura was right…"
"That was awfully straightforward…" said Set. "It explains why I cannot take over Seto…"
"No!" Mokuba shouted, wiping away his streaming sobs with his sleeve, "Seto can't be dying! He just can't be!"
"Hermione," Ron whispered, to no one in particular.
Yami Bakura then phased through the common room portrait, "yo, Ryou! C'mon, we're goin' to Shadi!"
"Why? Can't you see we're all grieving and you want to go to Shadi! You don't even like him!"
"Yes, but I want my body back!…What's wrong with you all?"
Natasha turned the screen toward him.
"Hmmm…interesting…that explains a lot. C'mon Ryou!"
"NO!"
"We need Kaiba to get our bodies back, and if he's dying in bed, that's a little hard, isn't it, thief!" snapped the Pharaoh.
"Don't…say stuff…like that!" shouted Mokuba between sobs.
"sorry."
"Well, Mr. Bakura, I have something for you to do," said Professor Dumbledore as he entered the common room.
"Professor?" asked Yami Bakura, hovering over to the Headmaster.
"Well, spirit Mr. Bakura, since you are so willing to do something at the current time, our sources tell us that Voldemort is eluding his capture and his own Death Eaters by hiding somewhere in the 'Shadow Realm'. We need someone with a Millennium Item to find him and take his Millennium Item."
"It isn't that simple, Professor," said Yami, also in spirit form, "a Millennium Item can only be won in a duel. If it's taken before then, nothing we do will make any difference."
"I see, Mr. Muto, however, maybe you two can tag up and bring him down…?"
"Well…I'm not very good," stammered Ryou, turning pink, "and my deck isn't the greatest…"
"It's good enough!" snapped Bakura.
"I'll gladly take a rematch," said Yugi, "but we don't know where in the world he is! He could be anywhere!"
"Oh! Oh!" Yami Bakura jumped up and down while floating, up and down, up and down," Oh! Oh! Oh! I wanna go to the Shadow Realm and find the twit! After all, he's after the power that's rightfully MINE!" He opened a small portion of the Shadow Realm, dived into it, and closed it after him.
One month later
Yami Bakura was still in the Shadow Realm. During that time, Mokuba threw a gazillion puppy-eyed fits with Madame Pomfrey for not letting him in to see Seto. The gang noticed that whenever they saw Set in the castle, he was considerably less colorful, although he was transparent. It was as if he was fading away. If Voldemort wasn't stopped soon, Set would be trapped into the Millennium Rod for a long, long, long, time.
Seto and Hermione's skin tone was considerably paler than when they had originally returned from Voldemort's keep, being that their life force was slowly draining away, Hermione being much paler than the boy next to her in the hospital beds. Yugi had explained that Hermione's soul had been taken a considerable amount of time before Seto's and that she didn't have all that much more time left than he did. It may have been only a few hours difference (because duels don't last days…), but every second counts…
It was approximately one month afterwards now. The gang was crowded around the two beds near the door in the Hospital Wing. The doors opened and Madame Pomfrey and Dumbledore entered, obviously arguing about something, due to the rising tones of their voices.
"There's no point keeping them here! Those kids are spending too much time in here than they do with their studies!"
"Poppy, sending them off to St. Mungos will do no good to the healers there."
"Excuse me, Professor," began Yugi, "but are you going to send Hermione and Seto somewhere?"
"Ah, Yugi, that's what we were just discussing, for it seems Madame Pomfrey wishes for your companions to go to the Wizarding Hospital so you all don't spend so much time here, as there is nothing any of us can do for your friends."
"NO!" shouted Mokuba, tears falling from his enormous eyes, "you can't take Seto away! What are the 'doctors' at your hospital going to be able to do that you haven't! They can't do anything!"
"Besides, with Death Eater attacks going on and all," said Ryou, "this St. Mungos should have as much empty space as possible, incase of large massacres!"
"You see, Poppy!" exclaimed Dumbledore, "it seems you lost this argument!"
"I suppose…" she shuffled into her office, closing the door with a click.
"I wonder what's taking Bakura," muttered Ryou, "It's been a while…"
"He better be back soon…" said Mokuba quietly from his seat next to his brother. In the corner of the room, the Shadow Realm opened up, and Bakura jumped out.
"Hello mortals! I'm baaaaaack!"
"GOOD!" exclaimed Harry, "did you find anything?"
"I had some help, but with luck, we're finding him."
"Help?" called Set, who was almost as pale as the Hogwarts ghosts, "Who in their right mind would want to help you!"
"You know him, Marik, you're darker half!"
"MALIK?"
"Yep! We're buddies now! Malik (the darker Marik) gave me this communicator thingy," Bakura pointed to the earphone thing on his left ear, "Malik is tailing him undetected through the Shadow Realm and giving the info back to me. So far, he's in Albania, in some abandoned house, in a major death eater meeting."
Albus Dumbledore then came into the ward. "Ah, Spirit Bakura, you're back! Any luck?"
"We found Volderpoop!" Yami Bakura yelled triumphantly.
"Now, now, you shouldn't name call. It isn't nice. His name is Tom Marvolo Riddle(1) but if you all prefer, Lord Voldemort. Now where is he?"
"He's in…wait! Malik is communicating!" The gang waited in silence for Bakura to tell the new news.
"Well, Volders – sorry, Voldemort isn't too far anymore. Now he's in this place called the…what was it Malik?…some place called the Chamber of Secrets…"
Dun…DUN…DUNNNNN!
Well, there's chapter 17. There's not much left now!
(1) A really good Harry Potter-obsessed friend of mine gave me the 'Ways to know if you are too big a Harry Potter Fan'. Along with this came '103 Ways to Annoy Voldemort!'. THANKS STEPHY! If anyone is interested in reading any of these, let me know and if a lot of people ask, I'll put it in a chapter. Thanks for getting my review to the goal of 78, one more past When Lemony Snicket merges with Kazuki Takahashi which had 77. Thanks guys!
You are the best!
Setoglomper