Chapter 21! Almost finished! Wow, a lot happened in the last chapter, Seto and Hermione got together! I might add another chapter to the story, to break a long chapter in two, so there may be a little more than expected.
I don't own YuGiOh, Harry Potter. They belong to Kazuki Takahashi and JK Rowling
Chapter 21
Harry woke up to the sun shining into his eyes Saturday morning, relief day from classes. The sun was shining directly onto the thief's face, who immediately burrowed under his pillow to avoid the light. Sunlight also reflected off of the Millennium Puzzle, making Harry shut his bedside hangings, but not before noticing the empty bed near the door. Where's Seto off to now? Harry looked at his watch. Six-thirty. Way too early. Harry rolled over, going back to sleep.
Natasha was pulling on a pair of sweats for an early morning jog when she noticed Hermione missing from her bed. Shrugging, she left the dorm, closing the door quietly, so not to wake Lavender and Paravati. When she got downstairs, she noticed that Seto's laptop was still on the table. Hmmm. He never leaves that thing lying around. Usually, a first-year gets his hands on it and tries to play games…oh well. However, when she passed the couch, her eyes bugged out, then she smirked evilly. Congratulations, Hermione, I knew it was bound to happen…now to get my galleons! She ran up the boys' stairs and knocked quietly on the six-year door. Yugi opened it, rubbing his eyes.
"Natasha?" he whispered, leaving the dorm and closing the wooden door quietly to not wake his friends. "Do you know how early it is?"
"Well, yes. I was going to go for a jog around the lake this morning, the weather's perfect. You'll never guess what I saw!" She took his arm and tiptoed down the stairs. Yugi saw them together sleeping on the couch and slapped her a quiet high-5.
"Now we both get 16 galleons! Bakura isn't going to be happy!" The ran back up the stairs and into the room.
"Hey guys!" they yelled.
It was an uproar. Bakura fell off of the bed, landing flat on his head; Marik shot up and his pillow flew off the bed, and hit Bakura; Ron became tangled in his bed curtains, but Harry, already awake, just opened his bed curtains and looked at Yugi. Ryou and Yami were just waking up, as if they had done so without Natasha yelling. Set also fell off the bed, the Millennium Rod smacked him in the back and rolled around the floor until it was picked up again.
"Well, now that we have your attention, who remembers the bet we made at the beginning of November?" asked Natasha.
Bakura thought for a moment. "Which bet?"
"Hermione and Seto…sixteen galleons…"
"Ah, that one!"
"Yep!" said Yugi, happily, "now everyone who thought that something wouldspark between them, come over here, and all that opposed, can stand by Bakura." In the end, Yugi, Natasha, Yami, Ryou, Ron, and Harry were on one side, while Bakura, Marik, and Set were on the other side. "Alright, Bakura," Yugi continued, a really big smile plastered on his face, "your group owes all of us 16 galleons, each!"
"What! How do you know!" Bakura pouted and began rummaging through his trunk for some money when Ryou blurted "HEY! THIEF! That's MY trunk!"
"Well what do you want me to do!"
"Forget about it then…" Ryou sighed, and crawled back into bed.
"Hey, I want prove of his, Edwards!" Bakura made a face.
"It's in the common room." Bakura and Marik ran downstairs. Natasha followed, "CYA, I'm going for my run!" She left the common room and five seconds, came back in, "sorry, no I'm not. Filch is out there. Stupid Squib."
Hermione woke up, her head leaning on a comfortable, but odd-shaped pillow. When her eyes finally adjusted to the light, she realized she was sleeping, not on a pillow, but Seto's chest. Was I here all night? And where did the blanket come from. She noticed that his wand was still somewhat in one hand, and his other hand was intertwined in her. Quietly, she got up and looked at a watch someone had left on a table. Eight O' Clock. Saturday. She got up and nudged Seto awake. His eyes opened slowly, and peered at his watch, which was still on his arm.
"Overslept…," he muttered, and opened his laptop.
"Overslept? It's only eight!" she whispered, "when do you usually get up?"
"Two hours earlier. I can't believe I slept here all night..., I thought my bed felt odd."
"You are such a workaholic," she teased, smacked his arm from his laptop playfully, and stretched.
"I'm going to go upstairs…I'll see you at breakfast."
He nodded and she headed up the girls' staircase to get ready for the day. No sooner did she disappear around the corner, did Colin and Dennis Creevy leave their room and poke around the common room, looking for a scoop for the Hogwarts Newspaper they were still trying to create.
"What are you two doing?" asked Seto, as they poked through Neville's bag of books.
"We're looking for a story for the Hogwarts Inquirer. Neat title, huh?" said Colin, the unmistakable camera hanging from his neck.
"Heh, good luck." Seto closed his laptop and headed upstairs.
Hermione entered the Great Hall for breakfast later that morning, and sat between Harry and Ron, looking uncomfortably at the Slytherin table.
"Hey, 'Mione, how come you didn't come in last night from your Herbology lesson?" asked Natasha, leaning in. "I went out to go jogging this morning and you weren't in bed."
"Oh, erm…" she thought back…Herbology? I didn't – oh, that's right…Malfoy. I guess I should tell them.
"Guys, I have to talk to you."
"No sweat, Hermione, we already know!" exclaimed Ryou. Hermione was shocked. Did Seto tell them?
"Y-you do?"
"Yep! Saw you this morning. You two look so cute together!"
What is Ryou talking about?
"What?"
Yami Bakura smirked and pulled out a photo, giving it to her.
It was her, sleeping, her head leaning on Seto's chest, on the couch. She looked at him suspiciously, "you didn't duplicate this, did you?"
"Who me?" Bakura pointed at himself, innocently. "Of course not. I only made 6000 copied and gave it to the Creevys so they can make their newspaper!"
"Bakura!" she hissed.
"No, he didn't" Ryou glared at his other half, "I made sure of that."
"Well, I had something to tell you, other than that," she said, "I never went to Herbology last night." She glared at the Slytherin table. Malfoy was turned away from her, talking animatedly to his friends. He acted as though nothing happened. She bent her head closer, and the rest of them leaned in, so others wouldn't hear.
"You didn't go?" asked Harry, "then where were you?"
"Malfoy…he…" she still found it hard to explain, although she had told it to various teachers the night before, "he attacked me…"
"What?" Ron turned and looked at him, "that sludge-head, I'll show him…"
"Ron!" Hermione hissed, "I'm not done! It started as anything else, an insult affair. Then he started going nuts, talking about his father and how I stopped him from being 'the best'..."
"He didn't hurt you, did he?" asked Yami. Hermione looked at her arm, where Malfoy's grasp had slightly bruised it, "not really, but he tried to…" she brought her voice down to a low whisper, "he tried to kill me."
"WHAT?" yelled Ron. Half of the school turned to look at him.
"You couldn't do anything about it?" asked Marik.
"She couldn't," said Natasha, "Professor Sprout told her that she wouldn't need her wand and she left it on her beside table."
"Who caught him?" asked Yugi. A growl of frustration came from down the table. Set was hunched over How to Tie a Tie for Dummies.
"How does Seto do this? This book said 'simple instructions'!"
His book then was slammed shut as Seto sat down next to him, "Set, it's Saturday, and you don't need to wear it. No uniforms until class meets Monday."
"Oh," said Set, looking at Seto in his Battle City outfit and feeling foolish.
"So what happened?" Yugi asked.
"Seto intervened, just in time," said Hermione, "he was going to the Herbology lesson also, and took out Crabbe and Goyle, then froze Malfoy with the body bind."
"I thought you didn't need your wand for the lesson," said Yami.
"I always carry it around," shrugged the CEO, taking a bagel from the platter in front of him, "Ron, pass the butter."
"You did go to a teacher, right?" asked Harry. Hermione nodded.
"Professor Sprout saw us in the Great Hall and took us to Professor McGonagall. She couldn't expel him until she spoke with Dumbledore who wasn't in the school, but tried to take away all of Slytherin's house points, ban him from the Quidditch team, ban the team from playing for the rest of the year and give him detention till he was blue in the face, but she interrupted. Umbridge."
"I hate that woman…" muttered Seto. Hermione smiled.
"It was the greatest thing, she and Seto went into this all-out argument. He kept knocking her down every time she made a point. She was at the time where she couldn't take him anymore, and I don't blame her. He must have been twice her size and was freaking her out with one of those stares…"
"Oh! I wanna see!" smirked Marik, "show me the face you made!" Seto rolled his eyes and looked at the Egyptian.
"Do I really have to?"
Marik and Yami Bakura nodded.
"Fine," Seto thought for a moment, and pulled off what seemed to be a glare (that would probably make Voldemort whimper), a snarl, and a look of utter disgust. Marik scooted away from him.
"Okay…scary enough…"
"Anyway," said Hermione, "she was so fed up with the argument that she was losing badly that she tried to put him in detention and then the Headmaster arrive, ending the argument. Malfoy has a hearing tomorrow, and Dumbledore has his wand."
"I don't think Umbridge is finished with you either, Kaiba," said Bakura, "she's trying to pull off one of your looks." Umbridge was trying to glare Seto to death, not that it was working.
"Don't worry, Hermione," said Harry, "Malfoy won't hurt you anymore."
"We're all here for you!" exclaimed Marik.
"Thanks, guys." Hermione smiled, as the breakfast platters disappeared.
Monday, Defense Against the Dark Arts
"Okay, class, you know what to do," said Umbridge, sweetly, "read chapter 21 and take notes. There will be a quiz on the material tomorrow."
This battle isn't over…thought Seto.
"Mr. Muto," began Professor Umbridge, and Yugi and Yami both looked at each other. "Sorry, Yami Muto," said Professor Umbridge, "wand away. We haven't used it all year, there is no reason to have it out now."
"I have a question, ma'am," said Yami, but was interrupted.
"Your hand was not up!" Yami raised his hand, annoyed, but Umbridge turned away from him. Seto raised his hand. Great. Here goes Friday night all over again, thought Professor Umbridge, "Yes, Mr. Kaiba?"
"I have a question about the book…" Ha! Mr. High-and-Mighty is no longer High and Mighty! Our battle ends now!
"What section of the book, Kaiba?"
"The 'slashing spell' for example.(the spell that the Death Eater used against Hermione in the Order of the Phoenix, where the bright flame thingy zoomed across her chest and then she fell unconscious until she returned to Hogwarts.). I understand the theory behind the spell, but how are any of us going to learn to protect ourselves from it, if we don't use wands at all."
"Mr. Kaiba, as long as you understand the theory behind the spell, casting one is no problem." Seto smirked.
"the theory shows no instruction of casting, Professor."
"Then what are you implying, Mr. Kaiba?" (MINI ARGUMENT ALERT!)
"What I am implying is that instead of keeping our noses in a book that will get us nowhere in life, why don't you teach us how to cast a defensive spell?"
"The curriculum, approved by Minister Fudge, showed no need to use magic in a classroom, now get back to work."
"So that's it? What's going to happen we all leave here, and can't perform a simple spell! This is a school of magic! I could read this entire book, and do the things we do in here any day I want back home in Japan! I came here to learn how to cast spells, not to learn to read! Maybe you should change your lesson plans!"
"My lesson plans are just fine!"
Seto was standing now.
"We are in the middle of a war," hissed Seto, "or did you not notice that people are dying everyday. If a big, bad Death Eater knocked on Yugi's door, would he be able to save himself, or even try?" Yugi opened his mouth but Seto continued, "No, he wouldn't, because in Defense Against the Dark Arts class, when we were supposed to learn how to use defensive spells, we had our noses in a book that would mean nothing to us three years from now!"
"Mr. Kaiba," snarled Umbridge, "detention and 50 points from Gryffindor! Now sit down!"
"You don't get it, do you?" Seto hissed, "last year, Harry started a defense organization, against school rules, and he was almost expelled, but he did it because your class was worthless! The students in his club learned the things that should have been taught as select previous teachers were unable to do so. Why are you so against teaching us how to do something? Are you afraid that we will learn too much? Or can you not even perform the simplest of spells yourself?"
"MR. KAIBA! YOUR DETENTION IS TONIGHT AT SIX O' CLOCK! NOW LEAVE MY CLASS AT ONCE!"
"Heh, you don't have to order me out," Seto shouted, "because you won't find me back! I'm not setting foot in this class with you teaching unless you change how you run this room! Until we learn defensive spells, I'm out!" He collected his books and stormed from the room, slamming the door so hard the glass pane inside it shattered.
Professor Umbridge was very red in the face. "Now class…Mr. Bakura, what are you doing?"
"That goes for me as well!" Ryou also left the class, followed closely by Bakura and Marik.
"I'm leaving as well!" Harry jumped up and left the room.
Ron began to stand up but Professor Umbridge was too fast. "WEASLEY! SIT DOWN!"
"No, I support my friends, come on Hermione. Coming Yugi?" Professor Umbridge glared at the King of Games. "Forget her, Yugi, let's go." Before Umbridge knew it, all of her students, except for Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Jabot Flint, Theodore Nott, and Pansy Parkinson, had walked out of the classroom.
"Seto, are you going to her detention?" asked Marik. They had all gone to the library until their next class. "I'm debating it."
"Did you see the look on her face when the rest of the class began walking out?" asked Ron, "Ernie Macmillan (spelling?), from Hufflepuff, said your words made him think and he told me that he had to ask himself why he was still in class."
Hermione giggled, "yes, but Lavender and Paravati said that Romilda Vance thinks you are, how did she say this, 'awfully brave, handsome, and courageous to stand up to her like that and Paravati believes she's going to try to sneak you a love potion."
"Yea, right." "Pharaoh, wanna duel?" asked Bakura in the corner of the library, "I'm bored and we still have 20 minutes."
"Fine, draw your cards, not that it matters, I summon Exodia!"
"No fair! Forget it, I don't want to duel anymore."
At six, halfway through dinner, Harry saw Professor Umbridge leave the staff table.
"Err, Seto, I think the detention is real."
Seto sighed and finished his mashed potatoes. "I won't be long…" he got up from the table. He would soon learn that he would be gone for a long, long time.
"I'll see you later," he pecked Hermione on the cheek and left the Great Hall. Harry turned to his friends. "Um, Hermione? Do you still know how to get the murtlap stuff? I have a feeling he won't back for a while, and may need it…when he does."
Seto headed to Umbridge's office, and opened the door without knocking.
"Let's get this over with, I have a life to live."
"Very well," said Umbridge sweetly, handing him parchment and an extremely pointed quill.
"You're making me write lines? For how long?"
"As long as the message sinks in, trouble makers like you may be here for a while."
"Uh huh…there's no ink."
"Oh," she smiled, "you won't need any! It's a special quill with limitless ink already inside the tip. I want you to write 'I will respect my teachers' until I tell you to stop."
"Fine then…" he sat at the desk in the room, and began to write 'I will respect my teachers'. He then let out a gasp of pain. He wrote on the parchment, but the words appeared on the back of his right hand, then disappeared, the skin completely healed over, the lettering on the parchment in blood-red ink. He wrote again and it cut into his hand. Then Seto realized the ink was in his blood.
"What kind of quill is this?"
"Something wrong? The quill is normal!"
"This isn't normal…"
"Keep writing!" she called cheerfully, and then returned to the papers she was grading, ignoring Seto completely as if he was never there.
About four hours later, Seto paused writing. The message disappeared from his hand, leaving an imprint.
"Am I done yet?" She got off her chair and strode over to the table he was writing his line on.
"Hand?" her hand was outstretched, but Seto didn't show her anything. She grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand out, "hmm…not good enough. Keep going!"
"It's ten o' clock!"
"KEEP GOING!"
Seto rolled his eyes and kept writing. Soon after the message wouldn't disappear and his hand was beginning to throb. A clock chimed from the other side of the door leading into her classroom. Now it was midnight, and she wasn't letting him leave just yet.
Something strange broke Seto from his continual writing. Set was trying to contact him mentally, despite the fact he had a body of his own.
/Seto? Are you coming back yet/
/No, I'm still in detention…/
/Still? When is that woman letting you leave. Ron said that Harry was never in there that long/
/ Who knows? Just do me a favor and tell the mischievous thief to not get on my case when I get in, or he'll die again./
/Er...ok. Got it./
"Hello! Mr. Kaiba, you're not writing!"
Seto snapped back to attention, and kept going, annoyed for coming to the detention in the first place and wishing his quill and ink weren't in his bag back in the common room.
Professor Umbridge kept him until way past three in the morning, not letting him leave until his hand was rubbed raw, also giving him detentions until the end of the month. By that time he had left his first detention, Seto thought that he had cut into his hand so much, it had hit bone. He and his throbbing hand entered the common room. Not to his surprise, everyone was in bed. A bucket and a note attached was next to his laptop.
-Seto
This will help. Soak your hand in it.
'MioneFollowing his girlfriend's order, he dunked his hand into the murtlap. The redness around the words vanished, but the pain was still somewhat there and the words remained. After a few minutes, he vanished the murtlap from the bucket and headed up to his dormitory. Quietly, he slipped into his pajamas and collapsed onto his bed, falling asleep instantly.
Beginning of May, after the end of Seto's detentions
Malfoy's hearing had been a success. He had been expelled from Hogwarts, his wand snapped, and sent to Azkaban for using one of the Unforgivable Curses, the Avada Kedavra, to try and do Hermione in. The news had brightened Hermione's mood greatly.
Final exams neared, bringing onslaughts of homework and studying. Neville Longbottom was having breakdown, under the stress. Harry's dream from a month ago lay forgotten in his mind.
Eventually, Harry and his friends returned to Defense Against the Dark Arts classes, but Seto remained true to his word, not setting a foot into the room, except for detentions. For the rest of April, he had gone to Professor Umbridge's office every day at six o' clock, and wasn't allowed to leave until the wee hours of the morning, increasing the lines under his eyes and trips to the Kitchens for a continuous cup of steaming coffee, but after the first week, the caffeine stopped keeping him awake. After a month, his hand close to mutilated in severe cuts, was bandaged and his detention spree was over.
Yugi and his friends were surprised, entering Potions one day to find Professor Snape absent from class. Instead, to their dismay, the class was being watched by Professor Umbridge.
The instructions for their potion was on the board. Everyone sprang to work, pairing up with friends. Yugi and Yami decided to work with Seto, as certain instructions put the CEO at a disadvantage, his hand in loads of bandages, as the large cuts into his hand kept opening up at random times of the day, blood trickling everywhere, and there wasn't anything one could do about it. Ryou had sadly, partnered with his Yami, a mistake indeed.
"Come on, let me make it!" Bakura pleaded.
"And why would I want to do that?"
"PLEASE! It's my favorite class! Yey chemistry!" Bakura pouted.
"The only reason you enjoy this class, thief, is so you can blow something up in the teacher's face!"
"Precisely! Which is why the annoying toad leading this class needs to be put in her place!"
"Erm…no. Besides your wishes, O' Evil One, I plan to pass this class!"
"Oh, yea. You and the rest of the students. Please, let me! Please? Please? PLEASE!"
"Well……"
"THANK YOU!" Yami Bakura shoved Ryou out of the way and began to make the potion. Immediately, Ryou dashed to the other side of the room.
Yami cut Mandrake roots while Seto stirred the current 'something' in the cauldron.
"Uh oh," said Yugi, looking beyond his two partners to see Bakura at it again. "Bakura's making the potion."
"That means there's only one thing to do. We have to scoot our chairs furthest from Bakura as possible!" Yami declared.
Seto scooted his stool to the other side of the cauldron and continued to stir. Yugi and Yami did the same, bring their chairs as far as possible when…
KABOOM!
Some classmates poked out from under tables. Ryou got up from his shelter across the room. Bakura, O' Evil One, had triumphed again. Dolores Umbridge's eyebrows got burned off, her hair was gone, and resembled a bald toad, even more than before.
"Not much changed," Ron said to Harry as they left the classroom at the bell, "now, instead of looking like a toad, she's a bald, eyebrow-less toad."
Hermione turned to Yami Bakura, "what did you put in that potion?"
The thief thought for a moment. "Well, let's see. I snuck into Snape's office and took everything under the 'moderately dangerous' category! Man, next week, all out! I'm going for the 'highly dangerous – can be fatal' stuff! And all of that really bad stuff goes right into a Slytherin's cauldron!"
Later, during lunch, Marik noticed something odd. Snowball and Hedwig were flying toward them, the Daily Prophet in their beaks. Marik also noticed a load of other owls with the same paper.
"Guys?" he asked, "isn't it a bit late for owl post?"
Something must have happened in the Wizarding World…thought Yugi.
"And where's Dumbledore?" asked Harry, "he hasn't been at meals for over a week!"
"Hm…I wonder where he went," the Pharaoh thought aloud. Seto took the paper from his owl, stroking the bird with his bandaged hand. He looked at the front headlines and spit out the coffee he was drinking, spraying the Tomb-thief.
"HEY! KAIBA! What was that for?"
Ryou aimed his wand at the messy Yami, "Scourgify." The mess was gone.
"Guys," Seto said, reading the paper, "there was a breakout from Azkaban Prison."
"What?" asked Hermione, "a breakout! But the only time that happened was when Sirius Black escaped and that was three years ago!"
"Here, read the headlines for yourself." Seto handed off the paper.
MASS BREAKOUT FROM AZKABAN
"The worst breakout from Azkaban Prison in history," says Minister Cornelius Fudge, "every Death Eater escaped."
All of the Death Eaters, or supporters of You-Know-Who, escaped early this morning and are highly dangerous. Approach with caution. These Death Eaters are at large:
(Most of these first names are made up)
Henry Drawlish
Gregory Hanford
Neville Jugson
Gozaboro Kaiba (You're probably thinking- WHAT THE HAY-HO IS GOIN' ON? More will explain this later on. It is essential in the sequal to come, bear with me on it!)
James Lanairing
Aguaranzeb Lestrange (daughter of Bellatrix)
Rodolphus Lestrange (caught in the Department of Mysteries)
Draco Malfoy
Hunn'reh Mulciber
Theodore Nott, Sr.
James Rookwood
If one sights any of these wanted, waste no time contacting the Ministry at once…
"Wait a minute." Seto snatched the paper from Hermione ("Hey!") and his face paled.
What! This doesn't make any sense! How can my step-father be one of them! He disappeared when I turned fourteen and took over KaibaCorp! He's been missing since! How could he have joined Voldemort when on the other side of the globe! Thought Seto, Unless he was already a Death Eater when I was adopted! But I thought Yugi and I had gotten rid of him back in Noa's virtual universe. Instead of saving himself, Noa stayed back to prevent Gozaboro from escaping! There's no way he could be alive! That island blew sky high!
"Seto, isn't that your step-father?" Marik pointed to the picture of Gozaboro Kaiba.
"This doesn't make any sense at all," he said, confused. But wait! If we haven't seen the last of my stepfather, is Noa still alive as well? I have a feeling that if Gozaboro is back, he's going to come after me, for revenge, and will most likely use Mokuba to get his way. First Voldemort, now this! Why can't we have one normal week?
That's all!
I split the rest of this chapter into Chapter 22, the supposedly last chapter of Tom Riddle's Item, so now there's 23 chappies! Almost there...