Wow, this chapter was not easy to write. I had a massive case of writer's block, and I had to keep switching scenes suddenly and forcing myself to come back to it. Nonetheless, I'm relatively satisfied with how it turned out in the end.

I know that in the book they don't go to Diagon Alley for safety reasons, and I said I probably wouldn't include it, but I figured it would be a good way to incorporate . . Well, read on and find out, my friends.

I've included some Japanese/Egyptian names in here, they are flagged (with a *), and they will be explained in my end note.

-blah- = hikari/yami mind link

Blah = Japanese

I own absolutely nothing!

Enjoy! :3

Chapter 11

"GIRLS! We're leaving now!" Mrs. Weasley's exasperated voice came bellowing up the stairs. Accompanied by Moody and Tonks, the group was going to Diagon Alley to pick up school supplies, and Ellie and Hermione were running late. "The Knight Bus won't wait forever!"

"We're coming!" Hermione called back from her position at Harry and Ron's bedroom door. "Ellie! We shouldn't be doing this, it's a complete violation of priva-"

"Got it!" Ellie emerged from under Harry's bed, covered in dust and dirt, but triumphantly waving Harry's invisibility cloak over her head. "We're not invading his privacy Hermione, we're borrowing his cloak. You know Moody won't let Harry out of his sight! And if he knew what we were planning, he'd insist on coming. Him and Ron and Moody." They were planning on following the transfers today in Diagon Alley to see if they could figure up what was up with Ryou. After all, meddling is what they did best. "Besides, all five of us certainly can't fit under here." Hermione gave her a wry smile.

She stuffed the cloak into her purse. While it looked like a tiny bag from the outside, it was charmed to be able to hold anything the user put in it." Hermione had bought it for her last Christmas. "Thanks again for the purse, Hermione." Ellie grinned at her, and brushed all of the dirt off of herself.

"GIRLS!"

"We're coming!"

xxx

"The Knight Bus?" Yugi asked. "What is that?"

He got his answer immediately after as Moody pointed his wand at the street, and a violently purple triple decker bus came barreling down the street towards them. Apparently expecting this, the wizards all jumped back to avoid being hit. Yugi, Malik and Ryou were too late, and the bus screeched to a stop mere inches away from Yugi's nose.

"I'm sorry I asked. . ." Yugi mumbled, looking as though he was about to faint. Ryou knew how he felt, his heart was racing a million miles an hour. He looked at Malik, who was grinning as usual. It seemed that nothing, not even almost being hit by a triple decker bus, fazed this boy.

A pimply young man stepped out the door of the bus, and pulled out an index card. He began to recite it in a very bored tone. "Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. Just stick out your wand hand, step on board, and we can take you anywhere you want to go. My name is Stan Shunp-"

"We don't have time for this, boy!" Moody growled, ushering everybody on and fixating his magical eye on the startled youth.

"Well you might' have said so before," Stan snapped back indignantly. His eyes roamed over the group, until- "Oi! Neville! I was worried that ol' Sirius Black mighta gotten to ya!" He grinned so wide that Ryou worried that some of his pimples were in danger of popping, and grasped Harry's hand, eagerly pumping it up and down. "The Prophet has been having a field day with you, ol' mate." He lead them to a cluster of knocked over chairs in the back. "Well, sit down then!"

Ryou tentatively picked up a chair and took a seat, as he watched Tonks and Moody pull Stan aside and slipped him some big gold coins while arguing with him urgently.

-That's a lot of gold, Yanodoushi.- Bakura had slowly returned to his old self over the past few days. Ellie and her friends, however, were still very wary around the transfers.

-It must be their currency.-

-Can you get a closer look?- Another thing that the evil spirit had been doing lately was asking Ryou favors, as opposed to demanding them. Ryou certainly appreciated it, but he was still wary all the same.

-Not right now, Koe. I will ask later.-

Bakura growled, but dropped the issue.

"So where are we going to buy all of our supplies?" Malik asked Fred and George.

"Diagon Alley, of course!" They answered together.

"Which is where?"

"Ah, you go through the Leaky Cauldron." Said Fred.

"There's a barrier that only us magic folk can open. Muggles have no idea it exists, bless them." George said. "You'll find everything your little heart desires there, Ishtar." He grinned.

"Is there a game shop?" Yugi piped up eagerly.

"Yes there is! It's right next to the-"

"Book store." Harry and Ron both finished Hermione's sentence, earning themselves a glare from her.

Ellie laughed. "I'd like to challenge you to a game of exploding snap, Yugi." Her face fell a little bit. "I just have to buy a new deck, mine, well. . . Exploded."

Fred and George burst into laughter. "She built the biggest card tower I've ever seen!"

"Then George here came along-"

"And vanished the table-"

"It all came tumbling down-"

"Took out half of the common room!"

"And her eyebrows-"

"And quite a bit of her hair too-"

"That's enough!" Ellie interrupted crossly. "My hair just finished growing back in! And if you two were any kind of decent you'd buy me a new deck. It's your fault it exploded."

"Sorry El, our money is tied up elsewhere right now." The twins winked at Harry, who hastily looked away. Ellie apparently didn't notice this exchange, as she was too busy scowling and pointedly looking away from the twins.

She accidentally met eyes with Ryou in the process of this, and she hastily jerked her head away to face the window. It had been 4 days since Bakura had pushed her. The egg on her head had all but disappeared, but neither of them had mentioned it since his apology. Ellie still acted very polite to Ryou, and had even showed him how to perform a hover charm yesterday. Yet things between them were very tense, and she avoided eye contact. Ryou desperately wanted to tell her the truth, but Malik's mistrust of their new 'friends', and the thought of her getting hurt because of what she knew held him back.

Ellie's attitude towards Yugi and Malik was vastly different, however. She did not treat them as well as her 3 best friends, but she was certainly a lot more friendly towards them than Ryou. Yugi had been teaching her how to play Duel monsters properly, and she had gone over many potions with Malik. It seemed that she excelled in this subject, and Ryou couldn't help but be incredibly jealous that she was sharing her talents with Malik instead of him. He knew that Malik and Yugi did not care for Ellie the way he did, but this did not curb his jealousy at all. If anything, it made it worse.

Moody stumped over angrily, interrupting his thoughts. "Shunpike didn't like us requesting an early stop, but we eventually persuaded him to listen." Ryou guessed that they had persuaded him with another big stack of gold coins. "We'll be there in a few minutes."

"Take it away, Ern!" Stan called from up front.

BANG!

Every single chair flew backwards, and the kids landed in an ungraceful heap on the floor. The bus had flown forwards at such a speed that Ryou actually lost his breath, and he dizzily opened his eyes from his spot on the floor.

To his horror (and delight) he realized that Ellie had landed right on top of him. Ryou was essentially laying on Malik's legs, and Ellie was thrown haphazardly across his stomach, and Ron and George was on top of all of them. Their chairs had all broken in some way.

-Oh, look at you, Yanodoushi.- Bakura teased, referring to Ellie laying sideways across his stomach. He ignored his yami and blushed.

Moody, who had somehow remained standing throughout all of this, gave a gruff laugh at their misfortune and stumped his way up front to join Mrs. Weasley and Tonks.

Malik uttered some choice words in Arabic and Japanese.

Ryou looked over at the others, and noticed that they were tangled up in a similar heap of bodies.

"Get off of me, George!" Ron complained, shoving his older brother away.

"I can't breathe with you two great oafs on top of me!" Ellie joined in on the complaining, attempting and failing to lift herself off of Ryou. She awkwardly twisted her head around and looked at a spot somewhere on his forehead to avoid eye contact again. "Sorry Ryou!" He just blushed harder.

"Oi! Who are you calling an oaf?" George asked angrily, but finally got up. Ron was next, and the two of them pulled Ellie off of Ryou, who stood up shakily. He grabbed a nearby pole for dear life.

"My ribs! Oh, my ribs!" Malik, who was finally released, complained theatrically, clutching his sides.

"I don't think that I like the Knight Bus very much." Ryou said.

xxx

About a half hour later, the group split up. With strict orders from Moody, they knew that they had to stick in pairs, and stay in the populated areas. The transfers went off together with Tonks to get wands and robes, Mrs. Weasley took Ginny to pick up books for everybody, Fred and George went off without really explaining where they were going, and Moody stuck with Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ellie.

"If you think that I'm going to let you go off unprotected, Potter, you've got another thing coming." He growled, his magical eye looking every which way for potential threats. He led the way to Madam Malkin's, as Ellie needed a new cloak.

The two girls trailed behind a little bit so that they could talk without being overheard.

"You're doing a good job acting like nothing's wrong with the transfers, Ellie."

"Not with Ryou. I can't even look at him without thinking of that look he gave me the other night."

"Yes, well helping Malik with potions certainly is helping. And letting Yugi show you how to play Duel Monsters properly as well."

She murmured a tentative agreement, and then groaned. "We're never going to get away from them! Moody won't let Harry out of his sight!"

"Yes, we can. Follow my lead." Hermione pushed forwards into the clothing store. "They're having a sale?" She squealed excitedly, winking at Ellie.

xxx

Half an hour later, Ellie and Hermione's arms were laden down with robes, and they showed no sign of stopping. Harry, and Ron were sat on the bench designed specifically for men in their position, with their eyes glazed over. Moody stood watch at the door.

"Aren't you two finished yet?" Ron asked exasperatedly.

"No! Of course not!" Hermione looked scandalized. We haven't even covered the dress robe section yet! And we need to try them on."

Harry stood up. "We're out of here.. Sorry, guys, I can't handle this."

"Yeah," Agreed Ron. "This is worse than waiting for you and Harry to come out of the Chamber of Secrets, Ellie." He was referring to the cave in in the chamber which prevented him from helping Ellie and Harry go to his little sister's aid.

Ellie nodded understandingly. "Fine. But, before you go, can you tell me which you think would go better with my skin tone, the coral or the violet?" She held up two frilly sets of robes.

Harry and Ron blanched and bolted out the door.

The saleswitch approached Ellie with a similar colored set of robes. "I think that this would look lovely-"

"Oh, I don't care. Just give me any old thing." Ellie dumped her pile of robes into the saleswitch's arms. "I'm sorry. Can you put these back for me? I'll take the plain black one."

"Me too." Hermione proceeded to give her pile to the dismayed saleswitch.

"Don't you want to try it on?" She asked them hopefully.

"No thank you," said Hermione.

The girls quickly paid the confused woman, and shoved their purchases into Ellie's bottomless purse. They then ducked into an empty alley, and pulled the cloak over themselves.

"Let's find them."

xxx

Yugi looked at his list. "Okay, so we've got our wands, our robes, Mrs. Weasley's got our books, parchment, quills, ink and potion supplies. That just leaves pets."

Tonks grinned at them. "That's the best part! Look," She pointed at a store called Eeylops Owl Emporium. "Now, if you three don't mind, I have to get going. I have somewhere to be." She winked discreetly at Ryou. "I can take those purchases off of your hands if you wish." With a flick of her wand, all of their bags disappeared. "I expect that those turned up back at Headquarters. If not, well we can always come back, right?" She laughed. "Don't get into trouble now. As long as you stay on the alley you will be safe." Tonks grinned at them one last time, and hurried off into the crowd.

The three boys made their way off of the busy street and into the pet store. The bell over the door tinkled as they walked in. They were immediately greeted with the stench and the screeching of hundreds of owls, which instantly tempted Ryou to clap his hands over both his ears and his nose. The desk was vacant, so the clerk must have been out back.

"Wow!" Malik gushed in Japanese. "I've never seen so many animals in my life!" He was looking up at the owls all around him. There had to be hundreds of them. Feathers and droppings littered the floor, and the three walked in further to find rats, toads, cats, and birds of every size and color.

The bell over the door chimed, and the three boys turned around to see who else had came in. But there was no one there, it seemed that the wind had blown the door open. Ryou hurried over to close it.

On his way back, Ryou spotted a tiny kitten in a cage. The kitten's fur was as white as snow, and he was curled up in a tight ball, sleeping. When he approached, the kitten opened it's eyes and fixated the tiny green orbs on him.

Ryou was done for.

xxx

Bakura was done for.

He had a cat that looked exactly like that when he was a young boy, before the massacre. She had survived it, and he had taken her with him afterwards. She had lived long enough to watch Bakura become the Thief King. The cat had been one of the things that he had actually cared about in his former life.

-I had a cat exactly like that when I was young. Her name was Shu, after the Egyptian God. It means- -

-He who rises up.- Ryou tentatively smiled mentally.

-Yes. Yes it does.- Bakura held back a smile of his own, as he did not want to showcase his newfound affection for his hikari.

-I think that we've found our pet, Koe.-

xxx

Half an hour later, the three walked out of the pet store. Ryou had named his kitten Shu, in a strange moment of affection for Bakura. He had heard his thoughts on how much he had cared for his old cat. He was careful not to let Bakura know that he had heard, though.

Yugi was carrying a cage with a practical owl inside, so that he could communicate with his friends back home. He named it Akil*. It's eyes were a reddish brown color, which suspiciously reminded Ryou of Anzu's. When he noted this similarity, Yugi simply blushed and went mysteriously deaf until the subject was dropped.

Malik had his arms full of a kitten much livelier than the one that Ryou had chosen. The cat had been the tiniest one in the shop, and it was the runt of the litter. He was as black as night, and would not stay still. He kept trying to lick Malik's face, and was insistently determined to bat his long bangs out of his face. He named him Kuma**. The kitten certainly was not short on adorableness either.

The three boys were ecstatic at their newfound friends, and they were all gushing excitedly to one another as they walked down the street. This wizarding world was turning out to be a lot better than they thought. They were actually enjoying the new culture. They were definitely excited to go to Hogwarts in a few weeks' time.

xxx

"Ouch! Ellie that was my foot!"

"Sorry! Merlin, this used to be a lot easier before we grew, didn't it?"

"We? You didn't grow so much, El." Hermione smirked. "Ouch! What'd you smack me for?"

"I did so grow! Now shush, they'll hear us."

Ellie and Hermione had followed the transfers into the pet store, and were now watching them purchase their pets from a safe distance. Ellie was certainly at a loss for how they used to fit all four of them underneath this thing, as her and Hermione were having difficulty with just the two of them.

Ryou was just finished paying. Ellie couldn't help but notice the slightly greedy look on his face when he paid for his (adorable, she couldn't help but notice) kitten in galleons. It reminded her of the look he had on his face the night he had pushed her. She quickly hissed this revelation in Hermione's ear.

Her friend's eyes narrowed, and she insisted on shuffling a few feet closer to get a better look.

Nothing else eventful happened until they were out of the pet shop. The girls followed at a safe distance, confusing many tired looking shoppers as they were shoved aside by some mysterious invisible force.

"Sorry!" Hermione called back to an elderly witch that she had just knocked over. She just looked even more confused as she brushed off her robes, squinting suspiciously 5 feet to their left.

"Shh! You can't apologize! We're invisible for a reason, Hermione!"

"Oh, right." She blushed, and the pushed forward. "Let's get closer, I can't hear them properly."

"At least they're not speaking Japanese anymore."

They followed the boys, who had come to a sudden halt in front of Knockturn Alley. They were arguing quietly.

"Aha!" Hermione whispered. "They must be up to something here."

"Shh!" Ellie hushed her again. They were close enough to hear Yugi now.

"What does he want now, Ryou?"

"He wants to go down there, I can barely hold him back."

"Who?" Ellie and Hermione whispered simultaneously to each other. They inched closer still. They were standing dangerously close to the group now, only about 4 feet from Malik's back.

"Why?" Whispered Malik. "What's so important down there?"

Ryou paused for a moment, and he looked as though he was deep in thought. Then a look of horror came over his face. "Dark magic. No! I can't- Yami, help!" He looked desperately at Yugi, who instantly took on a look of sheer menace on his face. His eyes flashed, and when Ellie looked back at Ryou, he had the exact same look he had the night he pushed her.

"Thief, let him be." Yugi's voice was much deeper.

"I do not wish to harm my hikari at the present time, Pharaoh." Ryou's voice was different, as well.

"Huh?" Hermione whispered, but before Ellie could express her confusions as well, Ryou took off.

"No! Bakura!" Yugi called after him, his voice lower still, presumably with anger. He and Malik gave chase to him immediately.

"Come on!" Ellie started running after them, dragging a reluctant Hermione behind her.

"Oh, no no no no, not Knockturn Alley! Do you even know who comes-"

"Oh, shush! We're invisible! Now hurry, we're going to lose them!"

It was certainly a lot harder to run under an invisibility cloak, but thankfully this street was considerably less crowded than Diagon Alley. Even though they were a lot further behind, the girls could see where their marks were heading.

The further in they ran, the sketchier their surroundings got. Soon they were the only ones in the alley, and the boys turned a corner so that they came to yet another side street, encased by tall brick walls.

Because the boys were around a corner, Ellie and Hermione missed what happened next, but it was loud and sounded violent. They heard a voice, that sounded scarily like Ryou's, bellow in rage.

The pair finally rounded the corner to see a very strange sight: Yugi and Malik were holding up strange gold objects that were . . .glowing. Yugi's was an upside down pyramid shaped thing on a heavy set chain. Malik's was a stick with an oddly shaped winged ball on top.

"Bloody hell. . ."

Ryou was kneeling in front of them, holding his head. He had an object similar to that of Yugi and Malik's hanging from around his neck. It was a ring with several spikes hanging from the edges, and there was a triangular symbol on the centre. His face was twisted into an expression of pain.

Suddenly there was a flash of light, and another Ryou popped up out of nowhere.

Ellie gripped Hermione's arm, and gaped.

Hermione was speechless as well.

The new Ryou was slightly transparent, but this was most definitely the Ryou who had pushed Ellie and run off earlier. They were almost identical, the only difference was their eyes and their hair. The new Ryou's eyes were more angular, harsher, and his hair was spiked up menacingly. It was now clear that Ryou was being possessed by this darker being. And these objects that Yugi and Malik were holding out obviously had some sort of power as well, because they seemed to be keeping the evil Ryou at bay.

Taking in the strange scene in front of her, Ellie's eyes zeroed in on the ring around the evil Ryou's neck.

The grip that she had on Hermione's arm had gotten, if possible, even tighter.

"Hermione. . ."

"Shh! They're going to-"

"Hermione! I've . . .I've seen that symbol before."

"What?"

"That eye! On all of those gold trinkets . . . I've seen it before!"

And on that note, another Yugi appeared out of thin air, and they were all encased in a veil of darkness.

xxx

Juicy cliffhanger for you guys. I hate/love them. And I can't help it, I need to keep y'all interested.

* - Egyptian name, meaning intelligence. I think. I didn't put much thought into this one, I just liked the name Akil.

** - Japanese for Bear. I thought it was amusingly ironic, considering how small the cat is. It sounds like something that Malik would do, no?

Can anybody guess where Ellie has seen the Eye of Horus before? I'll give you a hint, I've included it in this story somewhere before.

Love you guys! Please let me know what you think of my story so far! The pretty little review box is right down there!