So I made it back! Er, I got a bit stuck on this chapter, but I'm trying my best to get the chapter updated to get back to semi-regular updates at the very least, so hopefully, the next chapter won't take so long!

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy this chapter!

To avoid confusion:

Words Yami speaking mentally

Words Yugi speaking mentally

"Words" Characters speaking Japanese

"Words" Characters speaking Ancient Egyptian

"Words" Characters speaking Arabic

"Words" Characters speaking Akkadian

"Words" Characters speaking Old English

It was always a very strange sensation entering the Puzzle, or well, a soul room if he was honest. First, there was an odd tugging at the navel, a feeling of weightlessness as you were sucked inwards before your feet hit not-quite-there ground. Yugi was used to arriving in his own split soul, standing normally within a corridor divided up between his own room and Yami's labyrinth.

Harry's soul room was neither.

Yugi didn't know what a normal soul room was supposed to look like. Perhaps like the inside of his own room, a miasma of interests and images of his friends. A child's room filled with things he held important and the people he held dear. Yami's was blank, a maze the imitated the confusion of his self and person. Harry's was… not like that.

They arrived inside a room that should have screamed Harry Potter. One corner held pictures, memories of Quidditch matches along with the shining new badge of 'Captain'. A broomstick was leant up against the wall along with other equipment which Yugi supposed was meant for the sport. The walls were definately covered in images of his friends, and even a small section left for his parents. A pretty red-haired woman and a man who was the spitting image of Harry with brown eyes. Yugi turned away, knowing all things to do with lost parents were private. He had never asked Kaiba about his parents and he was not going to start now with Harry.

It was the back left corner which concerned him, and apparently Atem as well. It was dark, oozing shadows from a broken door. At least, Yugi thought it was a door. It was shattered and cracked into seven unequal pieces- only the smallest was the most corporeal but they flickered. Whatever the other pieces were, they fluctuated in how real they were. There was a faint sound of hissing, a small photograph of a snake in a zoo sat just next to the door. Yugi was about to step towards it, but Atem caught his arm instead.

"Where are we?" Harry asked from behind them, looking a little disoriented.

"Your soul room," Yugi said gently. "Careful, it confused me the first time I ended up in mine."

"My what?" Harry asked, frowning at Atem's back.

"Your soul room, a reflection of your self. My apologies that we entered without complete permission, the Pendant allows for that, however it is still considered rude without a reason. This is, after all, your most intimate sense of self. Be assurred, neither Yugi nor myself will touch or change anything." Atem paused, never having turned away from the strange door, connected to nothing. "Nothing that should be here, that is."

"What is that?" Harry asked, curious despite himself.

"Something that should not be here." Yugi swallowed and gripped Harry's arm a little tighter.

Yugi knew extra doors were not a staple of other people's soul rooms. It was something Yami and Pegasus had been adamant about, that he and Yami were the anomaly and not the norm. Harry, however, had no way of knowing that and remained confused as to the importance of what was being said.

"What do we do about it?" Yugi asked cautiously. Atem took a step forward, an faint golden aura flickering around him. He made a movement, almost like he was poking the shadows before turning to Yugi with a familiar smirk.

"We wake the beast."

Harry was very confused. Apparently, not only was he standing within his very own soul, there was something wrong with it. Everything in here seemed familiar, even the door that Atem was poking right now, like an overly curious cat. He was still waiting for the inevitable snap of the irritated snake to strike back.

Yugi had backed the pair of them up to a different door that materialised behind them. It was then that Harry noted that Yugi was dressed in his usual Muggle clothing. Atem, it seemed, always dressed in robes of some kind but it was always kind of jarring, seeing Yugi's preference for tight leather and many belts. He had also been previously unaware how strong the smaller boy was. He was tiny, but compact, and held Harry with a grip that practically screamed that he wouldn't be able to move, even if he used every muscle Quidditch had given him.

"So, what are we doing?" Harry asked after several moment passed with nothing happening. Yugi stayed tense next to him as Atem flicked what might have been golden dust at the shadowy door as casually as he might flick a particualrly aggravating fly.

"Right now, seeing if we can get a reaction. If not…" Atem shrugged, taking another step closer. Yugi blinked a moment before making an unintelligible noise.

"You're not going through there are you?" he asked, sounding slightly disbelieveing. Atem shot another smirk behind him.

"Easiest way to get a reaction." There was a moment of silence where Harry got the feeling Yugi was trying to process that.

"You know, I thought Kaiba was joking when he said you had less self-preservation than me," Yugi stated numbly. Harry wondered when that had been brought up- Atem, however, merely laughed and said nothing more.

It didn't take much longer to get a 'reaction' from the door. Atem flicked another cloud of golden light at the door and there was an unearthly shriek. The prince barely managed to duck the huge snake head that suddenly emerged, snapping barely a hair's breath from where Atem's head had been a moment before. Harry gaped as the prince grinned back at them, eyes alight.

"I think we've well and truly made him mad now," he smirked.

"And the reason we're pissing off the guy on the other side?" Yugi asked.

"I'm curious how one traverses through such a place. And if we can get this sliver on this side of the door, it will be nothing for the Spirit of the Pendant to deal with it." Yugi blinked, frowning.

"So, your big plan this whole time was to use the Pharaoh to deal with something you didn't even know you were going to find?" Yugi asked sceptically.

"I had an idea," Atem argued, looking a little confused. Yugi stared at him a moment before dropping his head on Harry's shoulder with a groan.

"I should have known," he muttered into Harry's back as Harry stared between them both. Atem shrugged in confusion.

"Um, I have a question," Harry stated into the void, hoping to ignore whatever was going on with Yugi. "Is there supposed to be a giant snake spewing door in my soul?"

"No," Yugi's muffled voice from behind him stated. "We can leave because Atem helped to create a connection between you and the Puzzle, but that should be the only door in here."

"That, however, leads to someone else," Atem noted, sounding more curious than wary of the door. It was the most animated he had seen the other boy. "If what I have discussed with Severus is right, then most likely it is the root of the horcrux linking you with this Voldeymort." Harry snorted at the odd pronounciation of 'Voldemort' including the 't' at the end.

"What's a horcrux?" Harry asked instead. Atem's face darkened suddenly, glancing towards the snake, still viciously hissing, venom dripping from inordinately long fangs. It was a little more docile now, but Harry wondered for how long.

"A dark piece of magic, for your world. Latin magic very rarely dabbles in the soul due to how complex a soul can be. Soul magic varies from person to person, but at it's core, a person who uses magic to kill can split their soul and preserve a piece of it within an object. In Latin magic, this is known as a horcrux, but they are incredibly difficult and doubly painful to make," the prince explained, eyeing the snake with distaste.

"So, what's the horcrux linking me to Voldemort?" Harry asked, feeling more curious than concerned. This could be an advantage over He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Atem glanced at him, face blank.

"The Killing Curse," he stated bluntly. Yugi flinched behind him and Harry stared.

"Huh?" was the most intelligible sound that left Harry's mouth. Atem pressed his lips together, all signs of earlier mirth gone.

"When you… theoretically stopped Voldemort at the age of one, you did so because of the blood magic from your mother. But the curse was powerful and so it ripped the remnants of Voldemort's soul to pieces. Most of it reassembled itself into the form who saw rise last year, or so I am told. The other… latched on to the only other living thing in the house." Harry stared, feeling as if he had just been dunked into ice cold water.

"It… latched on to me?" he said slowly.

"Yes," Atem said quietly. "There was… a prophecy that both Voldemort and Dumbledore believe in."

"Really?" Yugi asked, edging around Harry to put himself between Harry and the snake. Harry blinked staring at the usually meek boy, thinking back to the comment Marik had made, about duelling on broken piers and jumping first into danger. He thought he understood it a little more now.

"Mmm," Atem hummed, stepping to the side as the snake made another lunge at him, barely looking at it. "The problem is, there is always more than one way to fulfill a prophecy." Harry got the distinct feeling he wasn't just talking about the one regarding Harry.

"And how else is this prophecy supposed to be fulfilled?" Harry asked, trying to get a closer look at this horcrux. If it was a part of Voldemort, it might help give a clue how to destroy the rest of them. Atem shrugged.

"Anyone born at the end of July really," he said almost casually. "Someone Voldemort has personally opposed. The Potters, the Longbottoms, any remnants of the Prince family he thought he could get his hands on…" he trailed off a moment frowning. "Well, those born in July that is."

"Who are the Prince family?" Harry asked. That was a name he had never heard when speaking of the previous war.

"Try looking up Eileen Prince," Atem threw out absently, eyeing the door. "I think he might have recovered enough from the headache I gave him by now." The snake had retreated suddenly, the hissing emitting from the door far louder.

"Is that what you were doing?" Yugi asked, suspicious.

"Amongst other things," Atem noted offhandedly, the smirk creeping back on his face. Yugi grumbled something distinctly unflattering in Japanese, already pushing Harry further towards the door behind them.

"Get ready to run," Yugi warned. "When you open the door head for the door on the right. The Pharaoh will point you in the right direction."

"Your spirit friend?" Harry asked warily.

"Yeah," Yugi muttered, eyes narrowed, left arm raised. Harry was surprised to see a Duel Disk on his arm, loaded already with a deck. Atem didn't seem to notice, or if he did, paid no attention to the appearance of the piece of technology.

"I'm not running," Harry said adamently. "I've-"

"Whatever you're about to say won't matter. This is your soul linked to soul magic. Forget everything you've previously learnt," Atem snapped, eyes never leaving the door, tense, waiting for the next move. "This will be nothing like facing the man in the corporeal world." Great Harry thought. Useless even in my own soul.

It wasn't often he gave in to such self-deprecation, but it seemed appropriate here, especially when the spectral form of Voldemort stepped through the door, face twisted into a snarl.

Yugi eyed the form of the… thing that was supposed to be behind the door warily. It was tall, skeletal, draped merely in dark robes. Thin, slitted eyes blinked, revealing a snake-like double eyelid over ruby irises. It was bald as an egg, nose nothing more than thin slits in the face over bleached white lips. It snarled in something akin to the snake that had preceeded it. Atem gave it a slow blink, one arm blocking both him and Harry from moving forward, despite him being shorter than the other boy.

"Lord Voldemort I presume," Atem noted calmly. His fingers twitched- the sign for them to get ready to leave. The creature hissed out what might have been a laugh.

"And you have foolishly allowed me inside the mind of Harry Potter." Yugi couldn't see Atem's face, but he knew, just from knowing Yami, that he would have cocked an eyebrow just to let Voldemort know exactly how unimpressed he was at your idiocy. It was an expression that usually ended in a fight, or them running away from something (Yugi still had a scar from the time Yami had decided to pull that one out on a knife-wielding thief who had stupidly decided to mug the short, unassuming kid walking home alone about a year ago. Somehow, Yami had come out of that fight with nothing more than a single scratch- the thief, not so much).

It worked just as well against evil noseless wizards apparently, as Voldemort let out a screeching hiss and raised his wand. Yugi might have rolled his eyes if Atem hadn't given the universal gesture for 'go' at right that moment. So he did the most sensible thing in that moment: he dragged a resisting Harry who had started going for his wand (which Yugi could have told him wouldn't be there- there was a metaphysical version of it on the nightstand in the opposite corner but not on him) out into the corridor created by the Puzzle.

Harry wrenched himself from Yugi's grip as soon as he loosened it. Atem slammed the door behind him as he joined them in the corridor, preventing the boy from jumping back into danger.

"What did you do that for?" Harry asked, sounding irritated. "I've fought him before!"

"Yes, I heard," Atem stated. "However, this is your soul and I said before, we are not damaging anything that is supposed to be in there. Now come." It was an order not a request and Yugi dragged Harry along when he refused to follow. They didn't have time before Voldemort worked out not only where they went, but also, Yugi didn't doubt the man knew how to use a doorknob. Soul doors did not, after all, have locks.

"Where are we?" Harry asked after a moment. The walk between Harry's soul room and Yami's was somewhat longer than Yugi was used to. His door was situated opposite Yami's so it was merely a matter of stepping out of one door and into the other. For Harry, they had to walk the length of the corridor- however long this would turn out to be.

"The metaphysical space between your soul and the Puzzle," Atem stated as if that explained everything. Yugi raised an eyebrow. He had always been curious what this corridor was considering others such as Shadi had accessed it in the past.

"So we're walking through nothing?" Yugi asked, confused. Atem shrugged.

"Not really. More like you're walking on the mental projection of what you think the gap between two minds should look like. Shadi has always been a stickler for long hallways." Yugi frowned, glancing towards Atem for that last flippant comment. How does he know Shadi was the first time I ended up here? It was another moment of someone knowing something they shouldn't and Yugi was starting to think that perhaps even Atem wasn't aware of some of the things he said.

"So it just appears how you think it should?" Harry asked, still looking confused. "What would happen if you just thought that the space between souls was just blank space?"

"Then we'd be walking through blank space until we reached our destination. Would be easier to confuse the horcrux though," Atem noted almost lightly before slowing. Before them were a pair of identical doors, except one held a Sennen Eye, the other was blank. "Take the door to the right." Harry blinked at the abrupt change of mood.

"Why not the left?"

"Because the left is mine," Yugi said, dragging Harry already towards Yami's door. It wasn't his fault that he was so in the dark about how Shadow Magic worked after all, so he could forgive Harry for almost ending up somewhere he shouldn't. To Harry's credit he blushed slightly.

"Oh, right. Sorry." Yugi ignored him in favour of opening Yami's door. Behind was the familiar labyrinth, minus one spirit. Yugi wondered, briefly, where he was but didn't have time.

Behind them there was a brief cry of anger and a crash.

Nofret did not like being locked out of the room. She stood outside the door, shifting nervously, poking at the barriers that Severus had put up, wards that kept even her out. Which was probably a good thing, because she didn't need to see the consequences all over again, but it didn't help the fact that she still couldn't sense what was going on either. It was either going right or had gone horribly wrong.

That was what happened when you mixed Shadow and Akkadian magic.

It didn't help that the ever present aura of the Orichalcos still hovered over the school. She shivered, pulling her clothes tighter around her, despite not having been able to feel the cold for five thousand years. She'd go to find her sister but, it was happening again. And Nofret knew, what had happened in the past, could very well happen again. Thankfully, her sister had taken the time to distance herself from the school for a while, to shake off the influence of the stone, but it would make her all the more vulnerable when she returned.

It wasn't her fault, she thought stubbornly, wandering back up the corridor. Just as Necrophades wasn't Akhefia's. That reasoning might work better if things weren't hitting quite so close to home as they had in the past.

Marik was stood at the end of the corridor, shadows hiding his form from sight as students passed. A mild redirection spell had people looking everywhere except the hallway she was stood within. She almost smiled and skipped her way over to the other boy. It didn't matter to her whether he had been a Rare Hunter or a camel- he was one of their own and had freed himself of the overwhelming control of Necrophades, diluted as it had been through the Rod.

It was also fun to see him jump when she appeared right next to him.

"Hello," she grinned as he recovered, sending her an annoyed glance, before checking no one had seen him. "How is it going in the Common Rooms?"

"About as well as it can," Marik muttered, watching as the blonde boy who had once ruled Slytherin wandered down the corridor, oddly alone.

"Why don't you try talking to him?" she suggested. Marik frowned.

"Why? He's the one most influenced by Voldemort." She sighed and rolled her eyes.

"So were you, once." Marik's eyes widened but she disappeared through the wall before he could say more. He already realised where they had gone wrong the most. Akhefia would never have been able to help with that- too much time spent around sneering nobles and the contempt of history long dead had left him too caged behind mental defences to spot this particular opening. And an opening it would be should Marik get through to him.

She skittered along, creeping past the door to the Orichalcos holder's bedroom but paused at the low keening cry of the Monster huddled right outside. Her feathers were drooping, the primaries dropping and matted. Nofret bit her lip as the Monster stared up at her, shivering, left alone to rot by her adored Master.

"Please," the Monster begged, eyes wide, "please, help him."

"I can't," Nofret whispered, tiptoeing closer, holding out hands so translucent one could see the flagstones of the floor beneath them. "I'm sorry." She remembered Mahad's own despair, watching over the centuries, time after time, as a soul shattered faded and died, until enough pieces came together again to coalesce into a being, only to fade and die once more.

"Please," the Monster murmured, huddling closer into herself. "Please." Nofret swallowed, sitting carefully across from her.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I wish I could, but there's only so much I can do. Sister would help too if she could but…" The Monster looked away, a tear dripping down her face. "But I could ask Baba," she thought out loud. "If he knew if something could be done, he would do it in a heartbeat." The Monster looked up, alarmed.

"No! I would never-!"

"Baba knows of him anyway. Of what he is and why he can see you," Nofret said solemnly, serious for once. "And he will always help those in need, even to the detriment of his own health." The Monster glanced away again, hugging her knees tight.

"The Magician cares for him a great deal. I… We would never wish a greater hurt upon him again." Nofret paused and then reached forwards, knowing what would happen despite her best attempts. She might be able to make herself corporeal after some effort, but neither she nor Haphiri had the power to touch Monsters of the Realm. The Monster glanced up anyway, surprised by the fingers that phased through her cheek.

"What's your name?" she asked. The Monster blinked.

"Eatos. My Master calls me Eatos." Nofret smiled, something closer to a smirk that might have once been found on her own brother.

"Well, Eatos, Mahad would never want you to suffer either. And he has a certain score to settle with this Dartz."

Harry stared at the space ahead of him, trying to figure out exactly which way was up. He was stood in what could only be described as a labyrinth of doors, stairs and stone. Yugi barely gave him a moment before dragging him forwards towards a stairway ahead of them, at least three doors lying on their side further up it.

"Er, Yugi, how do we even find our way out?" he asked, slightly panicked. Well, now it made sense why they had lured Voldemort here. If they couldn't find their way out, then You-Know-Who had no chance.

"We'll get out, don't worry," Yugi reassured him without looking back. "I've wandered through here a bunch of times. If we get lost, the Pharaoh will help us get back out again."

"What about Atem?" The other boy had stayed behind at the door, bait if ever Harry had seen it, a confident smirk in place. Yugi shrugged.

"I'm sure he'll be fine." With that they plunged further into the labyrinth, up stairs and through doors sideways, and even at one point making a dizzying jump to run up some stairs which were going along the wall. Apparently, gravity worked however it liked in this place.

He was just beginning to get why Atem had said to forget what he knew about magic now.

There was an angry shout behind them and suddenly, Atem burst through a door to their right, patting out at some flames on his robe sleeve. Harry almost ploughed right into him, quick reflexes honed by Quidditch being the only thing that saved them both.

"Atem!" Yugi yelped, skidding to a stop ahead of them, having just missed the other boy himself. "What happened?"

"Voldemort just realised why opening random doors doesn't work," Atem said with a wry grin.

"What?" Harry asked, blinking. He hadn't seen any doors spewing fire to his knowledge.

"This place is full of traps and dummy doors," Yugi explained. "Voldemort probably just fell right into one. I've seen it happen before." He paused then, thinking. "Although, I'm surprised we haven't fallen into any either."

"I thought you had been here before?" Yugi shrugged nonchalantly.

"It changes all the time. Before the Pharaoh found me last time, I almost got squished by a counterweight behind one of the doors. Forgot it was there, until I remembered it did the same thing to Shadi." This was the second time they had brought up this mysterious 'Shadi', but Harry had decided back in the corridor that he was probably not going to get an answer to that. After all, the last time he had tried prying into their business, had not gone well and after this experience, he wasn't sure he wanted to.

"That won't happen," Atem said calmly, glancing about. "There's a safe place close by- I'll take you there before going to sort out the horcrux. When that's done we'll be able to return to the others."

"How do you know there's a safe room in here?" Yugi asked, sounding oddly suspicious. Atem gave no reply, merely turning and leading them through the maze for a while. Harry shared a glance with Yugi- something was going on here that neither of them understood.

Atem seemed to instinctively know his way around, warning Harry off of opening one door in favour of going through a different one. Two more gravity defying trips up odd directions of stairs, down another corridor and, at one heart-stopping moment, jumping across a chasm between two open doors set in the floor because apparently there was a bottomless pit inside of them, and they stopped before a new door, one that even Yugi had apparently never seen before. It looked like the pictures in Yugi's pseudo-history books, like the entrance to a tomb. A stone door carved with glyphs, both Egyptian and something else, wound around each other in a dizzying swirl it hurt to look at.

"In here," Atem said, ushering them into a room that was almost pitch black. "Touch nothing."

"Where are we?" Yugi asked, glancing around as he stepped inside. "I've never seen this room before."

"You have to know where to look," Atem stated, side-stepping the question entirely. Yugi narrowed his eyes, which was the last clear thing Harry could make out as Atem shut the door, plunging them into darkness.

"Um… are we sure this is a safe space?" Harry asked into the gloom. One corner seemed lighter than the others- he could just make out a Duel Disk sat next to something that looked suspiciously like the device on Atem's arm. Sat neatly in between these two objects was a Dark Magician Duel Monsters card. Both items lay neatly in the seat on a golden chair, almost like a throne.

"I think it is," Yugi said, sounding oddly subdued. In the gloom he could make out a vague outline of the other boy, the blonde bangs reflecting in the dim light. "I think… well, if the Pharaoh never found this room, I doubt Voldemort will be able to come across it by accident." Harry wondered what he was thinking.

"You know what this place is?"

"Maybe." A pause and then, "What do you think, Atem?" Silence. Harry blinked and watched as Yugi's outline turned. No doubt, he, too, was sporting a frown. "Atem?" There was a soft yelp and a clinking noise, as Yugi fell. Something skittered into the light, a torch Harry hadn't noticed before flaring before dimming once more.

"You alright?" Harry asked, leaping forwards to help the other boy up.

"Yeah, it's just so dark in here…" Yugi trailed off, eyes caught on something. Harry turned to see what had caught his attention, blinking as the gems on the thing reflected torchlight into his eyes, blinding him a moment.

When he could see again, sat neatly at the base of the throne was a dagger, silently dripping blood on the floor. It took Harry a moment to realise where he had seen it before. It belonged to the elder ghost sister, Haphiri.

It felt as if his stomach had just dropped out under him.

Atem ignored the ache in his chest, digging in through his ribs, as he raced through the various corridors, not bothering to question the wisdom of leaving the pair in that particular room. It was the only place here where neither of them would be likely to fall into trouble, whether on accident or deliberately. Trouble magnets, the pair of them.

The horcrux was around here somewhere, and Atem knew he needed to find him quickly. The longer he drew this out, the more painful it would be. There was no Mahad here to back him up if things went wrong. The warding would prevent the horcrux from leaving any of their bodies, even prevented it from taking over. It seemed Voldemort hadn't worked that part out yet however.

He wondered how much of a headache those flames had given him.

Atem smirked when he heard the screams up ahead. The horcrux had dug itself out of the hole it had fallen into, it's robes singed and smoking as it cast spell after blasting spell at the walls, looking for a way out. He waited a moment, wondering if it was worthwhile to point out that everything it was doing was pointless. Once one entered the labyrinth, they could not leave without the permission of the caster. A neat trick, with minimal effort if you did it properly. And didn't self-combust when casting it in the first place.

"You," the horcrux hissed, as Atem stepped out of the doorway he had been lounging in. "What have you done?"

"Absolutely nothing," Atem noted dryly. "You brought this on yourself." In a way, Atem added in his head. "It is, after all, incredibly rude to barge into someone's mind uninvited."

"Ah, but I was," the horcrux sneered. "You did so."

"Provocation is not an invitation." Atem sighed, deliberately inspecting his nails. "But I suppose no one told you that." The horcrux growled.

"You will pay for that." Atem didn't bother to side step the hissed spell that came his way. The green light fizzled out before it even left the wand. He smirked.

"Tell me, Thomas Marvolo Riddle. How much do you actually know about Soul magic." The horcrux howled is frustration, attempting to send off another spell, ignoring the encroaching shadows creeping up on it. Shadows coalesced into a ball within his hand and Atem spared the horcrux one last glance. "It seems no one has told you that you are completely outclassed both here and on the outside."

It seemed that this was the moment the horcrux realised it had nowhere to go. Shadows encroached on its feet, creeping up its robes as it screamed.

"I'm afraid there's no saving this part of your soul, Riddle," Atem murmured as the Shadows wrapped around the horcrux as it screamed and thrashed futilely.

It took barely five minuets for the soul piece to die. Sighing, Atem braced himself as, harnessing the powers of the Pendant, he pulled the three of them back to themselves.

Yugi gasped as it felt like he slammed back into his body. The bone-chilling sensation brought on by the sight of that dagger hadn't faded, let alone when the screaming had started. He couldn't have said what Atem did, but he assumed between him and Yami, they had destroyed the soul piece that had occupied Harry's mind. He pulled himself up from Harry's shoulder, pretending not to see the other boy wipe drool from his mouth as he blinked groggily.

"Ugh," Harry muttered, "Why does my head hurt?"

"You just had a piece of Voldemort's soul removed from your own. A headahce is the least of your worries," Snape noted dryly from a corner of the room. Kaiba ignored them both, eyes trained on his cousin who had yet to open his eyes.

"Right," Harry said, sounding slightly unconvinced. "So what-?" He was cut off by the shuddering gasp Atem made, right before he choked.

"Atem!" Kaiba yelped, jumping out of his own chair to support him as Atem bowed forwards, gagging. Blood splattered the ground, interrupting the lines of Coptic, runes and cuneiform warding them. Atem retched, and Harry jumped back, alarmed.

"What…?" Harry asked, appearing lost. Yugi barely heard him.

"Atem, what's happening?" he asked, leaping forwards himself. The other boy coughed, more blood spilling from his mouth, unable to speak. Yugi was shoved out of the way by Snape as the teacher descended on them.

"He needs to be taken to the Hospital Wing," Snape snapped, scooping Atem up. Yugi watched as the other boy gasped for air, arms wrapped around his chest as if it were diffcult to breath. "It's time to leave." They were given no choice as Snape swept out of the room, rushing up and out of the dungeons. Yugi opened his mouth to ask further questions but was shushed by Bill, his face grave.

"Not here," Bill said as they arrived back to where Marik was. Akhefia's face was grave, lips pressed in such a thin line, they were practically invisible. Marik was pale in the dim light of the torch he was stood under.

Yugi swallowed. A theory was niggling in the back of his mind, an idea that had been growing since he had seen that dagger, in a room that not even Yami had found.

"Is anyone going to explain what's going on?" Harry demanded mulishly. Bill gave him a sharp look, as did Akhefia who glared before running after Kaiba, most likely to keep an eye on Atem. Mahad had disappeared entirely and Yugi didn't want to think about that right now.

"Tomorrow," Yugi murmured tiredly, eyeing where Yami had phased out of the Puzzle to stare in the direction everyone else had gone, eyes far away. Yugi noted that the Pharaoh, too, was holding his side, as if in phantom pain. "We'll talk about this tomorrow. For now… I think we all need sleep."

He really hoped he was wrong.

Hold on to your hats guys, it's about to become a very bumpy ride! Apologies once again for the long delay, I started writing this chapter ages ago, got stuck in the middle, got worried about how the first half sounded compared to the previous chapter, then came back and re-read it after leaving it for a while. All while looking for a new computer, new job and writing my own original story. Er... lesson of the day, don't take on too many projects by yourself!

For anyone wondering, I had a question posed to me on AO3 if Snape was a Shadow Monster. Short answer: no, although I do find the idea intriguing. Long answer:... spot the Merlin references. They are in here. I did however change my mind on a few things, but it still works in the context of this story. As for Atem... I'm sorry, I'll stop with this eventually. But er, it's not soon, and I can't say much more for spoiler reasons!

I'm afraid I don't really have much else to say in this instalment, other than I hope you enjoyed and I will hopefully have the next chapter up in the next couple of weeks since, due to coronavirus, job hunting is a task right now :)

FireKing492: This was very fortuitous reviewing because I was literally writing up the chapter when I got the notification of this review XD And you seem really more on top of your projects than I am, and I wish you luck! I hope you enjoy this chapter as well!

Az-Bebere: Oh, we will get to Raphael and the fallout next chapter. Which might be a bit of an exposition dump, but we all need an obligatory 'explain this twist of the story' chapter. I will be honest though- the whole ritual part did my brain in for a while. In the end I stuck with my original route: the wards were set up by Snape, Bill and Atem (which will be explained next chapter I promise) as both a preventative and precautionary measure. There will be no rampant horcruxes on a teacher's watch- or at least that should be the attitude but, well, Dumbledore has got to be Dumbledore. Anyway, explanations pending, I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

Guest: Well, I thank you for reading my story despite the additional OC's :)