Hunt for the Items
27.

They thanked Ryou and sent him off with a sneak cheering charm, because they all feel bad (and they don't all want to just cast on a whim, because overpowered cheering charms are a torture in themselves).

That left them with some time to kill (with ghost-hunting and the good old paper research) until their scheduled meeting with Pegasus J Crawford.

They left Hermione to the latter, while Harry and Ron walked down the unfamiliar streets. 'How do you even look for a ghost anyway?' Ron complained.

Harry shrugged. Usually they just asked other ghosts, but Domino City wasn't Hogwarts.

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28.

They didn't find Shadi. They did, however, find some things from the museum, and a few names that led them right back to the university and Ryou Bakura.

He was far happier when they weren't inquiring about the Ring, and helpfully introduced them to the papers and professors they needed. Knowledge that may have been too much, or not enough, or unimportant leaves in a forest but Hermione was meticulous like that. And she soaked it all up like a sponge.

She must have gotten something useful out of it too, because her next plan of attack was visiting Egypt.

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29.

'Echoes,' she explained excitedly. 'We can follow the echoes. All the Millennium Items originated from the Valley of the Kings. That's their birthplace and their resting place too, so their presence is strongest there. It's like how the hocruxes were linked to Hogwarts –'

'That's a bit of a stretch,' Ron said sceptically.

'Not really, since it's true,' Harry shrugged. 'But that was more Tom's sentimentality.'

Ron snorted.

'What?'

'You just called You Know Who – '

'For heaven's sake, Ron.'

' – all right, Voldermort, sentimental.'

'Well,' Harry shrugged again. 'He was. Trinkets from the four Founders. And a diary?'

'Point.'

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30.

They went to Egypt. It wasn't too much trouble, for two wizards and a witch (no more so than going to Japan, anyway). The Valley of the Kings proved a little harder to find.

Luckily, they had contacts. Kind of. It might have been smarter to actually ask for a referral, but at least once they got to Ishizu Ishtar, things were smoother sailing. Kind of.

'I've been expecting you,' was the first thing she said.

'Can she see the future or something?' Ron muttered.

Hermione rolled her eyes. She still was a firm disbeliever of Divination (with few exceptions).

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31.

Ishizu explained about the Millennium Necklace. 'It once afforded me the ability to see the future.'

'So it was Divination,' Ron muttered.

'But then I had a duel with Seto Kaiba, and he proved that my visions could be overcome.' She was smiling as she said it. It must have been a bad vision, then. Or a vision that led to other, bad, ones. 'Still, I learned much from the Necklace. And much from the events that transpired around the Items.' Her expression was sombre, as she added: 'And lost much, as well. And the items… simply won't stay asleep.'

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32.

It sort of was like Voldermort. The Items had a sordid history and it turned out little of it was in the museum… and Ryou Bakura had told them little as well.

'Honestly, I'm not sure how much he remembers,' Ishizu confessed. 'We all decided it was best to not poke that bear. There were many victims, but he and my brother were the ones to lose the most. Both of them… lost themselves, as well.'

'Lost themselves?' Harry repeated. 'Like the Imperius?'

Hermione jabbed him in the ribs, for using magical terms before a Muggle.

However, Ishizu surprised them.

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33.

'No, not like Imperius. Nor like a Dementor's kiss. Though you could certainly cause it a culling of the soul, and a possession.'

The three gaped at her. Imperius was Harry's slip, but none of them had mentioned Dementors.

'I suppose the best way to explain it would be the Hocrux corrupting a living person… at least in my brother's case. He began as himself and twisted, and eventually an entirely separate being emerged.'

'Like Tom and the diary,' Harry breathed, feeling sick. Ron was white behind his freckles at the reminder.

'Tom?' Ishizu asked.

'Voldermort.' Hermione rubbed her brow.

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34.

'And Bakura?' Hermione asked.

'Most is not for me to tell,' Ishizu replied. 'Be careful though, if the Millennium Ring is anywhere near his vicinity. Whatever relationship those two share, he loses his autonomy where the Ring is concerned. If the Puzzle is the antithesis of Zorc, then the Ring is his heart and the spirit within it is undeniably its vessel. And it leaves a wake of tragedy to sculpt its host.'

That left out the details, but they could imagine it easily enough, and it was sickening: orchestrating someone's life so they'd be the perfect shell to inhabit.

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35.

'I've said too much,' Ishizu closed her eyes, 'perhaps. But you may wind up facing Zorc at some point in your quest, so you had to know.'

And then she led them into the Valley of the Kings, for the same reason. Sacred ground her family guarded, but had been traversed by many strangers in her time. 'Over the last five thousand years, many people have sought the tomb and some have even found it,' she explained. 'In time, the Millennium Items were removed from the stone upon which they rested. And then returned. And now, they've been taken again.'

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36.

'Who took them?' Hermione asked. 'We haven't been able to find that out.'

'A child of the Plana,' Ishizu replied. 'There are many legends around the Nameless Pharaoh, but the one in question told of a great power – the power called the Plana – that could reshape the world once the Pharaoh returned to the Underworld. However, should the Pharaoh come back over to this world, then humankind was deemed unworthy of that power and it would be taken away. And indeed that was what occurred – though, ironically, in part because those with the power sought to prevent the Pharaoh's return.'

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37.

'Another self-fulfilling prophecy,' Hermione sighed, as they moved deeper into the tomb. 'Though I wonder if, in this case, it wasn't for the best. Still, it sounds like their intentions weren't exactly bad.'

'No,' Ishizu agreed. 'They just unleashed something that had been sealed away in the process. Though it was inevitable, really. Fate, as curiosity or coincidence, would have led someone to the tomb again. It would have happened eventually. I think better it happens in this generation, where the knowledge in its entirety still exists, than later once it's been lost.

'Though it's easy for me to say.'

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38.

In the end, they found knowledge but no more Items. Ishizu didn't know where they were, and they weren't in the Valley of the Kings. Hermione recast her spells and they followed the signals to a pyramid that had been buried some years ago.

'Bill would love this,' Ron mused, as they carefully work out where they can Apparate without getting themselves stuck in aged sand or stone. Harry helps, because his aim is the best of all of them, and Hermione's busy surfing the net for information about the pyramid they've found themselves at.

Cursed, apparently. Bill'd love it.

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39.

The pyramid reminds them of the obstacle course they endured to find the Philosopher's stone, and the maze in their fourth year. It's testing them; the trio can see that plainly… and, thankfully, they pass the test. It's a challenge, because only Ron knows anything about capsule monsters, but they still have their wands and their ingenuity and each other.

When they face the final challenge, the cruel king, they realise how important that unity is.

The surprise element doesn't hurt, when their opponents can use monsters but not magic.

It's especially satisfying to use Wingardium Leviosa as the finishing move.

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40.

Their opponent turned out to be Alexander the Great, and the name doesn't mean much to the pureblood Ron. His relevance in their quest is another story.

He, it turned out, also held the Millennium Ring at some point.

"It sure got around," Ron muttered.

"It is rather promiscuous," Alexander agreed. "Some say because it houses a Thief king – because, technically, it was stolen from its true owner and never returned."

"One could argue," Hermione mused afterwards, "though that the Thief was the true owner of all the Millennium Items, as they were made from the blood of his people."

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41.

At the entrance to the pyramid, they unexpectedly met a girl. "I've been waiting."

"You are..?" Hermione asked.

"Sara." Her braids flutter in the island wind, revealing a strange necklace on her throat. "I saw a shadow threatening to rise, so I have come to offer you a hint."

She stepped closer, passing Ron and Hermione, and places a dainty hand on Harry's chest.

"Power is not what saves the world," she said. "You already know that."

"I do," Harry agrees. They all did. "It's love."

"Darkness threatens to kill love." The girl smiles. "The key lives in the river."