Summary: After Harry's fourth year, Dumbledore realizes that his blood protections won't work, and so sends him to live with his second cousin who happens to live in Japan, by the name of Ryou Bakura.

Disclaimer: Don't own. Sorry, there won't be any funny ones here.

"English" "-Japanese-" "§Parseltongue§" Thoughts "Telephone or other such communication device" (A/N)

Last Time:

Just then, the fire flared and Dumbledore stepped in.

Tonks jumped up, her hair now a rather frazzled red-orange. (IWA: Not that I have any idea how a color can be frazzled. (sweatdrop)) "Why didn't you tell me Harry was in Japan?!" she screamed at him.

Dumbledore blinked.

There was a pause.

"Lemon drop?"

Chapter 5: Decisions and Distractions

Lucius pulled off the Death Eater mask and robes, walked into the study, and sat down heavily in an armchair by the fire. He stared at the dancing flames, mesmerized. Remembering the attack on that Muggle home earlier that day, he shivered.

Lucius stood behind his Lord as he gathered what looked to be swirling darkness around him for the third time, preparing for the final blow to the wards surrounding number 4 Privet Drive. The Shadows lunged forward like a striking snake, shattering the powerful magic. Lucius shuddered at the amount raw power the Dark Lord had at his command. Then he laughed, a high, evil cackle.

Lucius only remembered to breathe when someone shot a Stunner at Voldemort.

After a brief, meaningless conversation that only served to instill fear, his Master was striding toward the front door of the building again. Lucius and the other Death Eaters scrambled to follow, the spells sent their way effortlessly deflected by a writhing wall of darkness.

The Malfoy head looked around the house, repulsed by the sheer Muggle-ness of it. Surely the Savior of the Wizarding World couldn't live here? The very idea defied every Wizarding sensibility he had.

The resident Muggle family they found huddled in the living room. A too-skinny, horse-faced woman was hiding behind a massive man that reminded Lucius forcibly of a walrus. A pig of a boy was attempting to do the same, but the fact that he was almost as wide as he was tall made it nearly impossible. Lucius goggled at them from the safety of his mask. These are the Potter boy's relatives? he wondered incredulously.

Then the interrogation started.

"Where is the Potter brat?" the Dark Lord demanded.

"Who do you think you are, breaking into someone's—" the walrus-man blustered, but was cut off by tendrils of Shadows wrapping around his fat neck.

"Where is he?"

"H-h-he went to—to—to—said h-he—s-second c-cous-sin—" the unfortunate Muggle stuttered.

The Dark Lord snapped. He screamed. None of the Death Eaters dared move for fear of the wisps of deadly Shadows curling around them. The Muggles screamed as well, for those same Shadows were—

Lucius was pulled sharply out of his reverie by the feeling of a delicate hand stroking through his hair. He closed his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath.

"I can't do this anymore."

His wife looked at him questioningly from her perch on the armrest of the chair he was seated in.

"The Dark Lord is growing steadily more insane. The new eye isn't helping. I fear that soon, he will be calling on his followers to commit atrocities far worse than any we've done before. And as his right-hand man, I will be—" His throat closed, cutting him off mid-sentence. He buried his head in his hands in a rare show of weakness. "I don't want Draco to be dragged into this mess. I—I can't do this anymore."

Narcissa looked worried. "Is there a way you can get out?" she asked thoughtfully, her hand still running soothingly through his platinum mane.

Lucius lifted his head and blinked at her. "If I leave, he'll find me. He'll go after you and Draco."

"Not if we leave the country."

Lucius straightened. "A Malfoy never runs away."

Narcissa sighed. "Well, I tried. So, you need a way to get out. Without getting out."

There was a minute of silence.

"Could you become a spy?"

Lucius stared at her. "I knew there was a reason I married you."

Narcissa gave him a wry look. "You mean besides the fact that our parents arranged it when we were born?"

The Malfoy patriarch blinked. "Oh right."

She rolled her eyes.

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Harry blinked, overwhelmed. Ryou and Yugi were dragging him—quite literally—to the Game shop in an attempt to get his mind off his relatives' deaths. Ryou, meanwhile, was explaining the rules of Duel Monsters.

"—so if you attack a monster in attack mode and you monster has higher attack points, you subtract the other monster's attack points from your monster's attack points and—"

Harry cast a pleading look over his shoulder at Bakura, who was fighting a losing battle against falling over laughing.

Yugi pushed open the door and let them in.

"Ryou," Bakura said, snickering, "shut up. I think you're scaring him."

Ryou paused mid-word and looked at Harry, who was giving him an I-completely-lost-track-of-what-you're-saying-several-miles-ago-but-you-won't-let-me-get-a-word-in-edgewise-so-I'm-just-going-to-stare-at-you-until-you-stop-talking look. The white-haired teen snapped his mouth shut and blushed. "Sorry."

Harry took this opportunity to look around, as the last time he was here, he'd been pulled upstairs before he'd had a chance to. The walls of the shop were covered with shelves full of games, posters, and other memorabilia. Nevermind that he couldn't read any of it, Harry was impressed. He recognized some of the cards on display as being from the game Ryou's friends liked to play, but the rest of it was completely foreign to him.

Speaking of Ryou, he was standing in front of the counter, talking urgently to the ruby-eyed teen behind it. Yugi was standing next to him, nodding.

Yami reached down and pulled out two decks of cards, handing them to Ryou, who smiled brilliantly at him and bounced back to where Harry and Bakura were waiting by the door.

"These are starter decks for Duel Monsters," Ryou explained, taking Harry by the arm and pulling him into the back room. "It'll be a lot easier to understand the game once you've played it."

"It's the same with Quidditch," Harry agreed, then froze. "Hold on, you want me to play a game I don't know the rules of? Without watching it first? I can't even read the cards!"

Bakura snorted from behind him. "Oh, relax. I'll translate for you. And explain the rules."

Harry let Ryou push him into a chair. "Oh. That's okay, then."

Ryou took a seat across the table from him and handed him one of the decks. "Here's your deck." Harry took it and started shuffling.

Ryou looked up from hid cards. "Are we playing by Battle City rules, Yami?"

Bakura considered, then shook his head. "Nah, let's just get him used to the game first. Duelist Kingdom rules."

Ryou nodded.

Harry glanced between them, confused, but Bakura just grinned and shook his head. "Too many rules for a beginner."

Harry blinked, then nodded. "I understand that…"

"So you have 2000 life points. Keep track of them. I'll tell you when you lose them, and how much," Bakura informed Harry, watching over the green-eyed teen's shoulder as Ryou finished shuffling and drew five cards. "Starting hand is five cards."

"Thanks, Bakura."

"Sure."

"I'll go first," Ryou volunteered. Harry nodded. Ryou drew another card.

"Draw one card at the start of your turn," Bakura told him. Harry nodded again.

Ryou considered his cards for a minute, then pulled two out of his hand. "I play Island Turtle (1100/2000) in Defense Mode and one card face down. Turn end."

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IMPORTANT! How detailed do you want me to make the game? Vyre and I RP'd it out, so I can do basically whatever you want. If I don't hear from anybody about it, I'll just do the whole thing.