Zypher: Well, here I am with another, long awaited as all others but this time I had a good reason, chapter to Ode of Magic. I'm glad you enjoyed the last chapter so I present to you another. Read on.

Ode of Magic

Chapter 5

Early in the morning, Aqua left out of the Slytherin dorm to see about the dragon eggs. He went over to the hidden area and remove the lock and the camouflage placed over it. Once the task was done, he walked inside and looked to the dragon eggs still incubating. 'Shouldn't be long before they hatch. Probably another three days at the most.' he thought, touching the Romanian Longhorn dragon egg. He stayed there for a while longer before he decided it was time to leave.

Classes went by quickly and Yugi was standing at the door to the DADA classroom. The talk from last night still coursed through his mind and he was wary to confront Aqua or Yami again. 'But I sit next to Yami now since Diamond switched seats for me.' he thought. "Well, are you going inside or are you planning to stand out here throughout the rest of the class." A voice spoke and he jumped slightly before turning to see Aqua standing there. "Oh, very sorry. Didn't mean to be in your way." Yugi whispered shyly as he moved out the way to let the other get through.

Aqua continued to watch him before taking his hand. "No need to fear us, Yugi. We won't hurt you and neither will the prophecy, whatever it may be." Aqua whispered and Yugi's face flushed slightly with the signs of a blush as they walked into the classroom. Keara looked up and smiled. "Ah, glad to see you two have made it. Take your seats and we'll start the class." Keara said and they nodded and Aqua released Yugi's hand, caressing the palm slightly before he headed over to his seat. Once everyone was seated, Keara took a once over to see who was there or not and nodded once before starting the class.

"Alright everyone, today we will take a brief break away from shape-shifters and start on the history of Norrath and its people. Today, we will be studying the lifestyle of the races that are there. The only ones we won't go over are the Trolls, Ogres, Iksars, Barbarians, Goblins, Giants and Froglocks." she spoke, walking through the rows of desks as she spoke. "And why are these races restricted?" Draco questioned with a nasty tone. She sent a cool glance to him. "The same reason why I forbid you all to shift into dragons yesterday. Some of these races cause problems in Norrath and no need to learn about them if they're troublesome. Except for the barbarians, because they're too tall and the ogres, cause they are too big to fit within the room but the ogres cause problems either way."

Yugi raised his hand shyly. "Does that mean we'll be getting to meet some of these races ourselves?"

"Yes, we will." Some of the class started to talk about it while Draco sat in his seat, grumbling slightly to himself. 'You just wait. When my father gets here, he'll set you straight. Anything that could help me bring Gryffindor's Golden Boy down a few bars is what I want to know and a strong sidekick from one of these restricted races will be perfect.' he thought quietly to himself.

"First, we'll start with the easiest race. The humans." Keara spoke and she returned to the front of the classroom. "They're humans on Norrath? Wouldn't that be dangerous?" Ryou questioned. "Yes, for the normal human. The humans on Norrath's lands have adapted and trained to become strong and able to survive among the other races that inhabit the land. Now, for a brief history on them, they have came to great power after the Age of Blood, which you will learn later on. Two places, Qeynos and Freeport, are where the majority of the human race reside and live. The humans can take upon themselves many classes except for shaman. Their lifestyle are quite the same as the humans here on earth." Keara explained.

"Now, for the dwarves, they're quite a peculiar race. They are generally unkempt but many Norrath historians say this is due to the honor of prestige. They do have an artistic side under all that dirt and grime which is now in various works that they do from the plate armor they wear to simple metal and stone trinkets. Even their home of Kaladim resting deep within the Butcherblock Mountains was done by the best of Dwarven artisans and can be pleasing to the eye when you visit."

"Now, the erudites are descendants of the humans but they always shunned their lesser ancestral line. Their hometown, Erudin, was founded along the barren coast of Odus and it was said that it exhibited a majestic beauty that was nearly unsurpassed by any work made by man themselves. But the sad thing about this race is that some turned and practiced the art of necromancy, obtaining that knowledge from the dark elves. Because of this mistake, they were labeled as heretics and war broke out amongst those that knew black magic and those that didn't in the erudite race." she explained and pointed over to Ryou who raised his hand.

"Will we be allowed to head to Norrath ourselves?" he asked.

"That's a possibility. If I get clearance by Dumbledore and, at the most, the Ministry of Magic then yes, we will be heading there and spend about two weeks there." After hearing this, more students started to talk about the possible trip but went silent as Keara called them to attention once more. "Now's not the time for talking. I still have a few races to go through and then I shall assign you your books."

Soon, the class was over and many were amazed after learning about the Ratongas, Drakkins, Gnomes, Elves, except for the Dark elves, Kerra and Halflings. They were assigned their books, The Guide to Norrath by Goldenfeather Moondance, and their homework which was to look more into the races they learned and write a paper going more in depth of their lifestyles. "I can't wait til tomorrow. Compared to the race of mystical creatures we have here like the centaurs and hippogriffs, those races of Norrath sound interesting." Hermione said.

"Yeah. hopefully they're not too dangerous." Ron whispered. Diamond laughed softly. "I'm sure that if they were dangerous, Keara wouldn't bring them to class."

"She does have a point."

"Yeah but I'm still worried, especially those Kerra. I can see Draco using some magic to tick them off and cause them to attack somehow." spoke Ron once more.

"Well let's hope for the best." Yugi said and they nodded before splitting off for their next class.

During dinner later that night, after eating to sate his hunger for the night, Yugi headed into the library to do some more research of the Kerra race. He wrote some notes here and there as he read more, becoming more and more fascinated about the race. "I can wait to meet them tomorrow. I really do hope Draco doesn't cause any problems with them." he whispered to himself, unaware of the dark being coming in and walking towards him. He continued to read, still unaware until he heard something and looked behind him only to see nothing. He only shrugged and turned back to the book, reading some more.

Soon, in the glimmer of the moonlight, something revealed its form, red eyes watching the boy as he read. It crept closer and closer, its shadow growing bigger upon the wall not far from Yugi's position and when said boy look up, he gasped, shivering with fear. 'What, what could that be...?' he thought with slight panic as he turned slowly to see what exactly was behind him and only saw red eyes.

"St-stay away. Please." Yugi whispered as he stood slowly so he wouldn't provoke whatever the thing was. Whatever it was finally walked in front of the window, letting the light shine upon it and revealed it to be an adolescent white tiger. "Oh. Now where did you come from?" questioned Yugi softly as he relaxed and walked over. The tiger yowled softly and lifted it head, revealing a small note attached to the collar about its neck. Yugi reached for the note, removing it and opened it, seeing it was a small introduction of the tiger and its name.

"So then, Geki, what brings you to find me?" Yugi asked. Geki looked about before tugging a sheet of paper from the desk and took a quill before writing a message.

For added protection. Yami and Aqua has something special to give you in three days but just in case of something happening that would lead to the spoken prophecy, I'm here to watch over you.

Yugi nodded and smiled, petting Geki's head and he purred in content. "Well, better go ahead and head to bed then. I think I did enough research for tonight." Geki nodded and help Yugi gather his books before they headed back to the Gryffindor common room. When they got there, Yugi spoke the password to open the portrait door to the common room and walked inside. Malik looked up from his book and waved. "Wondered when you was going to get back, Yugi." he said before looking to Geki.

"Where'd you get the tiger?"

"From a friend. He kinda walked in on me while I was in the library." Yugi said. Malik nodded and bidded him goodnight as Yugi walked into boys' dormitory for bed. Geki bowed to Malik before following Yugi to the dormitory as well. From his cage, Osiris crooned and Yugi smiled as he pet the smaller dragon through the thin bars.

"Evening, Osiris." greeted Yugi as he grabbed some nightwear and changed quietly before crawling into bed. Osiris crooned again before curling up on the bottom of his cage and went to sleep. Geki climbed into Yugi's bed and curled up beside him, resting his head upon the second pillow upon the bed. 'Rest well, Yugi.' Geki thought before closing red eyes and fell asleep.

Zypher: And that shall be all for now. Sorry for the extreme lateness but the rut I've been in is becoming a pain (and also the site because it kept me from updating the day I had this chapter done) but I'll get chapters out as fast and as soon as possible. I can tell you this, originally, Geki's appearance was going to be another dragon but after finishing up Okami the day I finished writing this, I thought that it would be time to throw in a few gods from the game into here (and to also avoid adding more dragons since there will be future appearances of the ten most dangerous dragons of the wizarding world plus the demon dragons) so for those that haven't played the game yet, Geki is based off Gekigami, the tiger god of thunder.

Others will be Kabegami, cat god of Catwalk, Nuregami, snake god of water, Moegami, rooster god of inferno (who really looks like a phoenix than a rooster), a chance appearance of Yomigami, the dragon god of rejuvenation and Amaterasu, the Sun goddess who is represented by a wolf or dog in the case of the Chinese zodiac. Anyways, hoped you enjoyed the, sadly short, chapter and I'll see which story I can get some inspiration for so I can start or finish writing up the chapter. See you, hopefully, sooner than before.