Sorry I haven't updated but A levels are evil things that take up a hell of a lot of time.

Pleiades Wolfe: Thanks for the review and yes, Cedric is a champion. I probably stopped mentioning him because his character isn't that important in the story.

Thank you to everyone who reviewed last chapter and stuck with this story even though there has been a lack of updates. I will try to be quicker with the next one but i make no promises.


Chapter 30 – Happy Birthday Yugi!

As soon as Yugi stepped into the common room he was reminded of his seventh birthday party. There were streamers, banners, balloons and a pile of brightly wrapped presents. A large chocolate cake was placed on the table in the corner and all of Yugi's friends stood in front of him in party hats. As one they all (with great reluctance from some) chorused, "Happy Birthday Yugi!"

"Thank you everyone," Yugi said with a smile before turning towards one of the banners and saying, "But it isn't my fifth birthday."

"Damn, I thought he wouldn't notice," Bakura muttered under his breath.

"There weren't any 'Happy Sixteenth Birthday' banners so we had to improvise," explained Ryou.

"That and you are the height of a five year old," said Seto, who was promptly kicked in the shin by Jou.

"Be nice Seto," hissed Jou under his breath.

"Why should I Mutt?" hissed Seto through gritted teeth.

"Because if you don't I'll tell Mokuba to recycle your Blue Eyes Jet into a tin can."

Jou smirked smugly as Seto glared but remained silent. That is, until Malik said, "The mutt's got you whipped boy."

Seto twitched before grabbing Malik by the collar and throwing him across the room. Luckily, he had a soft landing – Yugi's birthday cake.

Everyone gasped. Seto turned around slowly as he could feel the murderous intent aimed at him. Yami was cracking his knuckles and looking threatening. Jou was pulling out one of Seto's modified phones and searching for Mokuba's number. Marik was asking Bakura if he could borrow one of his daggers. Seto was doing the smart thing and locking himself in his room out of harm's way. He was also crashing the network he had set up so that Jou's call would never be received by his brother.

When it was decided that Seto's door could not be broken down, the gang headed to the Great Hall for breakfast. There Bakura, Marik and Malik (who had recovered from his altercation with the cake) sang Happy birthday as loud as they could. Yugi slowly slunk down in his seat, embarrassed beyond belief when seven hundred pairs of eyes turned to stare at him. Ryou soon joined him, quietly denying that he knew any of them.

A second spectacle then occurred when Yami began throwing cutlery at the three psychos. This started a war of cutlery that was only ended when Hermione dumped a jug of Pumpkin Juice on top of each of them. This led to Marik slipping bacon down the back of her robes. This should have been followed by Ron doing something equally immature with food but it didn't. Ron showed that he was smart by not retaliating against psychos that wouldn't give a hoot about sending him to the Shadow Realm for an extended period of time. For this reason it was Harry who went to defend Hermione's honour. He wished he hadn't when Marik poured porridge into his pants.

The food fight continued until everyone in the Great Hall was participating – even the teachers! Dumbledore was torn between restoring order and joining in with the fun. The decision was easy to make when a stray sausage hit him in the face and became tangled in his beard. He chuckled before saying, "You'll pay for that Severus."

When finally the fight was over the culprits were hunted down and forced to clean up the mess. Yami was insulted that the teachers believed he had helped start the fight. He had merely been defending Yugi's honour! Plus, he was Pharaoh and could do no wrong and therefore could not be punished! The teachers' answer to this was to shove a bin bag into his hands and tell him to get to work.

It took the four trouble-makers all day to make the Hall spotless. By this time everybody was in a bad mood and Yugi's birthday party was abandoned. Yugi wasn't particularly fussed about this when he found out that they would have been playing children party games such as pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and pass-the-parcel. Seriously, just because he looked like a five year old didn't mean he had the mentality of one!

At least he'd been given decent presents. Well, he'd derived from Yami's reaction that Malik and Marik's present wasn't decent but you couldn't really expect much from those two.

All in all Yugi had a…memorable birthday. Yes, memorable. And two days later Yami still smelled like bacon and pumpkin juice…lovely.


"Bakura, do you think you're ready for the Third Task?"

"Of course I am," replied Bakura casually. He smirked as he continued, "Why? Do you think I need to go on another thieving spree?"

"No," Ryou said with a glare.

Bakura laughed. "Don't worry Ryou; I'll be fine. This task is all about dealing with the unknown and you can't exactly prepare for the unknown."

"I guess you're right," Ryou replied with a weary sigh. "I'm just worried that this task will be more dangerous than the others. You've been able to complete the other tasks without getting hurt but this time you might not be so lucky."

Bakura smiled gently and pulled Ryou into his lap. "Didn't the Second Task prove to you that I can't die?"

"Maybe not by mortal means but if you were hit by a wizard death spell maybe you might," answered Ryou sulkily.

"I don't think they'll be shooting death spells through the maze – these wizards are too wimpy to do something deadly like that."

"So it's cowardly to not fight to kill?"

"Of course!" Bakura then quailed under Ryou's glare. "I mean…If someone's trying to kill you then you should reply with equal force, right?" Ryou still didn't look impressed by this answer. Not seeing a way to correct his mistake, Bakura decided his only option was to make Ryou forget he had made the mistake. He kissed the teenager's forehead and smiled reassuringly. "I can handle whatever is thrown at me, easy. Don't worry Ryou; I'm not planning on leaving this world anytime soon."

Ryou smiled sadly and kissed Bakura's cheek. "I know you aren't but things don't always go as planned. If they did you would have killed Yami by now and taken his puzzle."

"One day I will; mark my words – one day," Bakura growled as he glared at the floor.

Ryou laughed lightly and placed his head on Bakura's shoulder. Bakura smiled, his fingers gliding through the young teen's soft hair. Ryou sighed in satisfaction before mumbling, "Kill Yami and you'll be on the sofa for a year."

Bakura's fingers stilled as he stared down at Ryou in horror. He knew the boy would uphold his threat if Bakura ever dared to cross him. Quietly Bakura grumbled, "You never let me have any fun."

Ryou smirked. "Only your kind of fun."

Ryou: 1 Bakura: 0


Soon the 24th of June arrived. Everyone inside Hogwarts was excited because the exams were finally ending and the final of the Triwizard Tournament was about to begin.

It was during breakfast that morning that Bakura was approached by Professor McGonagall. "All the champions are meeting in the chamber off the Hall after breakfast," she informed Bakura.

"Why? I thought the task was tonight?"

"It is Mr Bakura but the champion's families are invited to watch the final event and we are giving you time to meet with them before."

"All my family are dead," Bakura said bluntly in reply to this.

Professor McGonagall frowned. "Really? Because there's a man in the chamber who says he's your father."

Professor McGonagall then left to find Harry Potter. Bakura and Ryou shared a look. "You don't think…" started Ryou.

"It's possible," replied Bakura.

"What are you talking about?" asked Jou as the two white haired males stood up and ran towards the chamber.

As soon as Bakura threw open the door both his and Ryou's suspicions were confirmed. Standing there looking bemused was Ryou's father. "Dad!" shouted Ryou as he ran over to his father.

Mr Bakura looked relieved to see his son and pulled him into a hug. "Ryou I'm so glad to see you but what on earth is going on? This giant of a man turned up at my dig in Egypt and told me you were competing in some Tournament at a school for magic. He said it was the final task tonight and I should come and watch. Son, this seems like a dream – am I imagining all this or is it really real?"

"It's all real Dad," said Ryou reassuringly.

It was then that Mr Bakura noticed Bakura. "Who are you and why do you look like Ryou?"

"It's a long story Dad. This is Bakura; he's really the one competing in the Tournament."

"Oh," was Mr Bakura's intelligent reply. "It's nice to meet you, err, Bakura."

"Likewise," was Bakura's reply.

After a moment of very uncomfortable silence, Ryou smiled brightly and said, "Would you like me to give you a tour Dad?"

Mr Bakura smiled in relief and said, "Yes, please."

The two left the chamber and headed towards the grounds. Once they were gone Bakura wondered back to where the others were sitting to finish off the rest of his breakfast. Malik looked at him curiously as he asked, "So they didn't call up your father's soul and shove it in a body?"

"No, they brought Ryou's father over from Egypt," grumbled Bakura.

"Was your first meeting with your boyfriend's father everything you expected it to be?" asked a smirking Yami.

"No, he didn't try to exorcise me, but that might just have been because Ryou didn't tell him I was a spirit."

"You have that to look forward to next time then. Aw!" Yami rubbed the place Yugi had elbowed him.

"Be nice Yami," whispered the shortest teen.

"Why? Bakura always revels in my misery, why can't I revel in his?"

"Because you have more decency than that and won't drop to his level." It was more of a command than an explanation. Yami nodded anyway as Yugi could be intimidating when he wanted to be.

The rest of the day was spent in anticipation of the eventful night to come. Ryou tried his best to distract his father from his friends since he was sure his father would not approve. Well, he'd probably like Jou and Yugi – the 'normal' ones in the group. The rest were either spirits or psychos or both and they definitely not considered the best of company in nearly all social circles.

Everyone was glad when evening arrived. After dinner the champions headed down to the Quidditch pitch with Bagman to get ready before the audience arrived. Bakura was able to sneak a good luck kiss when the teen's father wasn't looking before setting off as well as a promise of, "I'll make this up to you later."

This left Bakura in a much better mood than he had been in before dinner. It was no fun having your boyfriend pretend you were nothing but an acquaintance that he had to put up with. He knew it was something Ryou had to do though otherwise Ryou's dad would start asking awkward questions that he wouldn't like the answers to. At least when the Tournament was over they'd be rid of him – he'd go back to his dig in Egypt and only ever get in contact with Ryou for holidays and birthdays.

The walls of the maze were now twenty feet high and looked extremely foreboding. Bakura waited impatiently for the stands to fill up and the patrollers to appear. "The patrollers," explained Bagman, "are there to help you if you get into trouble and want to pull out of the task. Just shoot up red sparks to get their attention." He turned to Bakura. "You can shoot sparks can't you?"

"No but that doesn't matter; there won't be anything in that maze that I can't handle," replied Bakura arrogantly.

"Confident aren't you," mumbled Bagman before performing a spell to magnify his voice so everyone in the stands could hear him. "Ladies and Gentlemen, let me remind you of how the rankings currently stand and therefore the order in which the champions shall enter the maze. First is Mr Bakura, joint second is Mr Potter and Mr Diggory, third is Mr Krum, and in last place is Miss Delacour!" There was a pause while the crowd applauded their champions. Bagman then looked at Bakura and said, "On my whistle. Three, two, one-"

He gave a short blast of his whistle and Bakura sprinted off into the maze. As soon as he was within the confines of the maze he slowed down though. There was no point running straight into a trap that could be avoided.

Bakura activated the Duel Disk on his arm and started to jog. He took a left fork, then a right, then a left again. After not encountering any traps at all he stopped and pulled a card from his deck. He summoned one of his spirit monsters and ordered it to look over the top of the maze and see if he was on the right path. When the spirit came back it nodded in confirmation. Satisfied Bakura returned the card to his deck and carried on.

A few minutes later encountered a monster. It looked like an ugly oversized scorpion. A blast of fire was sent out of one of its ends and Bakura was only just able to dodge. He pulled another card from his deck and smirked. "Dark Necrofear." The monster appeared as soon as the card was placed in the correct slot. Dark Necrofear looked bored as it attacked the fire-blasting scorpion. Bakura left the two creatures to battle and rushed towards the centre of the maze.

As Bakura continued to navigate the maze he met negligible resistance. The few spells set up were swept away by the de-spell card. Any creatures that Bakura met were dealt with by Dark Necrofear, who had returned to her master once she'd finished off the scorpion.

Finally Bakura found the centre of the maze. To his horror Harry and Cedric were already there, meters away from the cup. Bakura was furious that they had gotten there before him. Obviously his tomb robbing skills weren't what they once were.

However, he wasn't completely out of the running yet. Cedric was supporting Harry who looked to have a broken leg and this was impeding his progress towards the cup. Bakura immediately ran full out towards the cup, hoping that he was still faster than a limping man.

Both Harry and Cedric were stunned when the second they touched the Triwizard cup another hand landed on it besides their own. Bakura grinned in triumph – a draw was better than a loss in his book. He stopped grinning though when he felt a jerk behind his navel and found the world rushing past him. It was then that Bakura, Harry and Cedric all come to the same terrible conclusion: the cup was a portkey.


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