Embracing Shadows

Chapter Four

He was sitting with Luna showing her his Duel Monsters cards, some of the cards had been damaged during his torture sessions, a few covered in his own blood, it didn't seem to surprise him to much considering you couldn't even tell that his suit had once been white due to the amount of blood stains. The young girl was fascinated by them and would tell him about what magical creature or person they reminded her of. He was a little bit jealous of the amount of friends she had. That was one thing they had in common, both had trouble making friends. But even with her trouble she'd made a few and by the sounds of it the few friends she'd made where true friends. He hadn't just had trouble making friends since he was adopted by Gozaburo, he'd had trouble making friends as a child as well due to how smart he was compared to the other kids and had never really fit in anywhere.

"My friend Harry is the one they are trying to find." She told him. "I've heard about Harry all my life. He's the only one to have ever defeated the one who's keeping us prisoner who we call You Know Who. We thought he was dead but he's come back. I met Harry properly during my fifth year at the train station on the return trip to school for the year. He didn't know what thestrals where."

"And what is a thestral?" he asked He had nothing better to do other then talk to her and the old man Garrick Ollivander. And talking about creatures that didn't exist was better than sitting in silence waiting for the next torture session. He was constantly dizzy from blood loss and slowly the feeling of pins and needles had been spreading throughout his body. At first it was just his feet but now his hands where affected as well.

She explained what they looked like and images flashed to him of the creature she was describing running along the dunes of the Egyptian desert and flying through the night sky on the eve of the full moon, flying over the Nile river.

"Only people who've seen a person die can see them." She finished her explanation.

"And you can see them?"

"I can" she replied. "I saw my mother die when I was nine years old, she was conducting an experiment which killed her."

"The first person I saw die was my father" Seto replied. "He died when I was eight, it was a bus accident, during a school field trip. He wasn't the only person who I saw die that day, but he was the first."

"What of your mother?"

"She died when I was six years old, there where complications when my brother was born" Seto replied.

They both sat in silence for a few moments, Seto was ready to move onto another subject when Luna started telling him all about her mother, and the type of person she'd been, story's that she used to tell her.

Even through the Luna loved her fantasy based creatures she was intelligent as was the old man. He enjoyed talking to Luna more then he thought he would. He'd already gone around the dungeon multiple times and still couldn't find anything that was out of the ordinary, only one entrance and he'd been yet to find any secret passages if there were any.

Ollivander would tell him all about the wands he sold to the different Death Eaters, how long they where, the core the posses, the wood they were made from. If the wand had a twin and who the twin belonged to.

"You have a lot of dragon cards" Luna commented as she looked over the cards. "The white dragon she's beautiful."

"Kisara is the white dragons name" Seto informed her his heart beating erratically. Images of the albino girl dead in past self's arms flashed to mind. It was moments like these where it was hard to deny his past life and that magic was real. Seto quickly hid his duel monsters cards as someone came down the stairs.

KC

Snape was sitting through another Death Eater meeting, and the worst thing was after he'd killed Dumbledore on the foolish old man's orders it only left Remus for him to send information to and even then he could only contract him when he sent his wolfsbane potion to him. He wasn't even sure if Remus was taking the wolfsbane potion or if the other man thought he was a traitor and trying to poison him and feed him false information but he still continued sending the monthly does to his former classmate. They were on what he considered to be a fool's errand, after some dark artefact that originated from Egypt that the Dark Lord had come across in his travels before he formed the Death Eaters.

After their meeting they bought the muggle boy up. Voldemort had never gone into detail about why he'd been kept alive other then they were trying to break him. It had already been a couple of months and still the boy showed no fear, it was like nothing scared him at all. He had no idea why Lord Voldemort kept him alive, normally in this type of situation his master would've killed the muggle by now, and even though this boy gave off no indication that he was magical Severus got the feeling that he wasn't a muggle either, there was something special about the boy and he suspected that was the true reason Voldemort kept him around.

The boy that they bought up was filthy with mattered hair hanging below his ears, a slight twitch barely visible and well concealed, the teenager was starting to feel the effects of the crucio curse even though it's use had been limited so he wouldn't be driven insane immediately like the Longbottoms where. And even though he'd been tortured for a little over two months he still held himself with pride and confidence as he was dragged into the room, still possessed the same cocky attitude from the first day he'd been bought in. Severus couldn't help liking the young man and was constantly thinking how he would've made a good Slytherin or Ravenclaw if he'd attended Hogwarts.

On this day the method of torture was dementors. Everyone shivered as they were bought into the room and Severus knew that the young man could see the demontors even though muggles weren't meant to be able to see them. It was obvious that Voldemort hadn't noticed the quick glance the young man had sent towards the dementors as he started speaking.

"You can't see the dementors we've just bought in, but they still affect muggles just as much as wizards. These creatures are dark creatures that make you relive your darkest fear or your most terrifying memories." He told Seto in his hypnotising voice.

A spell was cast to keep him confined to a certain area and two creatures where placed either side of him. He saw the flashes of memories a mix of the day his father died and his adoption from Gozaburo flashing to his mind and every time Mokuba had been kidnapped or hurt. Occasionally the memories would flash to the ancient past of the Pharaoh who looked like Yugi dying as well as the girl Kisara and his mother of that life.

He took a deep breath to keep himself calm, the images where upsetting but it was what he saw every time he went to sleep. Sure he often woke up screaming from the nightmares but he was aware of what was going on around him and was able to control his external emotions and mask what he was currently feeling. But there was a familiarity to the dementors, it felt like his experience from when he was cursed by Yami to re-live his worst fears. He had flashes to his so called ancient past life and creatures of the shadows, these creatures where the minions of the tomb robber, ordered to collect souls to power one of his monsters. He wondered if they had been awaken with the Millennium Items or if they were never sealed in the first place like they were supposed to be. The creatures seemed to be reacting to him, recognising what he refused to accept, the shadows. It felt like he was in a shadow duel. He could hear the whispers of his duel monsters, the roar of his dragon, the laughter of his clown, the noise of machinery from his dragon canon.

The dementors where called away when some of the Death Eaters started to scream out and panic at whatever they were seeing.

"Why don't you react?" Voldemort circled him, examining him from every angle.

Seto just glared, not responding, afraid that if he opened his mouth to speak that he'd either start screaming or crying and he wasn't sure which of the two reactions was the worst.

After the dementors where gone the Death Eaters continued on with his normal form of torture until he was unconscious before throwing him back in his cell.

KC

"What are demontors?" was the first thing Seto asked Luna once he was awake. She was all too happy to tell him all about them. When she mentioned that they could steal peoples souls he had a clear image of Maximillion Pegasus holding up the card that contained Mokubas soul. Except this time he was wearing a black robe, his Millennium eye glittering.

"The only way to repel them is the patronus charm." Luna told him, and then went into details about what a partonus was, the hare form hers took and training with her friend Harry in there club called Dumbledore's Army DA for short where she learnt the spell. "You have to think of your happiest memory to summon one."

"Happy memories isn't something I have a lot of" Seto replied quietly before he drifted off to sleep, still exhausted from his most recent torture session. Dreaming of his blue eyes white dragon chasing the dementors away and the nightmares they bought with them.