Together We Make Shadows

Chapter Five

His friends had turned up minus Yugi, apparently the sneaky Slytherin was alright and had gone to England with his kind friend and that disabled jerk who slightly reminded him of a combination of Malfoy and Snape. That had just convinced him even more that Ryan Barkarooah or whatever his name happened to be was a Death Eater, he must have cast the dark mark himself just as he was walking past with his friends and somehow cast a stasis spell on himself, maybe a potion? Snape might have mentioned something like that, but he'd honestly never paid much attention to the dungeon bat. But why target Yugi and Kaiba? Yugi was just a sweet muggle boy and Kaiba was the most muggle like muggle he'd ever met, he couldn't imagine the tech nerd having a magical bone in his body, especially after seeing the Kaiba Corporation building. Minus the dragon statues, they where awesome! He'd voiced his concerns with his sister on several occasions and she'd agreed with him. Ginny had been on slight edge ever since Luna had been kidnapped by Death Eaters and had only just started to relax again, it been a few months since Luna was rescued, he didn't know the details and knew that Ginny wouldn't fully calm down until she'd seen Luna again. They'd tired to convince there mother to let them go home since that evil overlord he who shouldn't be named had been temporarily defeated again. The person who apparently defeated You-Know-Who had been held captive with Luna must be an alright bloke. Luna had sent an owl confirming it saying her new friend had been nothing but a gentleman.

He tried to voice his concerns with his four new friends about Yugi being left alone with Ryan and the wheel chair guy. Or even slight concern for the wheelchair guy, but they had all insisted that Yugi and Kaiba could look after themselves. The one thing they didn't do was try to tell him that Ryan would never kidnap the two other students, they obviously believed it too.

His Japanese friends mentioned they had been in contact with the three since they had left for England and where still submitting homework and assignments even though they weren't at school. According to the school Kaiba was in England seeing doctors for treatment for whatever illness he had that caused him to be in the wheel chair in the first place and Yugi was with him for moral support. Ryan was apparently decided to go with his friends and visit family according to the school.

He didn't know what the real reason was that the three teenagers had decided to travel to England together after a Death Eater attack, fake or not. But he found it suspicious either way.

Yugi, Ryan and Kaiba where the three who his brother and the new divination teacher had been talking to about the Egyptian project his brother was working on. Kaiba was apparently funding the project. Why a muggle would fund a Gringotts expedition he couldn't work out. Ryan's father worked at the museum who hosted a lot of the items the team had recovered from other digs, but why would they need Yugi? It didn't make sense? Those three had been the ones to attend the meeting's with his brother and had gone off to England together.

The project dig was really cool, they were trying to open the tomb of Pharaoh Set who had been a renowned sorcerer. Hermione constantly spoke about how the magic he'd created was still taught in ancient runes, and a lot of his spells where unbreakable. He vaguely remembered Malfoy boasting about being related to the ancient Pharaoh after their years Ancient Rune lesson. It sounded interesting what they learnt but was honestly too hard for his interests to actually attend the class.

"The Black family is descendant from his second Queen." The Malfoy ferret had told Hermione proudly. Which Hermione was happy to point out that Pharaoh Set was believed to be a muggle born when discovered by the Priests but was later revealed to be a half blood and that his second Queen even though she was a pure blood had been a late bloomer when it came to magic and was thought to be a squib long past the age of eleven.

Sirius had confirmed the story to be true not long before he died and that they where descended from the Second Queens oldest son but the Black where also descended from the first Queen as well through a daughter.

Since the pure blood families where all related some way or another he knew that he was most likely related to this Pharaoh.

He looked towards the three empty seats hoping at the very least Yugi was okay.

KC

It had been six weeks when the torment finally stopped, his Death Eaters that had stuck around looked at their master with concern, wondering if he was going to take it out on them. He was relieved that the spirit had left him alone, but at the same time he was dreading the torment that he knew was going to start again when he least expected it. The spirit liked toying with people, he'd experienced it the last time he'd come across the spirit, and being in contact with the spirit he felt a lot closer to the part of himself that was recently sealed away by the strange muggle boy who somehow had control over the items, and the part of his soul that had been discarded years ago. The two parts of his soul had come together and calling out to him, wanting the missing shreds of soul to be together once again. He had new memories from the soul fragments, of their travels through the realm of shadows, it bought more fear then anything he'd ever inflicted on the living.

KC

"I hate my link with you know who" Harry complained to Hermione when the pain had subsided for a short time. She had ended up taking him to Severus Snape for help when the pain still hadn't stopped after the first three hours and only proceeded to get worse. The potions master had tried to use legilimency on Harry but only received pain himself, all they could do for him was use pain reliving potions and dreamless sleep.

As soon as pain had stopped he was order to drink a few potions, eat a decent meal and get some proper rest while he could. Though as soon as he found out Professor Snape was going to investigate what had happened he insisted on going with the potions master.

KC

Voldemort had tried to apart but was too weak to move anywhere, he also didn't have an emergency port key since the spirit had destroyed them all as well as snapping his wand and destroying several other magical artefacts.

He was highly surprised when the spirit returned and his followers could now see the sprit whereas before he was the only one who could see him.

"I've decided that you're all going to die" He told them all in a sinister voice. He was wearing a weird muggle contraption on his arm and had now pulled out a knife that he didn't have earlier.

"That's impossible" one of the men shouted out. "We killed you with the killing curse before we took the artefact from you."

"Yes, you caught me by surprise the last time, I had no idea that curse would kill instantly. I thought you'd killed my chosen host; it would've been a big inconvenience for me if you had killed him. And unfortunately for you my host came back in possessing distance so now I can have the pleasure of killing you with his hands."

This surprised Voldemort, he didn't have a clue what the person looked like who previously owned the Millennium Ring, but it seemed to be that the boy was destined to have it, the chosen bearer of the ring since he looked similar to the sprit, most likely a reincarnation of the spirit which would only make his connection to the Millennium Ring even stronger and his own connection and attempt to control the ring a worthless attempt after all, the ring spirit killed anyone who wasn't worthy of wielding the ring.

KC

The dark mark had been cast into the sky on the outskirts of muggle London, Remus could see the mark from his workplace at Kaiba Corp.

"I have to go out" he shouted before running out the office with no explanation. A few people mumbled and gossiped since this wasn't usual behaviour for the sickly accountant, trying to work out the emergency that had him leaving work this time.

He apparated to the location and found Severus arriving a few moments later with Harry, Hermione and Draco in toe.

"Potter told me Voldemort just died here" the potions master explained.

He was pulled into a quick hug by Harry and Hermione, Harry didn't look well at all, but he knew how stubborn the young man could be.

"The mark" Remus told him pointing above their heads explaining how he'd seen it from his workplace.

All had wands out and ready as they walked into the building with the collapsing wards, a scream was heard from the floor below. Finding a set of stairs they walked down slowly, both man keeping an eye out for potential enemy and traps while the children followed.

The smell coming from down stairs was rousing the werewolf in him, the stench was foul and delicious at the same time, the wolf wanted to run free and devour the fresh meat, calling for the flesh of humans. He'd never smelt so much blood in all his life, even his short time with the werewolf packs he'd never smelt this much blood. His mouth was watering as he tried to push the wolf back. He was glad that it was a couple more weeks till the next full moon, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to hold back the wolf if it had only been a day or two. His ear's peaked, the screams had all died down and he could now hear laughter drifting from a level far below. The light a lumos spell guiding them as they descended further into the darkness below them, the temperature dropping the deeper they went, none of them sure if the coolness was from being underground or an unnatural cause. The laughter had stopped and silence followed down stairs.

"I can smell blood, a lot of it" Remus informed Severus in a quiet tone. He could hear a new sound from the floor below which was new. "I also hear is crying." He continued a moment later. Was the person a victim that had survived whatever had happened?

The door to the room with the smell of blood was already opened, a glow from candles lighting the room. The two adults both stopped a look of shock as they saw the carnage in front of them, blood sprayed all up the walls, limbs separated from bodies. The sobbing person looked up in fear at the two men as they entered, holding his bloody hands out in front of him, he was covered from head to toe.

The scent of the person in front of him was familiar but was masked under too much blood for him to work out exactly who but he knew that it was someone he'd come across before. The boy went back to looking at his hands and continued sobbing.

Severus walked into the room like he owned the place and knelt down in front of the young man.

"Ryou Bakura" the potions master spoke the name softly, the sobbing boy looking back at them. "What happened?"

That name sparked a memory of a shy second year Slytherin boy nervously walking to the front of the classroom during his boggart lesson. The boggart transformed into a blood covered girl in muggle clothing that looked a few years younger than the other students so very much like the boy in front of him, the skull was partly crushed in and the rest of her body was twisted.

"It's your fault Ryou, I didn't even want to go on the field trip. I hate you for killing mummy. You're a monster no wonder tousan doesn't love you." The girl said in sweet voice that didn't match the words she was saying. "Monster, Monster, Monster" the bloodied girl chanted over and over. Ryou let out a high pitched scream before collapsing to the floor in hysterical sobs.

He'd later found out from the headmaster and Severus that Ryou's mother had died in an accident during a school field trip and that his twin sister Amane had been severely injured but with magic had recovered and that she was the student who had ended up in the permanent ward at St Mungo's after the Chamber of Secrets incident. His muggle father could barley look at him and had called him a monster whenever his magic manifested.

"Professors, I was walking through London with two friends and then I was here and everyone was dead." he told them between sobs. "Oh, I don't think my friends are dead, I don't know any of these people." He told them, so they didn't assume the worst. He grabbed the artefact hanging around his neck and seemed more relaxed once he was holding onto the piece of jewellery with looked very much like the jewellery that Yugi Moto, friend of his bosses brother had on him, the very powerful artefact the artefact that Ryou possessed was leaking the same magic as the one that Yugi Moto had.

"Did you see who did this? The screams only just stopped before we got here?" Remus asked in a calm voice.

He hesitated before answering. "I didn't see a thing."

The three teenagers looking on in horror, Draco getting terrible flashbacks to the torture he'd seen, Hermione looked like she was going to be sick and Harry looked on with disbelief.

"I can't believe the Dark Lord is dead again, in such a short amount of time" Severus announced looking over the most recent dead body of the Dark Lord. The body of Peter Pettigrew was with him, he'd somehow managed to escape being judged and placed into a coma when the rest of the inner circle was attacked.

"It's been a long time Malfoy, Potter and Granger" Bakura said slowly between sobs.

"What did they do to you?" Hermione knelt in front of the blood soaked boy.

"I don't think they did anything to me, I'm not injured" Bakura answered not even attempting to hold back his tears and sobs.

They glanced up again when two more people entered the room, both boys recognised by everyone in the room, the taller of the two more so then the shorter teenager.

KC

"Why did Bakura have to go missing now!" Seto complained as he looked at the screen on his mobile phone. It had the duel disc tracking program opened and was locked on Bakura's duel disc location. "You where both meant to wait at Kaiba Corp till my meeting was over." They'd both left Mokuba at Kaiba corp when Bakura had gone missing Roland had strict instructions to stay with his brother and make sure he didn't go missing as well.

"We didn't know how long you're meeting was going to go for and we needed fresh air. The location seems to be heading towards that green holographic skull." Yugi pointed out as they got closer and closer to a location which had breaking down magic. The skull was the same as the one that had been over Bakura's body when they'd found him in the park. It had started to fade, but had the same affect that normal people where not going near the area it had been cast.

"From the feel of the mark, the person who cast it has to be dead" Yami who was floating near them announced.

"That's where he is" he announced. Both boys picking up speed now they had a visual location of where Ryou was located. Now they were closer they could both sense the Shadow Magic which had been cast in the area recently.

They entered the building and ran down the stairs; he changed his phone from the tracking program and turned on the light, using the phone as a torch, not even slowing down as he did so. He tried a couple of the light switches that they'd run past. Either the building never had power to begin with or the magical skull was preventing it from working. Like with Tristans phone the last time they were near one of those skulls his phone still worked but didn't have reception. The building was oozing with reside Shadow Magic, they were now using the lingering shadows as a guide for where they were running and continued heading towards the location the Shadows where the strongest, the tingle the Millennium Items gave to item wielders when in close proximity was also now present. He had his gun in his other hand and put the phone away seeing light from the room ahead. Yugi had changed personality to the Pharaoh but he was only the Pharaoh for a few moments before his personality changed back to Yugi sensing no threats. He stood in the doorway taking in the carnage before him while Yugi ignored the carnage and ran towards the centre of the room and pulled the other boy into a hug, ignoring the blood he was covered in, ignoring the girl that was kneeling in front of him and everyone else in the room. "Ryou are you alright?"

"I'm fine" the blood covered teenager replied and was able to smile.

"Mister Kaiba" Remus Lupin exclaimed in shock of seeing that his boss had arrived.

"Aren't you supposed to be as work" he asked the other man.

"I was until I saw the mark above this building" Remus replied.

Remus was surprised by how unaffected his boss seemed to be about all the carnage that was around them. Even Severus was affected by it slightly.

"Bakura, I thought my instructions where clear that you where meant to stay in my office with Yugi and Mokuba till my meeting was over" He scolded the older student. "You've already had one near death experience in the last six weeks when the Millennium Ring was stolen and now I find you covered from head to foot in blood surrounded by carnage. What do you have to say for yourself!"

Remus looked on at his boss, he didn't even scold his workers like that, it was like he was Ryou's father with the way he'd just scolded him.

"I got the Millennium Ring back" replied the blood covered boy holding the artefact up. It lighting up and point in three directions, one pointing at himself, one at Yugi and the last one near where Severus Snape was looking over Voldemorts now deceased body.

"Eww, whose going to get the eye?" Yugi asked not wanting to touch the body.

Without a word he stalked over and pulled the gold eye out of its socked and placed it in his pocket.

KC

Severus was looking at the boy in front of him with surprise, he never thought he'd fully recover from his time with the Death Eaters and here he was walking around with an air of grace, no signs of his previous suffering apparent. He wasn't the only one shocked by his appearance, the three teenagers where as well, Draco had witnessed all the torture he'd been through and the Gryffindor pair had seen him at his worse.

KC

It was late evening and everyone was now cleaned up after the blood bath which was Bakura.

"Hey guys" Yugi greeted his friends in Japan once they had a clear connection.

On the screen was Joey, Tea, Duke and the Weasley siblings who were still in Japan. They didn't seem to be too impressed with Kaiba and Bakura.

Mokuba was happy to fill them in on what was happening so far. "And Ryou got back the Millennium Ring which was stolen recently." He finished off his tale. Seto had conveniently left out the fact that the ring spirit had butchered all the people involved with taking the ring or the fact that the person who'd kidnapped him a few months back was responsible. Bakrua didn't want to talk about it and Yugi didn't feel it was his place to tell Mokuba and didn't correct his friends on the true story either.

"Are you sure it's a good idea for him to have it back" Joey asked hesitantly, the rest of their long time friends agreed. Ginny and Ron looked at each other and then back at Ryou with confusion, neither of them liked him but they couldn't think of any reason why it wasn't a good idea to have his necklace in the first place.

Instead of finding a reason to explain Tristan changed the subject "What's your brother doing?"

Mokuba turned and looked at his older brother sitting on the corner of the lounge dressed in black skivvy and black tracksuit pants with headphones on with notebook and pencil in hand looking quite content and mostly oblivious to the world around him. Mokuba didn't even know if his brother was aware that they were in a video call back to Japan, but knew that he was alert to danger around them if anything happened, he was even more sensitive to danger ever since he was the one who was kidnapped.

"Going by the expression on his face he's drawing" Mokuba replied.

"I can't imagine your brother drawing" Joey laughed. "What's he drawing, a pie chart?"

"Most likely dragons" Mokuba replied. "Besides why is it so hard to believe that my brother draws? He did the holographic animations for majority of the duel monsters himself and I'm pretty sure all the dragons in the game where drawn by him excluding the God cards and the toon dragons since they were all done by Pegasus."

"All of them?" Joey asked him with a disbelieving tone. "Even read eyes black dragon? I don't believe it, my favourite card can't have been animated by that rich jerk. He hates the black dragon."

"I don't think that's true, the only dragons he doesn't like are the toon dragons" Mokuba told him. "And that's only because he feels it's an insult to the actual dragons."

"How much longer till you all come back?" Tea asked.

"It's still going to take a while, we're having paperwork issues at the moment. I miss everyone" Yugi told them all. "It's not the same going on an adventure without you all."

"You should've told us Yug, then we would've come with" Joey told his friend.

"Kaiba barley tolerates Ryou and myself. No offence Joey, but dealing with you and Kaiba fighting would've made this trip more difficult than it already is."

"Yeah, those two would be bitting each other's heads off" Tristan agreed.

"Dog's aren't allowed on planes" Kaiba spoke up, stirring up Joey in the process.

"Calm down, you're going to break the laptop" Tea shouted as Duke and Tristan held the blond boy back.

Kaiba spent the next ten minutes stirring up Yugi's best friend. It was so easy to get Joey worked up, and it felt good to be doing something so familiar. He hated to say he missed this, but he had. His months of being a prisoner he missed these types of interactions, Joey made him feel like he was just a normal teenager, no one else acted like that around him. Everyone else tip toed around him because of his wealth and money. But not Joey he didn't know when to stop and was yet to realise if he didn't like it the mutt would be in jail for assault or something along those lines. Maybe even dead considering what he'd been like a couple of years ago.

"Mokuba, it's time for bed" he told his younger brother once he'd had his fun.

"Can't I just have five more minutes?" Mokuba begged him.

He sighed before replying. "Fine, but I'll be counting."

Kaiba walked back over to the lounge chair and picked up his drawing supplies, keeping an eye on the time. When the five minutes where over he gave his brother a look that let Mokuba know that he wouldn't be getting another five minute block. The younger boy ran over to him for a hug which he gave easily.

"Can you tuck me in?" Mokuba asked getting laughed at in the background by the Weasley twins for acting far younger then he actually was. Neither boy cared.

He let Mokuba pull him up and held his younger brothers hand the whole way to Mokuba's bedroom. He tucked the younger boy in, he looked so much like their mother. He sat down next to his bed and began telling his a story about their parents. For the longest time he'd never told Mokuba about their parents and it was something he found he regret when he'd been kidnapped. It hurt to talk about them, even now after so long but at the same time it felt nice. Once Mokuba had drifted off to sleep he kissed the younger boy on the forehead and returned back to the lounge room where Yugi was still talking to their friends back in Japan.

KC

It was nice to be home after the hectic day, but even as strange as it had been he was happy that he had seen Harry and Hermione again and had convinced them to stay even if it was just for one night. Nym was ecstatic to see the pair and was thrilled to introduce the teenagers to Teddy. Tonks teased the pair due to their both teenagers nerves and how cautious they where around his infant son.

"I haven't really been around children or babies before" Hermione admitted. "None of my relatives or my parents close friends have young children, they're all around my age or older."

"I've never even seen a baby up close before, my aunt and uncle where always afraid I was going to unleash my freakiness on them."

"It's the other way round with Teddy, he's the one who unleashes the freakiness."

As if to prove Tonks point Teddy changed his look, it was a hybrid between Harry and Hermione.

"He likes you" Remus smiled proudly, pleased that his infant son liked Harry who he considered a nephew and Hermione who he'd grown fond of during his year of teaching. He and Sirus had always hoped that the pair would end up together eventually.

"If you ever have kids together you now know that they will look adorable" Nym teased the teenagers.

"Hermione and I are just friends" Harry defended himself.

"Ron and I are still together ... I think, even if I haven't seen him since before Christmas and we didn't exactly part on good terms. He accused me of always putting Harry first and not considering him." She finished off with a light blush covering her cheeks.

"Hold him" Remus urged Hermione. With a smile she finally accepted Teddy from Nym, Harry leaning right in and letting Teddy hold his fingers. It reminded him of Lily and James the first time he ever saw Lily holding Harry, looking so nervous but happy and proud at the same time, with James leaning over her and cooing proudly at his new born son. Everyone always commented about how Ginny was just like Lily, but everyone was wrong, Ginny Weasley may have been like Lily in looks but in personality Hermione was the one who was like Lily. Remus could see the Slytherin qualities in his godson, and could see that even if he had been sorted into the house of Snake he and Hermione would've still been friends. Ginny on the other hand wouldn't have looked past the house. Just like how Lily was still friends with Severus even though he was in Slytherin. Both Lily and Hermione where book mad and had a thirst for knowledge where as Ginny was quidditch mad.

"Do you two want to have kids one day?" Remus asked, he had the chance to sit down and ask Harry what he wanted to do with his life, he'd always wanted to but something pressing had always happened, or other people where around and constantly interrupting.

"When the wars over I want to get married and have kids and a normal job where people don't see me as the boy who lived, I want to live in the muggle world and raise my family in the muggle world so they aren't ignorant about muggles like a lot of children raised in the magical world but I also don't want them to be ignorant of the magical world like I was. Give my children the life that I always wanted but couldn't have."

When Harry had been silent for a few moments and it was obvious he wasn't going to continue Hermione spoke up. "Most people assume that when I finish Hogwarts and the war is over that I will continue my education and get a job that involves books and research but I actually want to have children first." She admitted passionately. "My mother had problems falling pregnant because she waited to have me till after she'd finished her study and an established career. Like Harry I also want to raise my family in the muggle world, just staying with the Weasleys during holidays was enough to convince me that living separate from the muggle world wouldn't do my children any good. There are too many advancements and opportunity's in the muggle world to just leave it behind."

"And what do Ginny and Ron want?" Tonks asked the pair.

"Ginny wants to be a professional quidditch player which will be next to impossible to do with young children and she wants to stay at the Burrow."

"Rons the same when it comes to the Burrow, he wants to wait before having children, claims he doesn't want a big brood like his parents have, he wants' a career first so he's financially stable to support children when he eventually has them." Hermione continued.

"After what we saw today, I don't want to wait" Hermione admitted. "You know who is gone again, even if it's only temporary. We don't know when he's coming back, I don't want to put my life on hold any longer because of that man."

"Do you think Ryou's okay? I feel like we should've gone with him." Harry asked with much concern.

As the discussion changed Nym took the now sleeping Teddy to put him to bed, she only knew they'd met up today, she didn't yet know the circumstances.

"He seemed very close to Yugi and Seto."

"I can't believe that he's the same Seto Kaiba who defeated Lord Voldemort. He looked so sick when he left the hospital wings, like Neville's parents." Harry stated. He then went into a detailed explanation about how he and Hermione had seen Kaiba at the graveyard the night he disappeared and the night he defeated Voldemort.

"Mr Kaiba is my boss, has been for the last two years. I had no clue he was the one who defeated He who shouldn't be named. What we saw today was a side to him I've never seen before."

"Do you think it was really Ryou who killed the Death Eaters? He said he doesn't remember doing it and yet Seto told his employees that the mess wasn't his, it was Bakura's."

"I wonder if it's true" Remus pondered out loud. "I heard a rumour from the staff that after Amane was attacked Ryou started developing mental health issues which only emerged fully after he left Hogwarts. According to rumour he's been diagnosed with multiple personality disorder. Some of the popular theories with the teaching staff have to do with his sister's accident and no longer being allowed to perform any magic."