/Text/ Spirit to Host
/Text/ Host to Spirit
Chapter 46: Intervention
The week seemed to fly by without much incident. Harry stuck to the Marauders Map like glue, but even he couldn't see anything unusual. Seto disappeared for a mysterious period of time on Monday that took both him, Ron, and Ryou poring over the Map in his dormitory before they found him just out on the grounds, seemingly walking around.
Since then? He appeared to act normal, or whatever normal meant for someone who didn't eat much, barely spoke during mealtimes, and stalked the unused classrooms in the evenings before curfew. Malfoy was back to going in and out of the Room of Requirement, and if it weren't for him having to keep an eye on where Kaiba kept going when not in class, he would have made another attempt to follow in after him.
If Malfoy was back to his old tricks, that meant Seto didn't need the room anymore, which helped add to their suspicions that whatever he was up to would come to light. Soon.
But at least not that morning, when he walked into the Great Hall and found Seto sitting at the Gryffindor table, breakfast completely untouched, coffee completely untouched, eyes dead-staring into the mid pages of The Daily Prophet.
Harry sat down between Ron and Hermione, and gave Yugi a quick look, who half-shrugged in response and went back to his breakfast.
It was Ron who first broke the silence and cleared his throat awkwardly. "So…Quidditch is tomorrow."
Ryou leaned forward and set his spoon down into his cereal. "I saw on the notice board. At least the weather looks good for tomorrow. The game won't get shut out again."
"Who're you rooting for?" asked Harry.
"I'm not sure," said Yugi, "I don't really know anyone on either team. But Luna is really nice and she's from Ravenclaw, so we'll go with them, I guess."
Hermione turned her head and peered across the table. A quick, fleeting glance to the others and then back onto Seto. "You'll come, won't you? To see the game?"
Seto didn't even bother to look up. He continued to stare at the same page. Harry swallowed hard. There was no possible way that Seto was still reading the exact same article.
"No."
"Oh, come on," said Harry. "It's the first time any of us will get a real chance to get out of the castle for weeks."
"Good," Seto said, voice flat.
"Even I'm looking forward to going," said Hermione, and Ron's eyes near doubled in size.
"Hermione, you don't care about Quidditch!"
"I can still enjoy a game," said Hermione, "I've been shut in just as much as all of you."
She looked back at Seto. "Please come out. You might enjoy yourself."
Seto finally looked up from the newspaper and at her, eyes tired and dull. "I'll enjoy an empty castle."
"Oh, it's just one game," said Yugi, "One afternoon can't hurt. And you were just out of the castle on work, so there can't be that much you have to catch up with."
Seto swept a hard gaze out at all of them, though it lacked the usual ferocity. "Packing myself into a too-crowded stadium just to watch people make fools of themselves on broomsticks would only be worthwhile if I was watching you make a fool of yourself. Gryffindor isn't even playing, so why should I bother wasting my time?"
"What's got you all booked up then, huh?" Ron asked. "You've been out who knows where since you got back from your trip. And if you don't have your company stuff to do…?"
And just like that – the cold blue eyes were suddenly full of fire as they focused solely on Ron. "Why do you – any of you – suddenly care with what I'm up to?"
"We're just worried about you," said Yugi.
"Don't." Seto said through gritted teeth, glared at him and went back to staring at the newspaper.
Yugi sighed and stared down at his own breakfast, feeling rather helpless. Kaiba hadn't bothered to turn the page, so he had been reading the same spread…for twenty minutes. If he actually read it, any of it, it was within moments of actually sitting at the table. Getting through to Kaiba was hard enough on a good day, but like this?
/Let me try…/
"Kaiba."
Harry didn't even see the quick flash of the Millennium Puzzle, or the subtle swap from Yugi to Yami in the middle of the Great Hall. He took a quick peek around, and thankfully no one else seemed to notice.
Seto certainly didn't, and didn't show any sign of having heard his name being called.
"Kaiba." Yami said again, with much more force. He watched Kaiba's hand flex into a fist against the newspaper. Jaw twitched. Eyes unfocused.
Yami frowned.
/What is it?/
Yami pressed his lips into a thin line. /If I didn't know better…/ he mused, /He almost looked…how he did when he would talk with Set, in their link./
Yugi leaned against the doorframe of his soul room, hugging his arms to his chest. /…But…Set's not there, there's no one he could be talking to…/
He then paled. /…Unless…/
Yami appeared beside him. "He could be at war with Voldemort at this moment. Harry said he was able to fight off the commands when they first learned about the spell. Kaiba may be resisting as best he can."
He blinked back out of their soul corridor in time for Hermione to hesitantly reach across the table and lay a hand carefully overtop Seto's white-knuckled grip.
"S-Seto," she said.
Her fingers barely touched his hand, but it was enough to snap him out of his funk. Seto jerked his arm out so fast it tore the newspaper under it, and she shrank back, as if he had slapped her hand away.
Seto swung around and got to his feet, throwing his bag roughly over his shoulder.
Ryou paused, the fork halfway to his mouth.
"I have better things to do than sit here," said Seto, practically through gritted teeth. "Your game of twenty questions is over."
Harry quickly glanced at Ron. "Where are you going? We have Charms class soon."
Seto rolled his eyes and shot him a dark look. "I have work to do."
Before anyone else could say anything, he was out of the Great Hall, angrily brushing past a pair of Hufflepuff boys on their way in for a last-minute bite to eat.
"Okay, what did we say to piss him off?" asked Ron, "Really."
Harry shook his head, already pulling the Marauders Map from his pocket when Hermione suddenly shifted to get off the bench. "What – what are you doing?"
But Hermione was already halfway on the other side of the Great Hall, weaving around the throng of students heading out for their first class.
"She's going after him," said Ryou, and he looked to the side. Her school bag was left behind on the bench.
Hermione squeezed around a cluster of Slytherins and glanced wildly around the corridor. She may have only left the Great Hall a few seconds behind him, but Seto walked fast. He could be on an entirely different floor by now.
She shoved past a burly Ravenclaw with a quick "sorry", and into the Grand Staircases. She circled around on the ground level, trying to see around all the moving staircases as best she could from all the way at the bottom of the hall.
No one on the second or third floor landings…but she couldn't see anything higher. And for all she knew, he may have already left the steps.
He may not even have gone this way. Maybe he stormed out the front doors, into the courtyard, or down to the Dungeons.
"Need a hand?"
Hermione squeaked and whirled around. The other Bakura was ghosted out, right behind her. "What are you doing here?"
Yami Bakura smirked. "My job, remember? You all were the ones who wanted me to tail him. So do you want to find him or not?"
Hermione's jaw was still on the floor, and she shook her head, twisting around to look about the chamber. "Someone is going to see you."
Bakura circled around her, chuckling. "At the moment? Only you can. The Shadow Realm has seen to that."
"I thought you weren't supposed to be doing that here," she hissed, as a Hufflepuff first year exited the first-floor landing and hurried off towards the Entrance Hall.
"Do you want to remind me of the rules that I'll continue to break at my leisure…or do you want me to tell you where Kaiba is?"
"Y-you know where he is?" Hermione asked, circling around the stairs again, neck craned as best she could to stare up. "I can't see him."
"I don't need to see him," said Bakura. The Millennium Ring was glowing against his chest, all five pointers going straight up. "He's on the fourth floor, heading towards the back staircases."
"Charms isn't anywhere near there," said Hermione, hurrying to the closest set of steps still on the ground.
Bakura trailed behind her. "Guess he's not going."
She sighed and hurried across the landing to the next stair block, which detached from the wall and started floating up to the fourth floor. "Why are you being helpful?"
Bakura raised an eyebrow. "I could go back to the Great Hall with the others, if you'd prefer. But I can tell you that you won't catch him."
"Sorry – it's – it's just that I'm not used to this. You usually don't linger around me or Harry or Ron."
Bakura looked up through the third floor's ceiling. "Let's just say…I'm invested on how this plays out."
The prongs on the Millennium Ring suddenly swiveled to the right, and Hermione looked down the corridor it indicated.
"Better run," Bakura said, "Before he slips away again."
Hermione turned back to see the Ring's prongs again, then back up at him. "T-thank you," she said, before hurrying down the hall.
Bakura smirked at her retreating back. "Don't mention it," he muttered, before vanishing from sight.
Hermione slowed once she started reaching classrooms along the fourth floor. Seto could be hiding in any one of these rooms. Did she really have a chance to find him before he moved up the back staircases just outside the South Tower? With Bakura gone, all she knew was that Seto was somewhere on this floor. Once he left, it would be far too difficult to track him down.
The classrooms along the right side were all dark. Seto couldn't be hiding in any of them unless he extinguished all the light, something he wouldn't bother to do unless he knew he was being followed.
And since he was gone from the Great Hall before she had even gotten up, how would he know?
The last room on the left side was empty, and Hermione sighed. Time to move on up the South Tower and try the fifth floor. If she couldn't catch up to him there, there would be maybe just enough time to circle back and make it to Charms before she missed too much of class, and she mentally crossed her fingers that Harry and Ron made some sort of excuse for her absence. And that someone retrieved her bag from the Great Hall.
The rear South Tower steps were just beyond the next corner, and she careened around it, plowing right into someone coming down the steps in seemingly just as much of a hurry. "Oof!" She stumbled immediately and an arm darted out, hooking around her back in an attempt to keep her steady, but her foot slipped, and she took the other student down with her, landing hard on the stone floor. She heard a male grunt as the other person fell practically on top of her, legs tangled up.
"S-sorry!" she said, slightly winded, and caught a fleck of red lining along the edge of their robes as whoever she hit groaned and tried to get up. She rolled onto her back once he had hoisted himself up enough off of her, and her next breath died in her throat, eyes widening.
She didn't crash into just any Gryffindor.
"S-seto!?" she whispered, still out of breath, and felt her cheeks redden. Their faces were maybe a foot apart.
He was staring blankly at her, his normally narrowed eyes wide, surprised. His face was also flushed, but Hermione couldn't tell if it was from them being so close, or from him running all over the castle. There was something else in his eyes that she couldn't quite place. It wasn't there when during his brief social interaction at breakfast. His eyes didn't seem quite as unfocused now, and were boring right into hers with…fear?
They stared at each other for several seconds, neither of them moving, before Hermione found her voice again. "I'm sorry – are you alright?"
The change was so sudden that someone could have flipped a switch behind his eyes. They suddenly narrowed icily as Seto shot to his feet.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded as she slowly sat up.
"I – hey!" Hermione cried. Seto didn't bother waiting for a proper explanation before he reached down, grabbed hold of her arm and roughly hauled her to her feet. Without loosening his grip, he marched her into the nearest empty classroom, kicked the door shut, and pinned her against it, palms splayed flat against the wooden surface on either side of her.
"Why are you following me?" he growled, looming over her. "Did Potter put you up to this? Or was it Yugi?"
Hermione narrowed her eyes at him. Seto never called Harry by his last name, even when he was legitimately mad at him.
"I came looking for you myself!" she shot back. "It's what friends do, Seto."
He shook his head, eye twitching, and straightened up, turning away from her. "Well, stop."
"No!" Hermione shouted, surprising both herself and Seto with the forcefulness in her voice. "Please, we're worried about you!"
He spun on his heel to glare at her. "I told you all to quit it. I'm fine."
"Like hell you are!" Hermione took a step away from the door and stood her ground, refusing to let his frigid stare intimidate her. "When was the last time you looked in the mirror, Seto? You probably can't even recognize yourself."
"I don't have to listen to this," Seto snapped, and made a step towards the door.
Hermione quickly backed up and into it, blocking his reach from the door handle.
"Move."
His tone was unnerving, but she swallowed her unease down and met his livid eyes head on. "No."
"Out of my way, Granger."
"Or else what?" she challenged. "What are you going to do, attack me? Push me away like you did to everyone else?"
The murderous look on his face told her that he may have actually considered it despite not making any sort of move for his wand, but she knew he also didn't need it. How hard would it be for him to literally toss her aside and storm out?
Easily, she answered for herself and reached into the pocket of her robes for her wand.
He stopped, maybe two steps from being within arms-length of her, and his gaze shifted to the wand clutched tightly in her hand. "Really? You're going to hex me?"
"I don't know," said Hermione, "But it might knock some sense into you."
"How many times do I have to tell you?" Seto seethed through gritted teeth. "There's nothing wrong with me."
"Oh, no?" she asked, taking a single step forward. "Seto, you're a mess! You look like…like I did, when I was using time travel to get through all my lessons. I wouldn't wish that level of burnout on anyone! Clearly something is doing the same to you, too!"
His jaw twitched as he looked down and turned away from her.
Hermione stuffed her wand back into her pocket and moved away from the door to face him. His hands couldn't seem to decide whether to fist or not, and settled to fidgety somewhere between clenched fist open palm. Seto was staring, brow furrowed, down at his shoes, and every few seconds she could see the muscles in his face give a quick spasm. One slow, sharp inhale, one sharp exhale. Repeat. His face formed into a snarl and then loosened up again.
He didn't even notice her standing in front of him.
"Please," she said softly, and reached for one of his hands, loosening up his fingers from digging nail marks into his palm, and was instantly reminded of the afternoon out on the Quidditch Pitch, after Mokuba managed to weasel Seto out of the Hospital Wing. "Talk to me."
She expected him to pull out of her grip and explode upon her in a fit of rage. Leave me alone, or Quit worrying, or the usual Mind your own business!, which she knew he more commonly left for Harry or Ron, but there was none of that.
His hand shook, and she couldn't tell if it was from anger or whatever was going on in his head that it made him look like his shoes were the most extraordinary thing his eyes had ever seen.
But he didn't draw back, so she took this as a sign to take another small step forward, and wrapped her other hand around his. "Please," she said again, "Look at me, Seto."
He did, finally, and she was met with the same mix of emotions as before: anger, masked under the crushing weight of exhaustion….and something else, far beneath the surface. He was clearly struggling.
"I know you're tired of hearing it, but we really are worried about you." She took a deep breath and pressed forward. "I'm afraid for you. You look terrible – like you haven't slept in weeks, we've barely seen you eat, and this is the second day in a row that you've poured coffee for yourself at breakfast and left it to go cold. None of this is like you."
Seto didn't say anything, but she saw his jaw muscles twitch.
"I wish you could just –"
"ENOUGH!" Seto suddenly barked, and she jumped, startled, and dropped his hand as she backed away from him with wide eyes. In that moment of outburst, the loudest she had ever heard him yell in a long time, he had turned his head to the side, away from her and towards the side of the room where the classroom desks were all pushed together along the wall.
He stayed frozen in that position, glaring at the empty desks, and she didn't dare move, her heart beating fast.
Was that shout…at her? Or, if Harry's suspicion was indeed right…was that aimed at a different voice whispering in his ear? Was it talking to him right now?
The minute he spent staring at the wall might as well have been an eternity, until he finally turned back to face her, his face unreadable.
"I'm fine," he said, keeping his voice deceptively even. "There's no need to worry. Really."
Hermione pressed her lips into a thin line.
"I'm –" Seto suddenly paused, and she saw his jaw twitch again when he looked away briefly before he seemed to stop and choose his words again. "…not sleeping, like you said. And I have a headache."
Excuses, and they both knew it.
He turned towards the door. "I – I have work to do."
"Wait!" Hermione surged forward to cut in front of him again. "Please, let us help you."
"There's nothing you can do," said Seto said, looking away from her again. "It's a migraine. It'll pass."
He brushed past her and threw the door open. One foot out and into the hallway before he stopped again, and turned his head a hair to the side. "You going to follow me all the way to Gryffindor Tower too?"
Hermione shook her head. "N-no."
"Good," Seto said, with far more bite in his voice than he both wanted and expected. Damn him. A deep breath and he forced what little lightness was left out. "You can tell Harry he can quit tailing me around on his little map. I'm going to lie down before Herbology."
"Seto, wait!" She braced herself against the doorframe to turn sharply into the corridor after him, and to her relief he paused again. "If there's –"
"There isn't," Seto said forcefully, and she didn't miss the flecks of desperation that worked their way out of him. "You should hurry if you're going to make it to Charms on time."
He didn't wait for her to reply and then continued back the way he originally came, and moved up the back steps towards the fifth floor. Through the corridor until he made it back to the Grand Staircases and onwards all the way back to Gryffindor Tower.
Voldemort's voice, which had mercifully piped down after his outburst in the classroom, picked up again the moment Seto passed through the portrait hole. You are skipping class. Why?
"I have better things to do," Seto muttered, climbing up the boys' stairs two at a time until he reached the landing with his dormitory.
I am inclined to agree with you, for once. There are many preparations that need to be made. And you still have not mastered the spells I painstakingly researched for you.
Seto slammed the door to his room shut and sagged against it. "I told you from the very beginning that I wasn't going to do what you asked. You can't force me to cast those spells any more than you can just waltz in here and put your own wand to my head."
He crossed his arms across his chest. "Face it - you've lost this fight."
Is that so, Voldemort's voice was disgustingly smug. You have told the others somehow, against my wishes. I told you there would be consequences.
"Considering you've been nagging in my ear all this time - you'd know that I haven't clued in a soul to what you were forcing me to do."
Voldemort wasn't amused. You have broken pattern enough that the others can see a difference. Potter's Mudblood friend has been a bit too nosy. They all are.
Seto pushed himself off the door and threw his trunk open, rifling around until he found what he was looking for - a small potion bottle Madam Pomfrey handed him weeks ago when he was given his clean bill of health, to help with any lingering effects of his abduction. At the time, he insisted on not needing it, yet took it from her anyway and stowed it in the bottom of his trunk with the intention of letting it go forgotten.
"And whose fault is that?" Seto shot back. "You were the one whispering in my ear at all hours of the day and night."
You have an uncanny ability to resist my demands, said Voldemort, if I don't keep enforcing what I want done, you won't do it.
"I still won't," Seto snapped back. He nudged the trunk closed. "Joke's on you."
Oh, you will. Recall back to the first days after your hospital recovery. You weren't even aware of what you were doing. Days of research done right under my watchful eye. There was no way to stop me then. If I chose to take full control, there is nothing you could do about it.
"If you could, you would have already," said Seto, wrestling the stopper off of the bottle. He had his wrist angled, ready to pour the potion into the empty drinking glass taken from the connected bathroom when his arm just froze outright and refused to move another inch in any direction.
Who says I can't?
"This got old the first time, down in the common room," said Seto. "Get. Off."
If you are not going to attend your classes, then you will work for me. Consider your leash retracted. Now get to work.
Seto managed to shake off the hold Voldemort set over his arm and filled the glass all the way to the rim. That was at least four times the dose that Madam Pomfrey had advised. It would do nothing to shove Voldemort out of his mind, but at least it would slow him down.
A fleck of movement in the tall mirror along the wall caught his eye, and he lowered the glass back onto the bedside table and moved back to the middle of the room to face it.
Voldemort stood just beyond his reflection.
He quickly spun on his heel to glance behind, but there was no one there.
Now that I have your attention, Voldemort said coolly, let me remind you of something. I have worked far too long to let this fail by Potter's hands. And those of his friends. Do not expect me to sit idly by the next time they attempt to interfere. This mission will succeed, even if I have to harm your friends.
Seto took angry steps closer to the mirror until he was practically right in front of it, eyes full of icy rage. "I can resist you, and I won't let you bring hell down on Hogwarts."
Voldemort's lip curled into a sneer. I warned you what would happen should you continue your little stubborn stint.
He tilted his head, staring at the real Seto through the mirror, red eyes piercing right through him. Who should be the first to go, hm? I still wish to meet the Pharaoh, so Yugi Muto would of course be spared. Potter I will do in personally. But the others are all fair game…
Seto tightly balled his hands into fists and glared back. There was something strange about Voldemort's stare. It wasn't just an apparition in the mirror watching him. If he didn't know better, he would have thought the maniac was right here in the dormitory, standing in front of him with how intensely those red eyes stared him down. As if they were delving down deep, leafing through his mind like an open book.
Ah. I know just who to target first.
Voldemort's sadistic grin was back. You may have formed kindred spirits with the Mudblood – a waste of magical talent, I must say; but you cannot save her any more than you can save your brother when I come for him. And I will come for him if you continue to force my hand.
Seto's eyes narrowed dangerously, and didn't even flinch as he felt his nails break the skin of his palm.
My Death Eaters may not be able to reach the Pharaoh or Potter – yet – but we can tear your city apart, building by building, piece by piece, until we find the boy. And once we have him, we'll see how much you continue to struggle; how far will we get with him before you merely give up.
A thin trickle of blood escaped from under his middle finger, tracing a path around the edges of his other fingertips before letting gravity take it to the ground with a quiet plop. Seto closed his eyes and took in a long, deep breath.
…Bella would, of course, prefer to have you, and she will, once we storm the school. But until then, I think little Mokuba would –
Seto's eyes snapped open, full of fire and fury, and in that same motion hurled his fist right through the mirror, shattering Voldemort's face into a million tiny shards of glass.
"Well the easiest part of the day is behind us," said Ron glumly. "Herbology exam, then Snape, then Umbridge."
They stepped off of the seventh-floor landing and moved towards Gryffindor Tower.
"At least Quidditch is tomorrow," said Harry, "Something to look forward to…you know, if we were actually going to go to the game in the first place."
Ron scowled. "Thanks for the depressing reminder, mate."
Yugi turned to the Fat Lady's portrait. "Dilligrout."
"Correct," she said, and swung open, allowing them inside.
"I suppose if we can find and stop Kaiba before anything weird happens, there will still be time to enjoy the match, right?" asked Ryou.
"Sure," said Ron. He plunked down onto the sofa nearest to the fireplace. "I mean, normally the games take a while. Shortest one in recorded history was three-and-a-half seconds, but that's never happened here at Hogwarts."
Yugi frowned and sat down in one of the squashy armchairs. "Well…if we miss the game, how about if we're able to reserve the pitch for a mock game or something. The three of us, and…maybe Ginny? We could try to borrow a Quaffle and just…shoot hoops, I guess?"
Harry shrugged. "Maybe. Though I might make a terrible chaser."
"You and me both," Ron snickered.
"Well, Ginny's great and I'm…decent," said Yugi, "We could each split up. Or maybe if we know enough people among the other houses that play, we could have proper teams."
"I can ask," said Harry, "So long as whatever happens doesn't…you know, blow up the school or anything."
Hermione sat down in the chair opposite Yugi and pulled her Herbology book from her bag. "In the meantime, would anyone want to review before Professor Sprout's exam?"
"I will," said Ryou, "Let me get my book from upstairs."
Hermione bit her lip. "If you could, can you also check on Seto? He said he had a headache and was going to try and sleep it off before Herbology."
"Sure," Ryou nodded. "Need your book too, Yugi?"
Yugi shook his head. "No, I have mine already."
"Alright, then I'll be right back."
"I know it won't be," Harry said, taking a seat right next to Ron. He stared blankly into the dead fireplace. "But part of me really hopes that nothing happens tomorrow. That we were wrong about just about everything."
"That doesn't explain the texts he sent. Kaiba's behavior is still off," said Yugi. "Even if he wasn't possessed, there's still something clearly wrong with him."
"You can say that again," said a rather stiff voice from the entrance to the boys' staircase, and Harry craned his neck to look past Yugi. The dark Bakura had ghosted out of the wall with an unusually grim look on his face.
Bakura nodded towards the steps. "You should see this," he said, and then vanished again.
Harry was the first to reach the staircase and led the group up and past the fifth-year's floor. Ryou was still standing on the landing for his room, staring wide-eyed through the open door.
"Bakura?" Yugi asked. "What is it?"
Ryou shook his head, trying to formulate some sort of thought into a coherent sentence, until he gave up and exhaled noisily. "A mess."
Yugi didn't bother to look before walking across the threshold, and stopped in his tracks the moment he felt the crunching of glass under his feet.
The upper half of the tall mirror that sat along the one wall was completely smashed, and what survived of the bottom had a number of cracks running through it.
Hermione filed into the dormitory last, and gasped at the mess along the floor. "What happened?"
"Someone won the fight with the mirror," said Bakura flatly, ghosting out of the Ring again. "What does it look like!?"
Ryou glared at him. "Spirit."
"That's not all," said Ron, stepping carefully around the glass and into the middle of the room. He pointed towards Seto's bed. "Check this out."
Seto was awkwardly slumped over on his bed, legs still off the side as if he had been sitting up mere moments before blacking out. One arm dangled limply off the edge, and directly below it on the floor sat the remains of one of the water glasses from the bathroom.
"He's not –"
"He's asleep, I think," said Ron, and he shook Seto by the shoulder. "Seto. …Seto!…Oi, wake up!"
Seto didn't budge.
Harry looked back at the mirror. "Did we…did we piss him off so much from breakfast that he raged out up here?"
"I don't see anything that he would have thrown," said Hermione, looking around the floor.
Ron knelt down, careful to avoid the glass at Seto's bedside, and turned over the wrist hanging over the side of the bed. "I do. His fist." He angled it towards the others, showing off the numerous bloody cuts all along his hand.
Harry's jaw dropped. "What? Why?"
Ron shrugged. "With how he was acting these last few days? Who knows?"
"Why won't he wake up?" asked Yugi.
Yami ghosted out of the Puzzle. "Wait – there on his night table. What is that bottle?"
Harry picked it up and twisted it around. "There's no label on it."
"My guess is a sleeping draught of some sort," Hermione said. "Since he won't wake." She stepped closer and pulled her wand from the pocket of her robes and aimed at both the glass and blood that had dripped down from his hand and onto the floor. "Evanesco. Scourgify."
Harry turned to Yugi and Ryou. "Have you guys ever seen this bottle before?"
"Nope," said Yugi, and Ryou shook his head.
Harry frowned and swished the remaining liquid around inside before jamming the stopper back onto the top. "There's barely anything left in it. You think he drank it all?"
"I certainly hope not," Hermione said, horrified. "With those sorts of potions, the more you take, the more potent they are."
"So Kaiba destroyed a mirror and put himself down for a nap," Bakura said flatly. "Why?"
"I don't know," said Yami. "But there's nothing we can do until he wakes up. And even then, I strongly doubt he would tell us anything."
Hermione held her hand out for the bottle. "I'd like to see if Professor Snape can identify what this is. Maybe we can catch him before class starts."
"You think I want to be anywhere near Snape longer than absolutely necessary?" Harry's face soured. "Forget that."
"I don't care about what he thinks of me. I'll do it," said Hermione, "Put whatever we feel about Professor Snape aside; this isn't about us. Seto needs help and we have to do what we can before he does something worse to himself."
Ron gently pushed down on Seto's shoulder and rolled him onto his back, then moved towards the foot of the bed, lifted his legs and straightened them out rather than let them dangle off the edge. "At least he's more comfortable now. Maybe he won't be such of a grump when he finally comes back to life."
Yugi turned his wand on the mirror. "Reparo." The broken shards along the floor suddenly jumped up, dancing through the air to fit back into their original places, and the cracks running down the bottom vanished completely.
"Well…let's go," said Ryou sadly. "There's nothing more we can really do here."
Hermione tapped her wand against the back of Seto's hand. Bandages immediately sprung from the tip and wrapped themselves across his knuckles and around his palm. She then followed Ron's lead and moved his hand out from hanging off the side of the bed to resting beside him on the blankets, giving it a quick squeeze before following the others out of the dormitory.
"What is he doing now?"
The Shadow Magus turned from staring out the dusty window overlooking the long-abandoned, overgrown lawn.
Sleeping.
Voldemort scowled, pausing in his stroking of Nagini's head; something she clearly was not fond of and flicked her tongue out at his idle fingers. Kaiba had downed that potion hours ago. Night had already fallen.
"Still?"
Yes. The Shadow Magus moved throughout the dark study, the glowing half-sword trailing dutifully behind him.
"He is stalling," Voldemort hissed. "And I have waited long enough. Wake him." Nagini slithered away as he leaned forward, tightly gripping the arms of his chair. Kaiba was doing this on purpose.
Me? The Shadow Magus bristled. I am not the one who put the strings on him.
"But you are in his head. You said so yourself."
To observe, said the Shadow Magus. Both of us pulling him in different directions could damage his mind. And since you need it working at the moment, I suggest you let him be.
He didn't feel the need to say that Seto was still in bed this long because he had overdosed on the healer's sleeping tonic, in part just to shut Voldemort up. Watching him struggle against Voldemort's orders was admirable, but it was clear he wasn't able to force the wizard out. But he did find himself able to at least stall Voldemort by shutting his body down. Voldemort had no actionable control over him while he slept; the curse he placed on him was, after all, a trick of the mind and not the body.
Clever.
His own patience with the boy was paying off. Another gentle nudge here and there, from the relative safety of the dark corner he had hidden himself away, would hopefully be enough for Kaiba to break from Voldemort's control. Exactly what he wanted him to do.
And once that step was done? He'd light up the Millennium Rod like a homing beacon, sit back, and wait. If the Pharaoh truly wanted to uncover his destiny, he will have to come get it.
And if it didn't bring his ancient foe to his doorstep immediately, that was fine. That gave the Death Eaters in Egypt a hair longer to find the next piece of that blasted sword. Only one more would get him strong enough to delve deep into the Millennium Rod, to undo a failsafe he had put into place thousands of years ago.
If he was going to have to wait for the other six Millennium Items to fall into Voldemort's grasp, he might as well get a jumpstart on the eighth key.
"…Are you even paying attention?" Voldemort snapped.
The golden eye flared and the Shadow Magus turned very slowly to face him. No.
Voldemort glowered at him. "I said, I want you to insert me more directly into his mind. Giving orders from here is not working. Clearly the Imperius Curse alone is not strong enough because he is still far too resisting."
I did warn you this would happen.
"It doesn't matter now," said Voldemort, "If he breaks out of my control, I will not get it back, and all that I have worked for these last weeks will have been for nothing."
He is not here.
"I know that," Voldemort said, clearly irritated. "But you are both here and there. I wish to do the same."
And how do you expect me to pull off such a feat?
"The same way you did it before," said Voldemort.
The Eye flared again, and the purple mist pulsed around his hands . You will do well to remember that infiltrating his mind before you snatched him took time. I cannot just insert you there on a whim.
"I understand that the school will empty tomorrow." Voldemort sneered. "The children finally get their little sporting event. That is the window."
He got up and gave the Shadow Magus a narrowed glare. Nagini slithered up and coiled around his neck and shoulder, hissing.
"I remember well the trouble you had in the beginning. You could only travel through your link at night, when he was weak. Well, good news for you, High Priest. I've been whispering in his ear for weeks, and now? Seto Kaiba is a shell of his former self. He is barely keeping himself alive in his pathetic attempts to drive me out. I'd say now he is the weakest he's ever been."
Voldemort took one step closer, meeting the Shadow Magus's rather unseeing gold eye head on. "And now, since he's chosen to waste his day in bed, there is no better opportunity to act. We have mere hours. Get me inside."
He was halfway to the door before he heard the angry rasp behind him.
I do not answer to you, Dark Lord. I am not one of your minions, and you cannot control me.
Voldemort tilted his head to look back out of the corner of his eyes.
The Shadow Magus instantly appeared directly in front, looming right over him. I told you, when we had him, that his mind was far too resistant to control, and you did not listen. You have your link, as crumbling as it is, and you have already threatened him once with compliance. Perhaps you should just make good on your word.
"His brother has gone to ground, as have all of Yugi Muto's friends," said Voldemort. "I do not have the time to play scavenger hunt halfway around the world, not when I am this close to finally getting inside of Hogwarts."
He then looked to the floating sword behind the Shadow Magus, a good half of it still missing. "And as for control? You may have powers I currently can only dream to understand, but you will never get anywhere without me."
The Shadow Magus chuckled. Is that so.
In an instant, he grabbed Voldemort by the collar of his robes, and hoisted him easily into the air so his Millennium Eye was level with angry red ones. The purple aura pulsed bright from his hands, and the dark study suddenly disappeared, swallowed by the Shadow Realm.
Nagini hissed angrily and made to strike the Shadow Magus's wrist, but her attack went right through him. Again she tried along Aknadin's arm, and then on the claws holding Voldemort up in the air, but despite his hold, there was nothing physical for her to hit.
The Shadow Magus leaned in, the golden eye shining bright. I can send you away to bask in your own personal hell for all eternity. I can take control of every last one of your soldiers and give them new marching orders – my marching orders, and leave you with nothing. However, I have seen this partnership beyond today's squabble, and it will be fruitful for the both of us. But do not think, for an instant, that you have true power over me.
The Eye flared brighter in the dark. I will do this for you once, to prove a point. And when this little stint is over, when your little puppet is spent, you will do something for me.
The Eye suddenly burned, a blinding light in the darkness of the Shadow Realm. Now, do we have an understanding?
Yugi woke the following morning feeling incredibly uneasy. Kaiba was still sprawled on his bed, his bandaged hand resting against his stomach, exactly the way that they left him following Charms class yesterday. He wanted to hope that it was a sign that nothing terrible was going to happen today, but his gut instincts said otherwise.
Hermione managed to discover that the bottle was Dreamless Sleep potion from Madam Pomfrey, after being unable to track down Professor Snape before and after their class. There was no way of knowing how much of the bottle he drank, but the nurse was at least able to confirm that even if he downed the entire thing, he would come around sometime today. Assuming it lingered on, right at the same time as the Quidditch match. Not a very reassuring thought.
His gaze lingered on Kaiba's side of the room for an extra moment before he left. There was something different about it that he couldn't quite place. But Kaiba was still asleep, just as he was all day yesterday, so there was nothing to be out of sorts at all. No one else would have disturbed his space, so he put the thought out of mind and joined Ryou in the common room.
"Harry and Ron already went down to breakfast," Ryou said. "You ready?"
"Yeah," said Yugi, and he gave Gryffindor Tower one last fleeting glance before heading down the corridor. "I was wondering – was the Spirit of the Ring out and about last night?"
"He usually is at night," Ryou shrugged, "Why do you ask?"
"I was just wondering if Kaiba got up at all while we were asleep, or if he really drank so much of that potion that he checked out for an entire day."
"Oh," said Ryou, "Well…I don't quite keep constant tabs on the Spirit, and he doesn't always tell me what he's up to when wandering the school at night, but he has been keeping an eye on him. I think if something happened, he would have warned us."
I could only hope so, Yugi said to himself. "You think it's going to happen today then?"
Ryou sighed. "I…I don't know. Today is the perfect opportunity, but it'll be wasted if he doesn't get up. And if that's the case, and he misses the chance entirely, we may not really find out when he plans to act until it's too late."
They found Harry, Ron and Hermione in the Great Hall already, sitting as far from the rest of their house along the end of the table as possible.
"Still asleep?" Harry asked.
"Yep."
"So what's the plan?" asked Ryou. "We're going to watch him on the Map all day, right?"
Harry nodded, and reached into the pocket of his jacket for the Marauders Map, when he suddenly frowned, and tried his other pocket. "Uh oh…"
"What's wrong?" asked Hermione.
"It's not in my jacket," said Harry.
"You've got a couple of jackets," said Ron, "You probably left it in a different one."
Harry shook his head. "No – I had it in this one yesterday."
"You might have just left it in the dormitory by mistake," said Hermione.
Harry furrowed his brow. "I guess…" he said, but he didn't sound incredibly convinced of it. If he couldn't find the Map, then there would be no way to know where Seto was going to strike, and too much time would be wasted trying to find him rather than try and stop him.
"Well, we'll go back to Gryffindor Tower afterwards and find it," said Yugi. "I want to check in on Kaiba again anyway, even if we're only going to pretend to grab cloaks and head down to the Quidditch Pitch."
Harry put his fork down and swung over the edge of the bench. "I'm going to head back now for it. I'll be right back."
"You alright?" asked Ron.
"I just have this feeling," said Harry. "I could have sworn I had the Map in this pocket, and now it's missing."
He darted out of the Great Hall, and then Hermione leaned forward across the table.
"…Has anyone given any thought of how we're going to stop him from destroying the school? Other than running to find Professor Dumbledore, I mean."
"Depends how far gone he is, doesn't it?" asked Ron, "We might be able to talk him down somehow."
"And if we can't?" Hermione asked.
Ron hung his head. "There is only one of him and five of us. If it looks like he's getting the better of us, someone has to be prepared to run and get Dumbledore. He's the only person You-Know-Who fears, so if he's really possessing Kaiba that might give us an edge."
"We might need that edge," said Ryou, "If we can get Kaiba back to normal without hurting him – or anyone else – we might figure out more of what happened while he was stuck with Voldemort in the first place."
"Yeah," Yugi said, staring down at his breakfast. "And figure out more of how Voldemort got wind of all the Orichalcos stuff in the first place."
Harry took the boys' staircase two at a time and threw open the door to his room. He had placed his jacket on the bedside chair before going to sleep last night. Maybe the Map fell out of the pocket and he missed it on the floor when he got dressed.
He circled around his bed. No such luck.
Harry flipped his pillow over. No Map. The drawer on his nightstand turned up empty. His trunk looked exactly the way he had left it, and even though he took everything out of it, just to make sure it wasn't there, he knew that wasn't where it was left.
Not in his cloak, or his other hooded jacket. His class robes pockets turned up empty. It wasn't in any of the clothes in his wardrobe.
Harry slumped down onto his bed and ran a hand through his hair. Where could it have gone? It was in his pocket, he was certain of it.
His eyes fell on his school bag, the last place he hadn't yet checked. He knew it wasn't there, but it was worth a shot. He quickly grabbed it turned it upside down onto his bed, but it wasn't there either.
What the hell?
Harry shook his head and took a long sweeping gaze around the empty dormitory. Neville, Dean, and Seamus didn't even know the Marauders Map even existed, so they'd have no reason to take it. And Ron never went through his things. Even if Ron did, he had to know that the Map was never left alone. It couldn't have been him either.
He would have known if Yugi or Ryou snuck into his room. Ron may be a heavy sleeper, but he wasn't. Neither was Dean. The only one who could probably get in and out of his room undetected was the Spirit of the Millennium Ring, but what use would he have for the Marauders Map? Anyplace he wanted to go, he could just spirit around to, and use the Shadow Realm to get by undetected.
He had the Map on him the entire time, until after dinner when he left his things upstairs to play chess with Ron in the common room. But everyone else was down in the common room with him. No one had an opportunity to take it.
Harry furrowed his brow. The only person that wasn't with them was Seto…who spent the day knocked out by his own sleeping potion. Yugi had gone up to check on him a thousand times throughout the course of the day, and he hadn't woken up at all.
Unless, he really didn't drink the sleeping potion. What if he was feinting the entire time? Yugi and Ryou had never seen the bottle before. Which meant they had no idea how much potion was really in it. Maybe it was already empty before yesterday.
Seto broke the mirror. What's to say that he just didn't drop a glass onto the floor too just to make up appearances?
Harry shot to his feet and bolted out of his dormitory and down to the next landing where he pounded heavily on the door. "KAIBA!"
There was no reply and he waited a beat before putting his hand on the knob. If he was lucky, he'd find Seto still passed out. The second-favorable answer was that he was up, maybe in the shower or something and didn't hear him try and break down the door.
His stomach twisted at the third option as he pushed into Yugi's dorm. The room was quiet.
Most importantly, it was empty.
Harry had half a moment's thought to check the bathroom, just to be sure no one was hiding in it, before he ran, nearly tripping down the dormitory steps in his haste to get back to the Great Hall.
Seto, predictably, was not with the others by the time he skidded to a stop at the Gryffindor table, completely out of breath.
"Seto's gone," Harry panted. "And I think he took the Marauders Map."
"What!?" Yugi's eyes widened. "But – he was completely out not twenty minutes ago!"
"Look, I just tore my space apart. The Map is missing. And I looked in your room too, because of everyone in this place who has access to Gryffindor Tower and knows about the Map, Seto's the only one not accounted for. And he's gone."
Ron scooted over on the bench and Harry collapsed down onto it. "How would he know you didn't have it on you?"
Harry shook his head. "I don't know. I hadit with me yesterday at breakfast. Kaiba was with us then, for that small period of time. Once he left, he'd have no idea what was going on because he was asleep – if he was really asleep at all."
"That potion bottle was empty, Harry," Hermione countered. "Madam Pomfrey said at that dose he took, he'd be out for almost two days."
"But we don't know if he actually drank it yesterday," Harry shot back. "Maybe it was almost empty already."
"One problem with that," said Yugi, "Kaiba's not a heavy sleeper. At all. We shook him. We moved him around on his bed. He didn't flinch once. I'm inclined to think he really did drink it. Maybe he didn't take the whole thing like we initially thought, but when we first found him, I'm certain he was legitimately out."
"You looked in on him, Yugi. Did anything look out place, at all yesterday?" asked Ron.
"I…I don't think…?" Yugi sighed, and closed his eyes, head bent down at the table. He didn't remember taking careful notice of Kaiba's bedside every time he poked his head into the dormitory. And he only gave his shoulder a gentle nudge once to see if it would get him up.
/Wait./
/Pharaoh?/
/I think…I have something…so small that we both missed it completely./
The Millennium Puzzle flashed. "Hermione," Yami began. "Yesterday, you wrapped his hand. Where did you put it?"
She blinked at him, brow raised. "Um…what?"
"We moved him, remember?" said Yami. "Ron laid him flat out on his bed. But his arm was dangling off the edge when you wrapped it."
"Oh…." She shook her head. Why was that so important? "I think, beside him?"
Yami looked Harry dead in the eyes. "He moved, sometime before we got up this morning."
Harry waved an arm out, exasperated. "Well…that's great. Sometime last night probably, when we all were in the common room. But without the Map, we have no idea where he is now. This place is too big to search from top to bottom. He could be anywhere."
"Maybe there's some clue he left behind," said Ron. "He went through the trouble of those coded text messages. I wonder if he left any inkling of where he was going."
"It's worth a shot," Harry said, jumping back to his feet. "Let's go."
"Wait!" Hermione hissed, and grabbed at Harry's arm before he could start running again. "Think logically for a moment. We think Seto is going to take down the school wards, remember? In order to do it, he'd have to be somewhere with easy access to outside."
"Or he might be outside," said Yami, "And the grounds are far too spread out to search."
"He was waiting for today, for when the castle would be empty," said Hermione. "If he was going to do it outside, he probably had plenty of opportunity before now, but there's too great a chance to be caught. Don't forget, Aurors patrol the grounds."
"What about the courtyard, or the training grounds?" asked Harry. "Aurors don't patrol those areas, because they're cornered in by the castle."
Ron nodded. "Courtyard's just down the hall. Let's go."
"Or," Ryou said, "We could…you know…use the Millennium Ring."
Harry blew out a huge puff of air. "You know…that will work just fine."
"Okay," said Yami. "Odds are Kaiba won't make a move until he knows the match has started. So we have…." He checked the time on Yugi's phone. "One hour to find him."
Ryou lifted Millennium Ring off of his chest and held it parallel to the table. "Where's Kaiba?"
The Ring suddenly lit up, and all five pointers started waving wildly before freezing in place, pointing up.
"Nice," Ron deadpanned. "We're on the ground floor. Everything is above us, save the Dungeons."
"The Ring will give us a better indication the closer we get to him," Ryou explained, "Once we're on the stairs it'll pinpoint down what floor he's on."
"Couldn't your spirit just scout ahead and tell us?" asked Ron.
"No," Harry said, "I'm sure he can, but if there's any chance he gets caught, Seto might disappear again or do something even more reckless, so we'll move carefully up as a group."
"Then let's get moving," said Yami, "We might be able to talk him down before he tries to put us all in danger."
"You-Know-Who's controlling him," said Ron, "You really think you're going to be able to reason with him?"
"We'll soon find out," said Yami.
Harry kept darting glances at Ryou's ring as they moved up to the second floor. Pointing up. It refused to budge all the way to the third floor, where two pointers switched from going straight up to sharply to the right.
"What's down this hallway?" asked Ryou. "We don't have classes on this side of the third floor."
"It's an access corridor that goes around the perimeter," said Hermione. "There are side entrances to the North and South towers here."
"That's not all," said Harry, eyes wide, and he turned back to the group. "I have a hunch. Follow me!" He led them down the third-floor corridor and up a side staircase before doubling back towards the front of the school.
"Where are we going?" asked Yugi, ghosting out of the Puzzle.
Harry led them up another staircase and stopped at an intersecting hallway. Just beyond the arched opening was a set of narrow, winding steps. He looked back, his face grim as the five pointers on the Ring suddenly pointed up in unison again.
"You said that he'd need a good vantage point to take the wards down over the school," said Harry.
"Of course," Hermione whispered. "This is the entrance to the Astronomy Tower!"
"It's the highest point in the school," Harry said to Yugi and Ryou, "And it faces away from the Quidditch Pitch. If he doesn't fire a spell straight up, the castle will block anyone's view from the stands. And assuming we don't see the wards come down, no one would be any wiser to what had happened until it was too late."
"Then we need to get moving," said Yami, but then Harry shot out an arm to stop him.
"Wait. We need to be smart about this. Seto took the Marauders Map so we couldn't find him. But he can still see us, so he knows we're here. If Voldemort's really possessing him, there might be a trap."
Yami shook him off. "Then let's not keep him waiting. If there's a trap we'll have to spring it." He rested a hand along the top of the Puzzle and inched his way up the spiral staircase.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione, wands in hand, followed up after him with Ryou taking up the rear. Around and around the winding circle they climbed, until Yami stopped short about half a floor's distance from where Harry knew the top of the stairs to be.
Directly in front of them was a cloud of purple mist.
"Riddle me this," said Ron, clutching his wand tightly. "How does someone summon the Shadow Realm…when they don't have a Millennium Item?"
"They can't," said Yami.
"Then what are we looking at?"
"The Shadow Realm," said Yami Bakura, appearing beside Ryou. "But Kaiba didn't cast it."
"What, so Voldemort can because he stole the Millennium Rod?"
"No," Bakura drawled, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. "Someone else did it."
Yami raised a hand, hesitated, and then plunged his arm up into the mist, only to see his hand pop out beside it.
"What the –!" Ron shouted.
Yami pulled his arm back out and turned to look down the steps at Ryou and Bakura. "Why do I have the feeling that I can't disperse this…but you can?"
"Why would it matter?" asked Hermione. "Isn't it just the Shadow Realm? All of your Millennium Items can conjure it, can't they?"
"Yes, but once they're out, usually only the caster can get rid of it, either willingly or by losing a Game," Bakura muttered, and floated past Harry, Ron, and Hermione to stand beside the Pharaoh. "Whatever has been happening to Kaiba in the past seems to recognize the Millennium Ring."
"Do you know why?" asked Yugi.
Bakura gave him a narrowed side-eyed glare. "Maybe."
Yami crossed his arms and paired him with a hard stare of his own. "Why?"
Bakura lifted his chin up at him. "Which is it going to be, Pharaoh? Are you going to play savior, or do you want to sit around a fire and share stories? We don't have time for both."
"Explanations later," Hermione said quickly, "Whatever the link is, call it good fortune."
"Do you need to take over, Spirit?" asked Ryou. He had already expected the spirit to shove him back and resume control over his body, but was surprised that wasn't the case, and was even more when Bakura shook his head and raised his glowing Millennium Ring up at the cloud.
Ryou's ring activated in unison, absorbing the purple hue of the Shadow Realm in front of them until the cloud dissipated and they were able to see the opening in the stairs leading into the tower.
They crept up closer, and Harry dared to be the one to poke his head first around the corner. Seto was standing alone along the parapet railing, still dressed in his robes from yesterday despite it being the weekend. His back was to them, and both palms were splayed flat against the railing.
The Marauders Map floated in front of him and off to the side at eye level. On his other side floated the second wave of notes that they had discovered in his trunk.
Harry turned back. "He's alone," he whispered. "Let's go."
They slowly rounded the corner and were mere steps in when Harry collided with some sort of barrier. He furrowed his brow and put his hand out in front of him only to hit a wall he couldn't see, and turned back to the others. Hermione was towards the back and did the same, turning towards the doorway they had entered from, and met an identical wall.
There was no going back now.
Seto turned his head ever so slightly to look at the Map, and then angled it back a hair towards them, but not enough so they could see his face.
"What are you doing here?" he asked icily.
"I could ask you the same thing, Kaiba," said Yami, taking a step closer to the front barrier.
"Enjoying the view," said Seto, still staring out at the school grounds. Yami frowned. Kaiba's voice had its normal air of casual frigidness to it, but there was something off layered underneath it. "…While I can."
He turned his head back to face forward completely again. "For being so eager to watch the game, you're all rather far from the Quidditch Pitch."
"You're rather far from your laptop," Yami countered, "for someone who claims to have so much to do."
"I'm right where I need to be," said Seto. He shifted his right hand off of the balcony and into his robes, and they all raised wand arms. Yami was certain once his wand came out, all hell was going to break loose, but it wasn't a wand Seto pulled from his pocket, just his phone. Yami watched him wake it up and catch the time before stowing it away again.
Two minutes until the game started.
"And so are we," said Yami.
"Kaiba, we know what's going on," Yugi said, floating to rest beside Yami. "You don't have to do this. Let us help you."
"You can't help him," Seto snapped. "I've seen to that."
Ron raised an eyebrow and exchanged weird looks with Harry. "What?"
Hermione stepped forward to stand in line with Yugi and Yami. "Seto, please. We know what he's done to you, and we know you're still in there. You have to fight him!"
Seto laughed, a terrible cold cackle that Yami had never heard before, not even in the height of one of their duels when Kaiba thought himself to be one move away from complete victory. This was not his dramatic 'I've got you now!' laugh that he would normally brush away with a trap card ready to counter attack.
There was another voice, layered over Kaiba's own, and it sent chills right through him.
"And that is where you're wrong," said Seto. He turned around to face them, and Hermione gasped and backed into Ron.
Once blue eyes were now a vibrant scarlet.
"Seto Kaiba lost his fight," said Voldemort. "He belongs to me now. And in a few moments, so will all of you."