A/N: I'm back, everyone! Thank you so much for your patience this year. Believe it or not, the next chapter has already been started. I am also trying to finish Murder Most Foul so I can't guarantee the speed of the next update, but as always, I will do my best to keep the gap of time as short as possible.

Please enjoy the new update!

Chapter 53: "Observation"

A high, cold laugh.

Flashes of red light.

Long, bony claws rooted him in place before a damaged rock.

Blue eyes reflected red in the mirror.

…The fast beating of his heart against the calm of Gryffindor Tower.

Seto stayed flat on his back, and blinked slowly up at nothing. His leg hurt, as it usually did after the dreams forced their way back. But like the nonexistent knives, the pain dulled away the longer he remained still, staring holes through the scarlet bedcurtains.

He could reach through for his phone, but he didn't need the time to shine in his face to know that it was far too early for the sun to come up – but also far too late to bother going back to sleep.

Another night lost.

Was it wishful thinking in hopes that the worst of it all were behind him? Even the worst memories of his past – Gozaburo, Pegasus, any of it – were never this bad. Why was this so different? Were the sharp edges of those dreams merely dulled from time and replaced with newer, fresher hells? Did his brain not want him to get any sleep anymore? Or was it trying to tell him something, and this was its cryptic way of doing it?

At least this time, he didn't have to relive that woman breathing down his neck, whispering false promises into his ear.

He threw the blankets back and sat up. His leg no longer screamed at him. Now it was just stiff.

A poke at his phone revealed exactly what he guessed – 4:26am. The alarm was set for six, but he never managed to sleep all the way through to hear it. Not anymore.

Well, if he wasn't going to go back to bed, that left either getting a head start on next week's Charms theories, or seeing what was going on at work. Either option meant getting up and shuffling through his trunk. Whatever he found first would win out.

It was Charms, but barely, with only a messily-rolled scarf between the book and his laptop. Moonlight trickled in through the tower windows, and caught just the edge of a bit of gold under the scarlet fabric.

He scowled at it.

Set used to do something, some ancient gibberish of one kind or another, when he suffered from the Shadow Magus's probes in the first half of the year, and he really wished now that he had the barest care then to ask just what it was that he did.

Both Yugi and Harry had tried to offer on separate occasions for him to visit Madame Pomfrey for some sort of tonic – Harry especially, after having the misfortune of making some remark while he was at his agitated peak: Monday morning – before coffee.

'I don't need potions' he had said. One sleeping tonic would turn into two, and then three, and the next he knew, he'd have a nightly addiction without a hope of breaking out of it. No thanks. Set, while whatever he did took the place of a physical potion, at least he could be reasoned with. He knew not to utter his old magic words unless the Shadow Magus was up to no good.

The Shadow Magus hadn't bothered to come back after the fight on the Astronomy Tower. These were just bad dreams. Right? Like the old nightmares, these too would eventually lose their edge.

He didn't need Set whispering in his ear.

Seto shut the lid down on the trunk and shuffled back to bed.

This was the day. He just knew it.

Harry waited, as he did the last four days, just around the corner from the entrance to the Room of Requirement. There was only twenty minutes left of breakfast – if Malfoy was going to make it out of the room and get to his first class on time, he would have to leave soon.

And maybe, just maybe, he'd get to sneak in through the door this time before it vanished away, waiting for its next summon.

Harry scowled and leaned against the wall under the safety of his cloak. Two days ago, he nearly ran into Umbridge while staking out the corridor. It was rather unusual to see her this far from the Great Hall in the mornings – and of all the places she could decide to go, what were the odds that he would cross paths with her in this wing of the castle? The fact that the near miss two days ago wasn't the first instance of finding her up here made him pause.

There was no way that she could know he was there under the cloak…so was she tailing Malfoy? But why him? And how could she possibly know that he was disappearing into the Room of Requirement time and time again?

He crossed his arms and eyed the wall in front of him. Maybe she didn't know. Maybe she just caught Malfoy going in a weird direction enough to create a pattern and thought he was up to no good. Maybe she was trying to get into the Room of Requirement herself…and couldn't because it was already occupied….

Harry wrinkled his nose at the thought. What could she possibly need from the Room of Requirement?

Shadows along the wall started to shift and Harry straightened up. The door was materializing again – this was his chance!

He inched his way down the corridor.

The door flew open.

Malfoy stormed out.

Harry made a dive for the door as it swung closed, landing just inside as it clicked shut.

He threw off the cloak, got to his feet and did a slow spin about the room, jaw dropped.

What sort of secret project could Malfoy be doing…that he had to complete it in a room full of junk?

There were towers of chairs lopsidedly stacked together so precariously that Harry was sure would topple if he so much as sneezed in its direction. Piles of books coated in inches of dust. Old suits of armor. Empty portrait frames. Broken desks. Tall, stuffed bookcases with overflow stacked haphazardly beside them. A rack of broomsticks long past their prime. Cabinets filled with ominous, congealed potions.

Harry spun around again. Hermione would have a field day in here – there had to be hundreds if not thousands of books squirreled away. Everywhere he looked sat a new tower of tomes.

He rounded a tower of broken chairs to find a trunk. Did Malfoy hide whatever he was working on in there? He quickly flipped the latch and heaved it open.

Hats – that probably went out of fashion a few centuries ago. He shut the lid with a scowl and glared off into the distance at an old cabinet wedged between a headless suit of armor and a collection of rusted swords.

He didn't have time this morning to fully explore the room, and even if he did – there was far too much to look at! Even if he managed to wrangle Ron and the others to help him search…how could they possibly find anything in this sea of objects? Without even knowing what they were looking for!?

Harry let out a huff and stalked back to where he left the cloak. He thought finally getting into the Room of Requirement would be a step forward. Not ten steps backward.

"I've never seen the Library this packed before," whined Romilda Vane, weighed down by the history books she found on the Goblin Wars. "How are we supposed to prepare for our OWLS and write Binns's stupid essay when there's no place to work?"

Ginny rolled her eyes. "You could go back to the dormitory you know."

Romilda groaned. "With that drafty window? No thanks! And the common room is no better with all the club meetings every night."

She rounded the corner out of the History of Magic stacks and stopped short.

"Although…," she began, a grin spreading across her face, and she dropped her haul onto the tiny rickety table in front her. "I think that this spot will do nicely!"

Ginny wrinkled her nose at it. There was barely enough surface area for the books, let alone room to work on an essay. And for two people? Forget it. It would wobble like a seesaw anytime either of them shifted a book or tried to write their essay. It was no wonder why this spot was abandoned.

"Seriously?"

"Mhm!" Romilda didn't even wait for Ginny to leave the aisle and join her. She plopped down into her chair and took her parchment and quill from her bag. The first book was opened and propped against the pile, but she didn't even bother looking at the page; her focus instead went straight ahead.

What…?

Ginny rounded the corner. Romilda sat facing the aisle, and since she wasn't making any true effort to read the books she found, then why – oh.

You've got to be kidding me.

The History of Magic sections faced the center aisle of the Library. Across the way, without any obstruction, was Magical Law.

And to her immense surprise, Seto was actually in the Library, and not in an abandoned classroom or the common room, tucked away at his favorite table in the one section that no one ever visited.

"Seriously?" Ginny hissed, "I thought you were over this."

Romilda uncapped her ink bottle. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Ginny smacked her shoulder with her book. "You were the one who told me, in our dorm, the night after the Astronomy Tower nearly blew up that you were done with obsessing over Seto and Ryou."

"I was overreacting," Romilda said, "I mean – you heard the horrible rumors just like the rest of us – that he had been kidnapped by You-Know-Who and forced to do his bidding. He wasn't in his right mind is all – but that's done now, and everything's back to normal."

"Normal?" Ginny scoffed. "You're ogling him like he's the Christmas feast. Normal people don't do that."

Romilda looked up at her. "Well, I can't just walk up to him and sit down, now can I?"

Ginny raised an eyebrow. "Why not? There's room at his table, and you certainly didn't leave much of any room here for me so…."

She turned to start up towards the aisle when Romilda reached out and grabbed her arm.

"No!" Romilda hissed. "Some Ravenclaws tried sitting with him yesterday - if you disturb him, he'll leave!"

"Good!" Ginny shot back, "You know how many people have stalked him around the school these last few weeks? He doesn't need you doing it too!"

"I'm not stalking," said Romilda smugly, "Stalking would be following him everywhere he goes. I don't do that."

"Not now you don't, but I can recall a lot of that in the last term."

Romilda bristled. "Well. I'm not stalking him now."

Ginny glanced back up the aisle. Seto seemed to be engrossed in a humongous tome. A second book lay open beside it and his quill danced across the parchment, taking notes on its own. He didn't seem aware of them watching him.

"Then what do you call this?"

Romilda smirked. "I'm observing."

Ginny rolled her eyes, shook Romilda off, and stalked up the aisle. Seto's eyes snapped up to her the moment she grabbed the chair across from him, and she sat down before he could say anything.

Seto blinked and raised an eyebrow at her. "…Can I help you?"

"No," Ginny said. "I'm helping you." She twisted around in her seat and stared back to Romilda's flabbergasted face. Her new seat completely blocked Romilda's perfect view.

Seto glanced past her, saw Romilda wink at him, and rolled his eyes. "I would prefer to be alone," he said, his voice clipped.

"That's poor planning on your part then," said Ginny mildly. "You're in the Library. If you wanted to be alone, you should have hidden better."

"All of the Gryffindors in the Gobstones Club are taking up real estate in the common room," Seto said. "My dorm has become everyone's stomping grounds. So where else am I supposed to go?"

Ginny leaned back. "Aren't there a million unused rooms around this place? Hermione's told me she's found you all over the school while she's done her prefect rounds."

Seto leaned forward. "That was before. Now if I leave the common room I have to stay somewhere visible else someone gets the idea that I'm trying to kill everyone. As it stands, there's an Auror casually reading the driest history of Wandlore that I've ever seen three aisles to your left who will no doubt follow me all the way to the seventh-floor corridor the moment I leave."

Ginny raised an eyebrow as Seto turned back to his book. "And you've read it to know?"

Seto's jaw twitched. "The first week of term."

"Huh. Interesting."

"Is there nowhere else that you can sit?" Seto asked.

Ginny shrugged and to Seto's annoyance started setting out her books and parchment. "I thought you could use the company."

"You thought wrong."

"You know maybe if you sat with your peers more often, the Auror won't always think you're secretly plotting against the school again."

Seto glared at her.

She held up her hands defensively. "Look – I wasn't there. But stories get out, and if you don't want the Auror following you all the time, maybe it's time to make a change so he won't."

"Change what?" Seto snapped. "I am here because if I let him go back and report to Umbridge all of the hiding spaces I would prefer to be in, then I won't get any peace when I can finally be left alone."

"Well, if I leave, Romilda and all her friends – once they find her – will just sit over there and stare at you all night. Or they'll get brave and try to join you since you have an actual table worth sitting at."

"You're giving them far too much credit. We both know they won't. Despite what they say, they're too scared I'll bring the roof down on them. They're all that way."

Ginny snorted. "Don't see why – you're not dangerous."

Seto splayed his hands flat on the table and loomed over it at her. "Wrong," he said, his voice low and dripping with ice. "You think I don't remember what he had me doing? I lived through it once, and then again in the Hospital Wing, surrounded by McGonagall, Snape, and Umbridge after Hermione relapsed from internal injuries I gave to her. You think that Auror is following me around only because Umbridge has a grudge? The facts are that I nearly let Voldemort and the Death Eaters into this school, and if I really wanted to I could do it again at any time and the professors all know it."

Ginny, to his credit, didn't seem fazed. "Yeah, but you're not going to, and that makes all the difference."

"Obviously I'm not going to!" he hissed. "I'm no psychopath. But the facts are that I learned a lot of spells I shouldn't otherwise know, all because he forced his way into my head."

Ginny wrinkled her nose. "But…the Imperius Curse doesn't work that way…"

"The Imperius Curse doesn't work on me. He wormed himself in some other way, not that I was conscious for it to know how– and I'm done talking about it."

"Okay, okay, didn't mean to stir the pot," said Ginny. "…And if any of that was to scare me off, it won't work."

Seto shot her another dark look before he sat back down to return to his book. The quill reached the end of its parchment and another sheet flew out of his bag to land on the table. He rolled up the used sheet as the quill started writing again. "If you insist on staying, then do it quietly."

"Okay, okay – do you give Hermione this much grief when she sits with you?"

His jaw twitched. "She's different."

Ginny smirked. "Oh?"

"Yes," Seto said firmly, not bothering to look up at her. "She knows how to work in silence."

Ginny sighed and blew out a large exhale. "Right…"

Silence it was, then.

Seto kept reading his massive text – something about history and human transfigurations from the tiny bit visible on the back of the book, and she glanced at his quill. It was copying the text of the open book beside him, and a few seconds of trying to read the open page upside down told her it was Umbridge's textbook.

So rather than waste time doing Umbridge's mundane assignments, he charmed his quill to do it for him? Why didn't she ever think of that. She spent hours copying her three assigned chapters last week when she could have been studying for Trelawney's exam!

Ginny stole a peek behind her. Romilda had left.

Good. Mission accomplished. Technically there was no more reason to stay here and irritate Seto any longer…but she had an idea, and was going to wait for him to mellow down a bit before prodding any further.

She was halfway through notating the third section on the Goblin Wars when she heard someone shuffle up to their table.

"Oh, hello Ginny!"

Seto looked up for half a second and then went back to his work.

Ginny set her quill down and bit back a groan. "Hello, Colin."

"I'm so happy I found you!" he said excitedly, "I've been trying to find a member of the Quidditch team!"

"SH!" Madam Pince hissed from somewhere out of sight and Colin's face reddened.

Ginny smiled awkwardly. "Well…here I am. What's up?"

"Dennis and I are working on a little spring newsletter – something to take around at breakfast, ya know? And we were wondering if we could take a few pics of you all at the Pitch to advertise the next game…."

"…anyway, d'you mind if I join you?"

Seto, who had completely tuned out Colin and Ginny's conversation, heard the last question and started to protest but before he could even get a word out, Ginny beat him to it.

"Sorry Colin. Maybe another time."

"Oh…okay," he said, and then seemed to notice Seto for the first time, and his face paled. "T-that's alright – I just remembered I h-have to go find Professor Sprout anyway. B-bye!"

Seto turned the page. "Going to berate me now for terrifying an underclassman?"

"Nope!" said Ginny, "I don't like being around Colin and his camera. And in any case – this table is only for bringers of the Hogwarts apocalypse."

With that, he managed to pause and stare up at her.

"What?" she said casually, "you didn't think you were the only one to bring doom upon Hogwarts, did you? If anything, I had you beat four years ago."

He merely raised an eyebrow at her.

"Oh come on, surely Harry's told you about the Chamber of Secrets," said Ginny. "You're not the first person here who's gotten possessed by You-Know-Who. I let a basilisk loose on the school and nearly killed a bunch of my classmates – Hermione included. We're more alike than you think, and I understand more than most of what you're going through."

Seto's eye twitched this time and he closed his book with a huff and swapped it with the one he had been using for a prop. "Are you trying to get me to open up now too?"

Ginny shook her head. "No – I want you to be reasonable, and for someone with such a big brain, you're not using it very well."

Seto dropped the book onto the desk, leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. "Fine," he seethed, "you have my attention. What are you going to rake me over that anyone else hasn't done already?"

"I'm not here to rake you over anything," said Ginny, "and no one else is either. They just don't get it because they didn't live through it."

She glanced wildly around her, and once sure that Madam Pince wasn't within eyeshot, took out her wand and cast a muffling charm around them. "Look – I didn't really have any friends when I first arrived to Hogwarts. I was just another Weasley. The diary was mixed in with my books, and I poured my soul into it because who else was I going to talk to when everyone else made their groups and I was shy and awkward? Did I expect the diary to talk back to me? No. And I didn't realize what it had done to me until it was too late.

"Thankfully for me, everyone thought Harry opened the Chamber of Secrets, so no one really knew the truth. But afterwards? It took years to get past the trauma the diary left behind. You don't wish that kind of emotional damage on anyone. But I was going through that alone.

"You aren't alone here. And the friends you have are worried about you."

"I've heard all of this before."

"Yeah?" Ginny said, "I don't hang out with you all, but Hermione does. And she talks to me. A lot."

Seto huffed. "Yeah? And your point?"

Ginny waved a hand flippantly. "Look, I know you've heard it all, so I won't repeat it. But – just know that no matter what they say or argue – you're not wrong. About your ghost friend – and don't give me that look. I may have my own friends but I'm not blind or stupid. You and Yugi and Ryou lived at my house all summer, remember? I know you three have your weird artifacts and that they're all possessed."

She leaned forward. "You all don't hide it very well in the common room. Might want to work on that."

"They can do what they like," Seto said stiffly, "My ghost friend, as you put it, is trapped in his hunk of gold because I don't want him around, and it would be nice if everyone would stop trying to push him on me."

"I know," Ginny said quietly, "Hermione's told me of the fights you've had. I'm just letting you know – from someone who's experienced it before – you're not in the wrong for wanting peace."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "…But…?"

She shook her head. "That's it. I figured someone around here ought to tell you, is all. I don't know how Yugi or Ryou feel about their ghosts. I don't really know how you feel about yours either. But when someone has been whispering in your ear over and over trying to get you to hurt people? Silence is nice."

"Silence won't win the war."

"No, it won't," she said, "And it's not your job to win the war either. The thing is – the war started well before you got thrown into it, and I'm sure it'll still be here after term ends and you go back to Japan. And really, what is letting your ghost out going to do anyway besides upset you?"

"Yugi and Harry's running theory is that he'll have insider information on what Voldemort's up to since he spent far longer trapped there than I did."

Ginny tilted her head. "Well, what's that going to do for you now? Knowing is great, but it's not like you're going to be able to do something about it. You'll still be here taking lessons and dodging Umbridge on the daily, so it's just another stress you don't need."

"Perhaps. But we'll otherwise always be two steps behind him. And I'm tired of being on the defensive."

"I get it – but then you're also tired of the pushing. So I guess…ultimately you have a decision to make."

"Do I?"

"Yeah," she said, and waved her quill at him. "Do you enjoy the newfound freedom you have now that no one is driving you mad, knowing that You-Know-Who is always going to be ahead and untouchable…or do you let your ghost friend out and fight back?"

"There's no guarantee that even if I do let him out that he'll have anything useful to report. And if he did, as you said, there's nothing we can do here."

"No, perhaps not," said Ginny, and after a few moments packed up her quill and ink and shifted her books back into a neat pile. "But I think leaving that decision hanging in the air isn't doing you any favors either. And whether you want to admit it or not, there's something else holding you back."

Seto merely stared at her. "Two seconds ago you validated my reasoning for keeping him shut in, and now you're telling me to let him out?"

She got up, walked around the side of the table, and moved to put a hand on his shoulder but stopped at the last second. "I said you weren't wrong – but I just want you to make sure that you're making your choice for the right reasons. And maybe if you can dig down and determine just what those reasons are, you'll feel better, sleep better, and will be able to move on."

And with one small smile, she gathered her books and headed for the common room.

"I'm telling you, Hermione, there were more books in the Room of Requirement than…probably the Library!"

Hermione fixed him a pointed look. "Harry, that's absurd."

"It really isn't!" he said. "I've never seen that place so jam packed full of stuff before."

Yugi leaned against his bed. "And you're still sure that Malfoy is up to no good in there? How can you be sure he hasn't been looking for something he lost?"

Harry sighed. "I know what I overheard at the ball, you guys. He's up to something."

"When has Malfoy ever gone to the Room of Requirement to lose anything though," asked Ron. "I mean, we didn't discover it till last year, and even then, he never went in there with us."

"That you know of," said Yami, floating off towards the center of the dormitory, "He may not have joined your DA meetings last year, but that doesn't mean he didn't already know of its existence."

"I've never seen him disappear off of the Marauders Map before," said Harry.

"Yes, but Harry, you were never engaged in following him around until this year," said Hermione. "He could have gone in countless times and you could have never known about it."

"There's something else too," said Yami. He furrowed his brow and began to pace. "You managed to get inside as he was leaving, right? What if the Room of Requirement had already reset the moment Malfoy stepped out and you saw it in its natural state?"

Harry wrinkled his nose at the thought. "What – like it's normally a giant collection of random antiques and trash?"

"He may be onto something, mate," said Ron. "The room takes the form of the thing you need most, right? So wouldn't it make sense that it's normally a bit of everything so when you're looking for something specific…."

Harry's shoulders slumped. "I guess…."

"So maybe what you need is to get in while Malfoy is generating the room and not the other way around," said Ron, "because otherwise – BLOODY HELL!"

He scrambled back and around to the far side of Yugi's bed as a dark cloud materialized scant inches from where he had sat on the floor. Yugi quickly shot to his feet as Bakura dropped out of the Shadow Realm. The moment his feet touched the dormitory floor, control relinquished back to Ryou and he fell to his knees, gasping for breath.

Bakura phased out of the Ring, arms crossed and scowling.

"What happened!?" asked Hermione.

Ryou got to his feet and then all but collapsed onto Yugi's bed. "I…I don't know! I was on my way back from my study group on the sixth floor when the Spirit –"

"He was being followed," Bakura snarled.

"Followed?" said Ron. "But why? It's not even curfew yet."

"Who was following you?" asked Hermione.

"One of those Aurors," said Bakura. "I thought he was patrolling, but the Ring picked him up down every corridor we took."

"I don't understand," said Ryou, "I haven't done anything wrong!"

"Something is going on here," said Yugi. "This isn't normal."

"Aurors have been following Seto around ever since the Astronomy Tower," Hermione said nervously, "I thought – at first – it was because he broke his confinement order before the Ministry finished their investigation…but they're still doing and he's had his wand back for a while now."

"And now they're following you," said Yugi, looking at Ryou, "but I don't think anyone's tailed me around the school. Not that I'm complaining, but how did I manage to get off free?"

"Clearly you're not considered a threat," said Bakura. "But Kaiba nearly destroyed the school."

"And what about you?" asked Harry.

"We did summon the Shadow Realm that one time in class," Ryou said sheepishly, "but that was last term!"

Harry snapped his fingers. "It's Umbridge, I bet anything. She probably egged on the Aurors because she's afraid of you for destroying the Boggart and then all the Shadow Realm stuff in the Astronomy Tower. And we all know she's had beef with Kaiba more times than we can count, so it makes sense she's sent Aurors after him also."

"The Aurors in the school don't answer to her though," said Hermione, "Professor Umbridge isn't their boss, they work for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

"And…you know…I haven't encountered Aurors but I have seen Umbridge up by the Room of Requirement while I've been trying to tail Malfoy," said Harry.

"But was she tailing Malfoy…or you?" asked Ron.

"She couldn't have been following me, I was under my dad's cloak," said Harry.

"But why Malfoy then?"

Hermione gasped. "O-of course!"

"What?" asked Ron.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" said Hermione, "The only plausible way Umbridge could have found Seto and me out by the Lake so quickly…or for the Aurors to know exactly where you and Malfoy were going, or the route Ryou would take from his study group back to the common room…she must have the Marauders Map!"

Yugi's jaw dropped. "That…that would also explain how she and those Aurors found me when we tried sneaking out to get the Millennium Rod! She saw us leave the castle!"

Harry fell back against the side of Seto's bed. "So she's been watching us this entire time…." He turned his head and locked eyes on Bakura. "That's it. I don't care how – but we need to get it back. Everything we do is going to be scrutinized. My meetings with Dumbledore, anytime you or Seto step out of the common room and not for meals or class…. She's abusing the Aurors stationed here in order to stalk us!"

"She took it from us in the first place," said Hermione, "if we steal it back now, she'll know we did it."

"What if you just…turn it off?" asked Ryou. "Isn't there that code phrase to wipe it clean? Maybe she'll just think it's defective."

"Only one problem – one of us would have to be able to get close enough to it to do that, and if it's in her office, there's no way that'll happen," said Ron, "After we broke into it last year? You know she'll have the place rigged for intruders."

Bakura snorted. "I could do it."

"She might expect it, though," said Harry. "If she knows we know the Map is missing and peg her to have it, I bet you anything she's going to want us to try and steal it back when we think she's not looking."

"Again," Bakura huffed. "I can get in and out and she won't know."

"You sure?" said Ron, "because you just teleported Ryou halfway across the castle. If she saw that, then what's stopping her from believing you won't use your shadow powers to take the Map?"

"What do we do then?" asked Yugi, "We can't let her continue to harass us around the castle when we've done nothing wrong!"

Ron glanced around the room. Seto was off somewhere else in the castle, but his laptop sat on his bedside table. "I think we'd have to be invited into her office," he said after a minute pause, gaze still locked on the laptop. "If we did it then, even when her back was turned, she probably couldn't think we'd pull it off right under her nose."

Ryou shook his head frantically. "Oh no! I don't want to be alone with her in her office. Wasn't that how Kaiba got his extended detentions?"

"That's how he got the second one," said Yugi, "…while doing the first one."

Harry glanced over at Ron, still staring off at Seto's side of the room. "What's up?"

"I think…" Ron began, "I think I have an idea. It's risky, but I think it'll work."

"What is it?" asked Hermione.

"Well…Umbridge hasn't been around enough of your Shadow Realm magic long term to form some kind of defense against it…I'm guessing anyway. But she's always in her office. We need to get her out of the school so Bakura can sneak inside. If he takes it, she'll know it was us, so for now just wipe it clean so she can't have us followed."

"What if we switched the Map wit a fake one?" asked Hermione. "Maybe we can write to Professor Lupin and find out how he and the others created it. We can create a second map that gives off false locations so the Aurors stop listening to her orders and leave us alone."

"That sounds like a safer option," said Yami. "Let's not give her any more reasons to suspect us of wrongdoing…while we plot against her."

"Hey, she stole the Map from me in the first place," said Harry.

"Technically, Seto stole it first," said Ron.

Yugi got to his feet. "Regardless of who stole it…we still need a plausible way to get Umbridge out of the castle that gives us enough time to search her office without getting caught."

"I think I got that too," said Ron. "It's…just going to take a lot of convincing."

"What do you have in mind?" said Harry.

Ron pressed his lips into a thin line and turned to Yugi. "Mate…what are the odds we can convince Seto to take a business trip?"