Sneak Peek: Chapter 16: Yugi and Harry and the Shadow Treaty

Yes, I finally have this chapter with my beta reader!

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Joey was confused for the ten seconds it took for him to re-orientate himself and take in the gates of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Then it hit him that they had been teleported away from the fight at the Ministry of Magic and dropped off here. Considering that they had been outmatched and outnumbered, it would not have been a bad thing but there was an issue. A rather big issue. Both Yugi and Harry had been left behind.

“Take us back!” Joey furiously demanded as he glared around at the pair of mages who had side-along apperated them to the school gates, far away from the battle.

“So you can do what?” Moody, the real Moody, asked derisively, “Stand around and get yourself and others killed because you tried to fight someone who’s older, better trained and sneakier than you? You’ve not even taken your fifth year yet and if you could summon those creatures of yours, you would have done by now. If you go back now, you’ll get killed.”

“But...” Joey trailed off when Hermione put a hand on his arm.

“Moody’s right. Even if Harry and Yugi are still there, we’d be in the way.” She murmured quietly as he glowered down her. Her expression told him that she liked it as little as he did, but as per usual she had a much more level head about the situation. “They’d never forgive themselves if we got killed going back for them.”

“The others will be here with your friends in a minute.” Moody’s accomplice, a young woman whose hair could not seem to make up its mind what colour it was, spoke up, trying to reassure them. “I’m sure they’re fine.”

Joey let out an irritated huff. No, they were not ‘fine.’ He knew that already. Even before Harry had nearly fallen, clutching his right arm, Joey had felt like someone had grabbed his heart and squeezed. Just for a moment, but the sensation and the lingering ache afterwards was worryingly familiar. There was nothing physically wrong with him, but he knew what had caused it.

It was a warning. An alarm call. A scream for backup.

Yugi was hurt. Badly.

Harry’s collapse and explanation had only confirmed what he had already known. On its own that would have been bad enough, but the discomfort had only intensified as time went on which was why he wanted to go back so badly. He did not need to though as Professor Lupin arrived in a stream of white and a swirl of white smoke which deposited the werewolf and Harry amongst their group.

Professor Lupin rushed past them, Harry in tow and carrying something in his arms. Hermione did not get a glimpse of what he had, but Joey did and he froze up in horrified shock for a moment before rushing to catch up, all thoughts of going back to the Ministry forgotten.

The trip to the hospital wing had never seemed longer as they raced through the surprisingly full corridors and Joey did not know what to do. Instead he hesitated by the infirmary’s door as the werewolf laid Atem on the nearest bed and called for the school’s healer.

“Yugi...” He breathed as he stepped into the ward, Hermione’s shocked gasp going unnoticed in the face of the reality of seeing his best friend led on a hospital bed, unconscious, deathly pale and bleeding profusely.

C.N. April 2014: Digital Distraction Part 4

The invitations were completely forgotten the next day after he woke up to Yugi’s distress and bolted into the corridor between rooms to find out what was wrong and found Yugi had finally come around enough to notice the state of his soul room.

The pair of them worked together for most of the day to start shifting through the damaged and broken toys within Yugi’s room, setting those that were still mostly whole safely to one side, while they worked to try and shore up or piece together the ones that they could save and put aside those that were empty with the hope of recovering what had been lost later.

There was still an awful lot of work to do when Yugi started drifting off again, but the teen didn’t agree to rest until Yami had promised him that the moment he was up to it, they would spend as much time as was needed fixing the damage where they could. It was dangerous, Yami reminded his light, for him to tamper with the soul room too much at the best of times, yet alone while Yugi was so weak and his soul in such a fragile state and it was quite possible that some of the damage would undo itself if Yugi just allowed himself to rest properly.

Yugi backed down at that, agreeing to wait until he was fully recovered, but Yami could tell something about the way he had phrased it had bothered the teen, who had flopped down on the bed, turned his back on Yami and fallen asleep so swiftly that if Yugi hadn’t been so injured, Yami would have suspected him to be faking it.

Over the course of that day and most of the next, Yami spent most of his time flitting between the infirmary, helping Yugi build protections in his mind to stop this sort of thing from happening again, and the Gryffindor tower, catching some sleep. He was pleased to see Yugi perk up a bit again when Harry came around at dusk of the following day, though neither of them were allowed out of the hospital wing yet.

By the End of Term banquet Yugi had, physically at least, seemed to regain most of his bounciness, though Yami could still sense the pain beneath the surface and Harry, who had been tired and lethargic for a couple of days as he recovered from his fight with Quirrelmort, s Joey was calling him, was back to his old self. This meant that Madam Pomfrey had no excuse to not follow Professor Dumbledore’s orders that both of them were to be allowed to go to the feast.

They were released the afternoon before to give them time to pack to leave the following day. Once they were away from the quiet infirmary, however, Yami and the others had to do what they could to protect Yugi and Harry from the hordes of students who wanted to know everything that had happened down in the mirror room and hadn’t been able to get any information from the others.  It wasn’t easy though and it was a relief when they all piled onto the train.

It didn’t take Yugi long to settle at Yami’s side and fall asleep and they settled in quietly, discussing their plans for the summer and cheering up Harry when they realised how little he wanted to go back to the Dursleys by coming up with more and more elaborate plans for kidnapping him and bringing him to Japan.

Finally, when they tired of that topic, having run out of things to do that wouldn’t leave the Dursleys with long term scarring, Kari brought up something that had been bothering her since the leaving feast.

“I know this is going to sound ungrateful and everything else, but does anyone else think Professor Dumbledore was wrong to give us those extra points at the feast?” She asked with a frown, causing the others to look at her.

This prompted a discussion about the fact that where anyone else could have been expelled for some of the stunts they had pulled and at least would have lost house points, they had been given points in front of the whole school AFTER Slytherin had been announced as the winners. In hindsight it wasn’t very fair to anyone who had worked hard to earn their house points over the course of the year.

By the time they had settled between them that, if they went back to Hogwarts next year, they would earn the House Cup rather than steal it at the last minute, they had arrived at Kings Cross Station and the group parted ways after a minor set to with Harry’s uncle.

Camp NaNo April 2014: Digital Distraction: Part 3

It was eighteen hours before Yami came around after he finally got off to sleep, assisted by a Dreamless Sleep Potion that the nurse slipped into his pumpkin juice. It was another six before Madam Pomfrey started trying to kick him out of the hospital wing, just as she had to the others.

It took her another day and a half to manage it and even then he only left because Yugi finally came around. Yami had been in the middle of yet another discussion about why he didn’t need to go outside and how he would get plenty of fresh air AFTER his light had awoken, when he had felt Yugi’s mind begin to stir and has irritated Madam Pomfrey by ignoring her completely in order to dart to Yugi’s side.

The Pharaoh tried not to mentally wince as pain spiked across the link. There was only a certain amount of pain they could keep from each other and even as Yugi’s groggy, wounded mind scrambled to try and hold back as much of the pain as it could, Yami sat down on the bed next to him, taking Yugi’s hand in his and murmuring, “It’s okay, you don’t have to deal with this alone.”

“Yami?” Yugi’s voice had a pained edge to it, eyes half opened, pain dimmed amethyst looking up at him, a worried, confused expression taking over as Yugi asked, “What happened? Where are we?”

“You need to try and remember, Yugi.” Yami replied, watching his light carefully as Yugi tried to remember what had happened, concerned that Yugi’s confusion was because of the memories that had been lost during the fight.

Yugi frowned, trying to sit up and needing Yami’s help to do so. He gazed at the bed as he tried to pull his thoughts into a coherent pattern. Yami smiled slightly when he felt something in Yugi’s mind ‘click’ and the teen gasped slightly as he stared at his dark half.

“Voldemort!” Yugi yelped, clutching Yami’s arm, “What happened to...?”

“He’s gone.” Yami reassured him, “For now at least.”

“And the others? Are they alright?” Yugi worried at him, glancing around the infirmary and pausing when his gaze fell on Harry, concern obvious.

“Everyone’s okay, or are going to be.” Yami reassured him, glancing over at Harry with a slight grimace, “Harry burnt his magic out somehow. They’re not sure how...”

“Quirrell,” Yugi muttered, turning his eyes towards the bedcovers, “I don’t know what Harry did or how he did it, but his touch seemed to burn Quirrell. He saved us both. That’s probably what did it.” Yugi looked up at Yami, worried, “It will come back, won’t it?”

“Madam Pomfrey doesn’t seem too worried.” Yami shrugged, not sure himself but willing to trust the expert on this. “So I would have thought so.”

“That’s good.” Yugi relaxed at that, flopping back onto the bed, exhaustion beginning to drag him under again.

“Don’t worry about the others.” Yami reassured him, helping him get comfortable, “They’re fine and I’ll look after them. You need to rest and recover.”

“You need to take care of yourself too.” Yugi grasped the Pharaoh’s arm, “Go and eat. I’ll be okay.”

“But...” Yami trailed off at the stubborn look that Yugi gave him. “Yugi...”

“I’ll be fine, Yami, I promise. You’ve seen to that.” Yami started at that, realising that Yugi could sense what he had done to help him, “Go and rest. Please?”

“That’s cheating.” The Pharaoh grumbled, unable to resist the look Yugi gave him in combination with the ‘please.’

“You just haven’t learnt the rules.” Yugi chuckled as he snuggled into his pillow, “Slow learner.”

“Hey...” Yami’s protest was half hearted and pointless as Yugi had already returned to his slumber. He sighed, shaking his head in amusement as he stood up and looked around for the nurse.

Madam Pomfrey was not hard to find and she seemed pleased when Yami said he was going to head down to the great hall for dinner. She had been worried about the amount of food he had been eating over the last couple of days, or rather the lack thereof, and knowing that he was heading down to join his other friends reassured her. She was sure that they would be able to bully him into eating where she had not.

She was quite right, the moment Yami joined his friends they plonked a plate full of food in front of him and told him he wasn’t allowed to leave the table until everything on it was gone.

He was just finishing his meal when the post owls arrived with a rather large stack of post for Yugi. Yami, who had had permission to open Yugi’s post for months, ripped open the envelopes to find a whole bunch of tournament invites that had been forwarded to them by their Grandfather.  

He put them aside for now, unsure what to do about them when they were for ‘Yugi Mutou’ and he could no longer go by that name, but Yugi would be in no fit state to compete for the first few weeks of the holidays. He decided to deal with it when Yugi was more awake and able to help him make a decision on the matter.

Camp NaNo April 2014: Digital Distraction Part 2

He opened his eyes to find Dumbledore was just levitating Harry’s unconscious form off of the floor. The elderly wizard watched Yami get to his feet, concern obvious on his features as the Pharaoh staggered and half fell, catching himself on the way down.

“Pharaoh?” Dumbledore asked, watching through half-moon glasses as Yami righted himself with a soft, pained hiss. “Are you and your other self alright?”

“We will be.” Yami waved off the concern, even as he winced as the injuries he had taken on in spirit form pulling on his mortal frame. “But if I ever see Voldemort again, I’m going to rip him into tiny pieces, slowly.”

Dumbledore frowned for a moment as he watched Yami carefully pick Yugi up despite his exhaustion. Realisation struck as he took in the tenderness and concern in the Pharaoh’s body language, despite the anger still bubbling away underneath the surface and the Headmaster wisely said nothing, instead reviving Kari and calling Fawkes to his side.

“Grab a tail feather,” The headmaster told Kari and Yami, both of whom did so without a moment’s hesitation. The Phoenix burst into flame, causing both teens to flinch, only to find that the flames rushing around them didn’t burn.

Almost as fast as they were surrounded the flames died away, revealing them to be in the school’s hospital wing. The moment they arrived Madam Pomfrey started fussing at them. She got Yami to put Yugi on one of the beds then ushered him and Kari to beds of their own as Professor Dumbledore levitated Harry to yet another.

“Yami?” Kari asked, watching as Madam Pomfrey started checking Harry over, concern obvious as she took in the beds filled with their friends, “What happened?”

“I find myself asking the same question, Miss Ironhide.” Dumbledore spoke up, his tone grim as he looked at the Pharaoh.

Yami shared the tale, from the moment they tried getting the help of the teachers to the moment Voldemort fled from the battle, anger obvious in his tone the whole way through. When his tale ended, Dumbledore’s expression was dark and thoughtful.

“And you’re sure that there’s no traces of Voldemort’s magic remaining within either Yugi or Harry?” He asked.

Yami’s eyes widened and his gaze shot to Harry, having not thought to check the eleven year old boy in his concern for his light. He swiftly got off the bed, stabilising himself when pain shot up his side as his feet touched the ground, by putting his hand on the bedside table.

“Careful.” Kari worried at him as he darted over to Harry’s side and concentrated, trying to sense if Harry had any of the same darkness within him that had been draining Yugi. He could feel something similar, something that didn’t quite belong, but it wasn’t the same and when he tried to draw it out as he had for Yugi, it refused to come and Yami stopped trying when Harry let out a pained moan.

“There’s something there.” Yami told the headmaster, “But if I try and get rid of it, I could hurt Harry.”

“I will help Harry sort it out when he awakens and understands what’s going on.” Dumbledore nodded his understanding, “You should rest, you don’t look well.”

“I’m fine.” Yami tried to wave it off as he staggered back across the room and slumped onto the bed, glad the injuries he had taken on weren’t physical. He wasn’t even sure he could take on Yugi’s physical wounds, but if they had been there was no way he could have been up and about. As it was he wanted to sleep himself out and not move until he felt more like he wasn’t torn apart and Yugi was awake and well again.

“I’ll leave you to rest.” The headmaster informed the pair, standing up and glancing between the students in the beds. “If you think of anything else, please get Madam Pomfrey to share it with me.” He paused by Harry’s bed and picked up the philosopher’s stone that Madam Pomfrey had taken out of Harry’s trouser pockets.

“What are you going to do with that?” Yami couldn’t help but ask, watching as the elderly wizard examined the blood red stone carefully.

“I think, Mr Mutou, that it would be safest if I dealt with it. Permanently.” Dumbledore explained, pocketing the incredibly powerful gemstone, “But I will need to speak to its creator first. I will need to give him some warning after all.”

That sounded logical to the Pharaoh, who nodded. The philosopher’s stone was dangerous in the wrong hands and Voldemort was likely to be back again if he still believed the stone was still within the school walls. Keeping it on the grounds would be dangerous for any student within the school and no matter where it went it would be in danger. Destroying it really was the best option.

On seeing that Dumbledore nodded back to him and exited the room, leaving the only two teens awake at the tender mercies of the school’s nurse.