Episode... Chapter Ten

Yu-Gi-Oh!
Episode Nine and Three Quarters

CHAPTER TEN – THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE

Hermione and the rest of the students that had left for break returned to the school just before term started once again.  She was rather disappointed that they had not found out who Nicolas Flamel was.  However, this disappointment was dispelled when Harry and Marik told everyone some rather horrible news in the common room one night:  Professor Snape was refereeing the next Quidditch match.

“Don’t play,” she said.  “Say you’re sick.”

“Pretend to break your leg,” Yugi offered.

“Really break your leg,” Ron suggested.

“I can’t do that,” Harry objected.  “It’ll make me look like a coward in front of the other houses!”

“Harry-kun,” Marik began, “Snape is one of the people who may have been jinxing your broom in the last match.  What if he succeeds this time… or worse?  Is not looking like a coward really worth your life?”

Harry was about to reply, when Neville stumbled into the common room, his legs plastered together by the Leg-Locker Curse.  Everyone else in the room literally fell over laughing as Hermione jumped up to perform the counter curse.  The boy’s legs sprang apart immediately, and his plopped his rear down on the floor, a pathetically sad look on his face.

“What happened?” Ron asked as him and Harry joined Hermione.

“It was Malfoy,” Neville sniffed.  “He said he always wanted to try that on someone.”

“Report him!” Hermione insisted.  “You can’t let him get away with that!”

Neville hung his head.  “I don’t want no more trouble.”

Harry reached into his robe pocket and handed the boy the last of the chocolate frogs he had gotten from Hermione that Christmas.  Meanwhile, Yugi and Marik had gone off to the side to talk to themselves where no one else could hear.

“Damn that Malfoy,” Marik snarled.  “Now I really do wish I hadn’t given the Rod to Kaiba-kun.  Hey, Bakura has two Millennium Items, you’d think he’d mind it if I borrowed one for a spell?”

“Bakura, no.  Yami Bakura…”  Yugi trailed off.

“Good point.”

“Anyway,” Yugi continued, holding up his Millennium Puzzle, “I’d teach Malfoy another lesson myself, but I just can’t risk it.  Though Dumbledore didn’t seem to mind too much that we had cast a Batsu-Game on Snape, I don’t want to incur his wrath if he minds us doing the same to a student.  Besides, if anything happens to Malfoy, people might believe what he’s been saying about me being possessed by a spirit, and that will put Yami Yugi-kun at risk.”

Marik blew out a frustrated sigh.  “So there’s nothing we can do, hunh?”

Yugi was about to reply when Harry, Ron, and Hermione raced over to them, excited.  Harry had one of those Famous Witch or Wizard cards clutched in his hands – cards that came packaged with chocolate frogs.  He held it up, showing off a picture of Dumbledore.

“Look, I’ve found Nicolas Flamel!” he exclaimed in a hushed whisper.  “Listen: ‘Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in nineteen-forty-five, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon’s blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel!”

Hermione suddenly raced out of the room, leaving the four boys wondering what was up.  She returned a few minutes later, lugging an enormous old book in her arms.  Before they could ask her what she was so excited about, she was using Marik’s back as a table, forcing him to bend over so she could easily open the book and flip through its pages.

“I can’t believe I forgot about this,” she exclaimed.  “I checked this out of the library a few weeks ago for a bit of light reading.”

“Light?” Marik stressed, grunting from the weight of the book, and wondering how a little eleven-year-old girl managed to lug it down the stairs.  Hermione ignored him, however, as she located the page she had been searching for and pointed to it dramatically.

“Nicolas Flamel is the only known maker of the Philosopher’s Stone!”

That did not quite have the effect she desired.

“The what?” Harry and Ron asked, with Marik trying to look over his shoulder at the book.  She rolled her eyes and was about to explain it to them, when Yugi beat her too it.

“The Philosopher’s Stone can transform any metal into gold,” he said.  “It also produces the Elixir of Life, which can make a person immortal.”

Hermione stared at him, impressed.  “Yugi, how’d you know that?”

Yugi smiled.  “A friend told me.”

Marik rolled his eyes.  Translation: Yami Yugi was feeding him the information through their mind link.  What a cheater.  Suddenly, Hermione lifted the book off of his back.  Caught off guard by the sudden change in weight, he lost his balance and toppled over face first, landing on the ground with a thud.  Everyone sweatdropped, embarrassed by his antics.

“Um… Marik-kun…”

“Notta word, Yugi-kun,” Marik replied.

“I wasn’t,” he responded.  “I was just wondering what Jonouchi-kun would say to this.”

She’s got him whipped, Yami Yugi answered, chuckling.

Yugi never had a harder time fighting back a laugh.

~.oOOo.~

The day of the Quidditch match against Hufflepuff arrived, and Harry was absolutely nervous at the thought of having to play a game with Snape refereeing.  He had hardly heard a word of Wood’s teamwork speech, as he was busy hoping he would not end up dead.  When the time came for them to go out onto the field, Marik took a moment to pull him aside.

“Harry, let me go instead,” he insisted.  “I’ve gotten just as good as you, and Snape doesn’t want me dead.”

“No, I can do this,” Harry said, his pale face countermanding his words.  He turned to join the rest of the team, as Marik pulled out his wand from his team robes.

“I’m very sorry about this, Harry-kun,” he apologized.

Harry was about to ask him what he meant, when Marik flicked his wand and spoke some well-chosen words.  At first, nothing happened.  Then, Harry was forced to double over as a pain lanced though his midsection, starting from his stomach and spreading out.  He clapped a hand over his mouth and managed to spare Marik a glare before running for the nearest bathroom.  Marik, in the meantime, pocketed his wand, took his own Nimbus 2000 in hand, and headed off to join the rest of the team.  Wood looked over at him as he approached, surprised.

“Where’s Harry?” he asked.

“Something he ate this morning caught up with him quite suddenly,” Marik replied.  “He’s currently worshiping the porcelain god, but he should be fine after it passes.”

Wood sighed, frustrated by the sudden change.  “All right, I’ll tell you what I told Harry then,” he said.  “If we win this match, we’ll overtake Slytherin in the house championship.  With Snape refereeing, he’ll look for any excuse to take points from Gryffindor, so you need to catch the snitch as quickly as possible.”

Marik rolled his eyes.  No wonder Harry had been so nervous.  Between Snape possibly gunning for him and Wood’s “encouragement” speech, he was surprised the younger boy was not naturally sick to his stomach.  Someone needed to tell him that it was just a game, not a life or death situation.

The Gryffindor left the locker room and entered the stadium amongst the cheers and boos of their fellow students.  Along with Hufflepuff team on the other side, they took to the air almost immediately, performing a practice lap around the stadium before settling into their starting positions.

Meanwhile, up in the stands, Seto and Bakura had joined Ron, Hermione, and Yugi from their respective house seats.  Seto handed Yugi his charmed binoculars.

“Look, Marik-kun is up there instead of Harry,” he said.  Shocked, Yugi put the binoculars to his face and looked up.  Sure enough, there was Marik up there, hovering about in his effort to find the snitch.

“How’d he manage to convince Harry not to – ouch!”

Ron grabbed the back of his head and whirled on the person who had poked him.  Malfoy and his bodyguards stood behind him, grinning devilishly.

“Oh, so sorry, Weasel,” he smirked as he plopped down in the seats behind them.  “Didn’t see you there.”

All of them managed to spare Malfoy a glare before turning back to the game as Snape awarded Hufflepuff a penalty point when one of the Weasley twins tried to hit a bludger at him.   Hermione bit her lip, just as worried that Marik might end up hurt or worse as she had been about Harry.

“You know how I think they choose people for the Gryffindor team?” Malfoy asked a few minutes later, as Snape awarded Hufflepuff a penalty for no reason at all.  “It’s people they feel sorry for.  You have Potter and Ishitar, who’ve got no parents, then you have the Weasleys, who’ve got no money.  You should be on the team, Longbottom; you’ve got no brains.”

Neville, sitting next to Ron, turned and gave Malfoy the most threatening glare he could muster, which was not much of anything really.

“I-I-I-I-I’m worth t-t-t-ten of you, Malfoy!” he stuttered.

Malfoy practically roared with laughter.  “Longbottom, if brains were gold, you’d be poorer than Weasley, and that’s saying something.”

Yugi whirled on Malfoy, and for the briefest of moments, Yami Yugi appeared, superimposed over his hikari.

“Knock it off,” the both of them snarled as Hermione tugged on his sleeve to get his attention.  Yami Yugi disappeared and he turned around again, and Malfoy looked about in an effort to find someone who had seen the almost transformation, when the whole crowd gasped as one.

Out on the field, Marik pressed himself flat against his broom as he dived straight for the ground, trying to gain as much speed as possible before the Hufflepuff seeker realized what he was doing.  There was only one problem though: Snape was right in the middle of his path.

“Outta the way, oban!” he shouted.  Snape looked up in surprise, and managed to pull away enough so they missed each other by inches.

Marik continued streaking toward the ground, his arm stretched out in the direction of the fluttering snitch.  He lunged for it, and let out a shout of triumph as his fingers closed around it, smashing one of the wings up against the ball portion of the tiny thing.  His feeling of success did not last for long, however, as his previous action made him loose control of his broom, and his dive suddenly turned into to a death spiral.  Still clutching the snitch for dear life, he let go of the Nimbus at the last possible second.  Momentum sent him flying head over heals into the sand, finally coming to a skidding halt as his broom implanted itself nearly up to the seat.

“Marik!” he heard Hermione shout.  He smirked, gasping for breath, as he held up the snitch.

“Marik Ishitar has caught the snitch!” the announcer, Lee Jordan, shouted, as if he could hardly believe it himself.  Marik really could not believe what he did; he had actually caught the damned thing, and the match had only lasted a measly five minutes.

He managed to painfully sit up as his friends came running out onto the field.  Hermione latched herself onto him almost immediately, hugging him fiercely.

“Marik!  We were so worried!” she exclaimed.

“Ow, ow, ow…” he muttered, hugging her back as best as he could as the others as well as the members of the team crowded around him.  Harry came out from the locker room as well, still holding onto his stomach and looking rather pale in the face.

“Absolutely spectacular catch, Marik!” Wood exclaimed.  “Harry, it’s a shame you missed it.  How’re you feeling?”

“Better, a little…” Harry replied weakly as Snape landed.  The Potions Master approached the group, a rather unpleasant look on his face.

“Mr. Ishitar,” he began, “heat of the moment or not, I do not appreciate being called an ‘oban’.”

Marik sweatdropped as Yugi and Bakura stared at him in shock.  Seto looked like he was biting the inside of his mouth, fighting desperately to keep his normally impassive expression on his face.  Everyone else was confused.

“I don’t get it,” Ron began, “what’s ‘oban’ mean?”

Seto finally gave up then, a huge smirk breaking out on his face.  “Bitchy old woman,” he answered.  Now enlightened, everyone either stared at Marik or tried to stop themselves from laughing out loud as Snape spat on the ground angrily.

~.oOOo.~

Marik was still walking – painfully – with a spring in his step when he left the locker room alone later on that night to put his broom away in the broom shed.  He could hardly believe what he had done that day.  True, it had come at Harry’s expense (he had to be taken to the hospital wing soon after the match, and as far as he knew, he was still there), but it was still a great accomplishment.  He hung his broom up next to Harry’s before closing the door to the shed and leaning against it, looking up at the sight of Hogwarts before him.

It was still a bit of a shock, attending a magic school, but somehow over the course of the months that had passed, he had gotten used to the odd happenings that occurred in nearly every class.  Marik secretly hoped that maybe, just maybe, by becoming a great wizard he would be able to bring back the honor to his family name that Yami Marik had stolen from him when his darker self killed his father.  That was the deepest desire of his heart and no one, not even that jerk Snape, could stop him.

As if on cue, a cloaked figure emerged from the castle.  Marik hid behind the broom shed as the person looked about before taking off at a dead run for the forbidden forest.  He bit his lip; students were not allowed in the forest – it was not called the forbidden forest for nothing – but these were special circumstances.  He reached inside the broom shed and took out his Nimbus again before flying into the forest after the person.

Marik kept to the lower canopy, his black robes hiding him rather well in the darkness.  After a moment, he spotted Quirrell in his purple and lavender robes, and he landed on a sturdy branch just above him as the cloaked man approached.  They started speaking to each other, and Marik strained desperately to hear.

“…d-don’t know why you wanted t-t-to meet out h-here, Severus…”

“I thought we should keep this private,” the cloaked man replied with a voice that could only be Snape’s.  Severus Snape; how fitting.  “Student’s are not to know about the Philosopher’s Stone, after all.”

Marik bit his lip in an effort to keep a gasp from escaping his mouth.  Hermione was right, it was the Philosopher’s Stone that was hidden in the forbidden corridor.

“Have you found out how to get past that beast of Hagrid’s yet?” Snap suddenly snapped, nearly making him fall of his branch in surprise.

“B-b-but Severus…!”

“You don’t want me as your enemy, Quirrell,” Snape warned, taking a menacing step toward the stuttering professor.

“I-I don’t know…”

“You know perfectly well what I mean.”

Something in the forest snarled suddenly, nearly making Marik fall out of the tree again.  He managed to quietly steady himself in time to catch Snape saying, “…your little bit of hocus-pocus.  I’m waiting.”

“B-but I d-d-don’t…”

“Very well,” Snape interrupted, looking around as if knowing someone was watching them.  “We’ll have another little chat soon, when you’ve had time to think things over and decide where your loyalties lie.”

With that said, Snape whirled about and left, leaving a shuddering Quirrell in his wake.

~.oOOo.~

Marik returned his broom to the shed as soon as Quirrell left before rushing back to the Gryffindor common room.  He caught sight of his friends sitting around a large platter of cakes with the other members of the Quidditch team.  Harry was looking at the cakes cautiously, as if he were afraid to eat them.  Hermione waved him over as soon as he entered, but he shook his head, motioning for them to join him in a deserted corner of the room.  They did so, and he quickly explained to them what he had seen in the forbidden forest in a hushed whisper.

“So, it really is the Philosopher’s Stone that Fluffy’s guarding,” Yugi replied, hardly believing it.

“And it’s not just Fluffy that’s guarding it,” Hermione added.  “There must be other enchantments that the professors placed around it to prevent its theft.  Snape must know the other ones!”

“So that means Quirrell is our last defense against Snape,” Harry said.

“The stone’ll be gone by the end of the week,” Ron replied dryly.